Months of EW, now Nap Refusal - Help!

[KatrinaW]

DS (11 months old) has been waking before 6am for months now. I try not to go to him until 6am but he screams the house down. I also have a toddler and he's been waking him up (this morning it was 4:40am). He's also starting refusing his afternoon nap and screams the entire time he is in his room. We need help! Heres a few days of our "EASY":

Tuesday:
WU 6am
S 10:05-12:35pm
BT 6:06pm

Wednesday:
WU 4:20am
S 8:15-10:05am
S 3:15pm-4:00pm
BT6:15pm

Thursday:
WU 4:50am
S 8:55-10am
S 2-3:20pm
BT 7:45pm

Friday:
WU 5:15am
S 9-11:30am
BT: 5:20pm

Saturday
WU 4:40am
S 5:15am-6:45am
S 9:45am-11:00am
*its currently 3:30pm and he is refusing his nap...again. Screams when I put him down

Im not able to APOP for the second nap as I have my oldest to watch and he will not sleep in the car, stroller etc. Our wake windows, nap times and BT are all up in the air. I've been trying to do EBT on days he flat our refuses to nap and although I try to not let him nap before 9am he is completely miserable and cries all morning that I just can't leave him. He's not sick, he's not teething - this early waking has been going on for months... the nap refusal has been happening for a few weeks now.

[jessmum46]

Hugs, that's hard

Part of this is probably 2-1 silliness which can kick in at this age, but I think most likely the first nap being too early (clock time) and too long is reinforcing the early starts and just keeping you in a vicious cycle.  This is one situation where I think you are going to have to make him more OT on purpose to break the cycle, I know that's really hard but I think you will be stuck with early starts if you continue to allow such a long early catch up nap.

What I'd suggest is to push and shorten his morning nap.  So hold him out as long as you can and ideally as close to 9am as you can.  And then wake him up from that nap after say an hour to begin with. So aim nap 9-10am, but if you can't quite get to 9am put him down earlier but wake at 10am.  Next day, do not put him down any earlier than the day before, and ideally push him 5mins later.  Still wake at 10am.  Etc etc until you have a short catnap in the morning from around 9.30-10am (30 mins).  This should have the dual effect of bringing morning WU later (or at least allowing you to resettle) and stopping the pm nap refusals. 

Have you read the sticky threads on the 2-1?

[KatrinaW]

Thank Katherine!

Before I read your post we decided to try the shortened AM nap because he had actually gone back to sleep yesterday at 5:15am until 6:30am
Ill post yesterday and today:

WU 4:45am
S 5:15am-6:35am
S 9:27am - 10:28am
S 2:08-4pm
BT 7:55pm

WU 6:20am
S 10:10am-10:40am
S 2:55pm-4:10pm
BT ??

Ok, so, yesterday nap #1, he went down no problem.... nap #2 he cried and complained and I ended up rocking him to sleep. I also woke him at 4pm. Today, the first nap and second nap had the same crying and complaining and DH ended up rocking him to sleep both times! Its currently 8:25pm and he's doing the same thing for BT.

After a shortened nap, what should be the next A time? Also, this morning because he woke up a little later and his nap was a little later we woke him after 30 min to be able to get another decent nap in.

[jessmum46]

It's a case of trial and error I'm afraid.  If you don't want to try set (clock) times, then I would try to stick with set A times for a while and see where that gets you.  Perhaps 3h, 45 mins nap, 3.5h, hopefully long nap?

What do you do when he's screaming at 4/5am?  Do you end up getting him up?

[KatrinaW]

Yesterday it took us 4hr55min to get him to sleep after an only 30min nap

As suspected he woke at 5:45am today and only had a 9.5hr night.

When he wakes at 4/5am I leave him as long as I can, unless he's screaming then I go to him give him his blanket if it fell out and sing a song and set him down. I don't turn on lights or take him out of the crib until at least 6am.

[jessmum46]

Was it the pm nap that was 30 mins?  What was your EASY for the day?  I'm guessing he was probably extremely OT and couldn't settle . Hugs for the rough day x

[KatrinaW]

I posted it above:

WU 6:20am
S 10:10am-10:40am
S 2:55pm-4:10pm
BT 8:25pm

Both naps and BT he was held/rocked for

[jessmum46]

Sorry I must have misunderstood something.  I couldn't see a 4h55 mins anywhere, was that a typo?  What time did you start trying for his pm nap?  And for BT?  I wonder if you could have been too late and he was already OT?  I'd have gone for probably somewhere between 1-1.30pm at a guess for his nap, and in bed for maybe 7.15/30pm, though only you are there with him and know what his mood was like. 

When you cut daytime sleep then things will get worse before they get better.  He's expecting to catch up from a bad night with his first nap, so it's going to take his body clock a while to realise that's not happening.  Hugs though, tired LOs are hard work

[KatrinaW]

Whoops - sorry typo! 4hrs 15min Between his first nap and second nap and 4hr15min between nap 2 and BT. Started trying for a nap at 1:10pm and started BT at 7:15pm. He started off just chatting and then it turned into full blown screaming each time.

[jessmum46]

Oh dear . Well at least we were thinking along same lines!  I guess you could just be dealing with quite a lot of OT build-up right now.  Can you guarantee a long catch-up nap in car or stroller? Or maybe pull in bedtime super-early for a couple of days?

[KatrinaW]

Car/stroller doesn't work - he just cries. Neither one of my kids slept anywhere other than their crib. I can try a super early bedtime. It's hit or miss and sometimes he wakes up 45min later and stays awake a few hours. That being said, if his second nap doesn't end until 4 it's unlikely he would go to bed at 6... But I can try. What time would you think??

[jessmum46]

How are things going?

My DD only ever slept in her crib really but during nap transitions or when super-duper tired would nod off in the car or stroller for a catnap.  It may be worth a try,  I only found out by accident!

[KatrinaW]

He's has been waking between 5:45-6am so some improvement. Yesterday, he still complained at naptime but was quiet for BT (even though he didn't go to sleep right away).

He won't nod off in the car - he screams the entire car ride when he's tired.

[jessmum46]

How are you doing?

[KatrinaW]

Since February 6th he hasn't woken earlier than 6am. We are still struggling most days with the second nap and I end up holding him to sleep. He's mostly been falling asleep at BT at 8pm but lays quietly until he falls asleep.

[jessmum46]

What is your routine looking like now in terms of naps?  Glad you are getting a slightly better WU time

[KatrinaW]

I spoke to soon! The following day he woke at 5:45am and only had 9.5hrs of night time sleep. Since then our days have been all over the place.

WU 5:45am
S 9am-10:00am
S 1:05pm-4pm
BT 8:15pm

NW 3:35am-4:15am
WU 8:15am
S 12:10pm-2:34pm (Did wake crying after 1hr15min)
BT 7:50pm

Woke at 12:30am crying but resettled
WU 7:55am
S 12:05-1:19pm woke crying

I know his WU time should be more consistent but I really don't want to wake him after being woken up between 4-5 for months! However, with the WU being later there isn't enough time in the day to squeeze in two naps, considering he needs 4hrs A between nap 1 and 2 and then again for bedtime.

[jessmum46]

It all looks like 2-1 to me I'm afraid now, this is just par for the course when transitioning.  If he'll sleep in late I'd shoot for one nap 4-4.5h after WU, we did a set time of 11.30 when we hit this point with set BT 6pm (-30mins if nap a disaster).  On EW days you could allow a short CN around 9/9.30am (15-20 mins) then a second nap after 3-3.5h.  I never woke in the morning during nap transitions and I think you're right not to. Until you can manage a consistent long nap there does have to be some element of 'go with the flow', at least that's what I found x