10.5 month old suddenly waking multiple times a night

[calgal22002]

Help please! DD has been a very independent sleeper for a while now. She settles very easily for naps and at bedtime. She has always had 1 wake up around 5:00/5:30am for a bottle, but generally has slept through the night. This week a few changes are on the go and she us now waking multiple times - 1)she seems to be transitioning to 1 nap and 2) her 2 top teeth seem to be almost through. Here is her typical schedule:

8:30 WU and breakfast
11:00 bottle
11:30 nap (sometimes closer to 12:30 depending in how much she was up at night)
1:30/2:30 WU and lunch
3:30/4:00 bottle
5:00 dinner
7:00 bath
7:30 bottle/bedtime (she rarely drinks her full bottle)

Then...(last night)
11:30 NW and give a 1/2 bottle to make up what was missing in earlier bottle
1:30 NW and try something else - water? Tylenol? Etc.
2:30 NW try something else - cuddle? Saline? Getting desperate...
4:30 NW debate giving another bottle, but so tired DD somehow resettles (she is obviously tired too!)
Then she slept through her usual NW so is 1 bottle short?!

The previous night was very similar in that we felt we were dealing with a newborn all over again. 

So please let me know if there is anything you would suggest. If anything, DD used to have high sleep needs I have never, ever been able to get her A times up where the guide suggests and trying to stretch her A time makes us all miserable, so this new 1 nap day is a total shock. I even debated trying to squeeze another nap in, but I would only be able to do that near 4:30 and that can't be a good idea!?

Thanks

[donvitol]

I think she still might be needing 1 1/2 naps. Right now she is only having an 11 hour day it looks like. What if she took that cat nap at 4:30 and went to bed at 8:30? 

[jessmum46]

Yes I agree I would have tried for a 30 min catnap in the afternoon, all those wakings are likely related to overtiredness.  Would she doze off in the stroller or car for example?

[calgal22002]

Thanks for the replies! She has never been a stroller or carseat napper, but I can definitely try a later nap. I always assumed naps after 4 were a bad idea as it would make her hard to settle for bedtime but I'm happy to put her down a bit later in the evening. Today she actually had 2 good naps, so I'm hopeful the night might go better. The teething is not helping her sleep or her daytime mood so I hope the teeth cut soon!

[jessmum46]

At that age my DD had a routine roughly like:

WU 6.30/7
Nap 10.30/11-12/12.30
Nap 4.30-5ish
BT 7ish

I found with enough awake time earlier in the day then the short last A time after a catnap was fine x

[calgal22002]

I have been trying to implement something similar, but LO is very hard to settle for the afternoon nap. I tried in vain today.

Her day was as follows:

Wake up - 8:30
Breakfast, play, etc.
Bottle and nap - 11:30-1:30
Lunch, etc.
attempt to nap at 4:45 with no success
Dinner, etc.
Bath, bottle, bedtime at 7:30

Could it be that she is sleeping in too long in the morning? I love it in weekends, but maybe I am setting myself up for a bad day?

[jessmum46]

Tried for second nap too early . That's a short A time for a 10 month old after a super nap.  I would have tried later, or brought bt much earlier if nap refused.  I think probably you need to try switching things around to a short am, long pm routine to avoid the pm nap refusals, or actively start pushing her one (long) nap later 15 mins every few days to get it to 11.30/12ish.  What do you think?

[calgal22002]

So if I was doing a short am long pm, what would that look like? Do I wake her up from her nap early? Last week we had a busy day and she had a car snooze (20 minutes) which made it impossible to get her down for a real nap until 3:30. In the end she had a 1.25 hour nap at that time and the 20 minutes. Combined that was less than her regular nap and she was really tired. I don't remember how that night went, though I thought it was a bit better than some of the really bad ones.

Last night she was up at 1:30 and 5:30. I would love to get back to just the 5:30 wake up!

[jessmum46]

Yes you would wake her from her morning nap.  It takes some experimenting to find the right combination of A times and nap lengths but can really help those who refuse the pm nap. 

What times did everything happen that day of the 20 min CN if you can remember?  May give us a clue how you could plan the day?

[calgal22002]

Update - the 1 nap a day has been working it seems. I now wait way later to put her down for the nap (I aim for 4 hours after wake up). Then I usually put her to bed for the night 4-4.5 hours after she wakes from that nap.  Yesterday for example she woke up at 8:30, nap at 12:30, wake up at 3:00, bedtime at 7:30. She slept until 6:30, had a small bottle and went back to bed until 8:45. I just put her down for a nap at 12:45 and she was happy all morning. Yay!

I also started watering down her night-waking bottles a bit. She is not a fan of bottles in general (has always been bad about sucking), so the added water makes them even less desirable I think.  She drank a few ounces the first night and balked at the rest. I put her to bed and she was back to sleep in no time, so obviously it isn't all about hunger at night.

Thanks so much for your help! I hope that this continues for a while.

[jessmum46]

Great update, well done!