Author Topic: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep  (Read 3349 times)

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Offline ana.vesterinen

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help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« on: August 22, 2015, 12:43:07 pm »
Hi, my name is Ana. Our daughter just turned 1 year and everything changed.  I followed EASY rutine since she was 3 months old. everything went awesome until two weeks ago  :'(  when she started going to the daycare (she only goes there 3 days per week: tuesday, wednesday and thursday, the other days i stay at home). I made some changes in the routine so as to make things easier for her, as they had different lunch times ( i only started giving the food a bit earlier and replacing milk with solids). I did that before she officially started and everything went very good.

Our routine was:
7.00am feed (200-240ml)
7.55 -8.15am breakfast (solids)
9.00am first nap (1.5-2hrs)
11.00am lunch (solids)
1.00am second nap (1.5-2hrs)
3.00pm snack (240ml)
5.00pm (sometimes catnap)
5.45 dinner
6.15 -7pm bath and last bottle 240ml.

When we started the daycare the naps started to be inconsistent. i understand that they dont have time to do pu/pd or so if a baby cannot sleep but nevertheless I asked them to put her always in bed at the same time, regardless if she slept or not.

As expected, she didnt sleep much but at least she was compensating at night, she was sleeping 11-11.30 hrs and waking up at 6.30am

On Friday 14. August, she got sick (a cold). We didnt take her to the daycare last week. She got some medicine and started to feel better but the naps are a BIG mess now. I thought it was because of the illness but I dont know now :-( she resists naps completely. either she starts screaming or crying or both. We do pd but it takes 45-1.30 or even 2hrs of helping her but sometimes she does not nap at all. I tried to apply the principle rob Peter to pay Paul but it didnt help, I again spent 45-1.30 hrs with her and nothing happened. We then thought it might be time to change to only one nap a day. I started looking and responding to the cues and we put her to bed at 2pm once (she slept 1.5hrs) but my husband stayed with her until 2.45pm and at 12.30 and she slept one hour. I dont watch the clock but its difficult not to notice that time passes and she still resists sleepig. I got back and tried to stick to our old routine i do the same ritual and put her in the crib. if we are lucky she doesnt cry immediately but eventually she does. eventhough we clearly see she is tired, she refuses to sleep and its a never ending story. Now she also started waking up at night, luckily it only takes 30min of reassuring to get her back to sleep. Sometimes she wakes up only once but sometimes 4 times! we dont always have to do pd at night time, sometimes she calms herself down just with our voice. I have the impression that whenever I am with her reassuring and helping her to fall asleep, she thinks its funny and so eventhough she is tired, she continues standing up or sitting in the crib. Lately my husband tries the pd more than me as he can get her to sleep much faster. He says he only talks to her when she is really crying and he puts her down as soon as she tries to sit down. It has been working! To  be honest, I dont know what else to do. At the daycare they say that she will sleep whenever she is tired but she is overtired mostbof the time there... as she has to go again on Tuesday, I would very much appreciate some advice.

Thanks a lot!!


Offline Martini~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2015, 17:23:21 pm »
Hello Honey

It looks like despite nursery inflicting some problems, she is just ready for a transition to less sleep. Between 12 and 18mo children are moving to one nap and she is far far from that with two long naps and occiasional 3rd catnap. She is probably a HSN kid (high sleep needs).

Have you read our FAQ re nap trsnsitioning You can find there many interesting info how to do a transition.
~Marta

Offline cath~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2015, 18:05:27 pm »
I agree with pp that it seems like your LO is ready for less daytime sleep.

Here's a link to the FAQ she mentioned in case you can't find it:

From 2 to 1 nap transition (10-12m and older)

Let us know what you think
DD1 - 8 years old
DD2 - 5 years old

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2015, 08:33:31 am »
Thank you so much for your answers!! I somehow just noticed that I received them...thats odd because I was checking the site often. Anyway,  after a week of being inconsistent with her naps, all of a sudden, she went back on track for almost a month but again she is like I described before :-(

Now we are again at the same point! I will immediately go to the link and let you guys know 😊

Thanks again!
Ana

Offline cath~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2015, 08:59:40 am »
if you have any qns after reading the link do let us know :)
DD1 - 8 years old
DD2 - 5 years old

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2015, 13:01:58 pm »
Hi Cath! I've read the frequently asked questions and,  for what I've read, I think hell is already loose :-s
I am not sure what triggered it this time because she is not sick. Could it be because my husband went to visit his parents since last Friday? or do you think is just her body trying to say that she needs more A?
It started gradually this time, with shorts naps 1hr (am and pm). Yesterday was like this:
9.15-9.45am 30min
1pm she slept until 1.20
and then I applied rob Peter to pay Paul at 3.45pm. And she slept until 5pm.

I put her in bed at 6.45pm and then at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm she started to complain but calmed herself down. At 1.45 am I had to intervene and she fell asleep at 2.40am. at 3am again complaining but she calmed herself and finally she woke up at 6am! It was exhausting!

Does this principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul is also recomended for children of 1 year old +?

After reading more posts, I found out that indeed she needs to move to one nap. I believe the strategy to follow is shorten the early nap gradually and offer the afternoon nap earlier. I tried it today, as she anyway woke up 30min (9.45) after the am nap (9.15am). I put her to bed at 12.30am instead of 1pm but she only slept until 1pm :-(
 I understand that it will take time for her to adjust and so but I spent 1.30hrs with her putting her down and she never fell back to sleep. Rather she started to play and kneel and roll and so. Could it be that I should do WI/WO instead of PD?

I think I could also bath her before evening meal and put her in bed at 6.15- 6.30pm

What do you think? too many changes?

Offline cath~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2015, 15:11:05 pm »
I think that having 3 naps yesterday may have contributed to all the NWs and it looks like your DD prob needed more A time after that 1st nap.

I believe the strategy to follow is shorten the early nap gradually and offer the afternoon nap earlier. I tried it today, as she anyway woke up 30min (9.45) after the am nap (9.15am). I put her to bed at 12.30am instead of 1pm but she only slept until 1pm :-(
You have the right idea but I think that even after a 30 min nap it seems like she's needing longer until that 2nd nap.  First, I'd try keeping 1st nap at 30 mins and then try to lengthen the 2nd nap by increasing the A time.  Since she only slept for 30 mins when she napped 2hr45 mins later (A 9.45 - 12.30), try waiting 3hr15 after a 30 min am nap and see if that helps.  You can then try capping the am nap even more and shortening that 2nd A time to bring the 2nd nap earlier.  It can be tricky finding the right balance during this transition, esp as it keeps changing!

Could it be that I should do WI/WO instead of PD?
This might help and PD might just be exaccerbating things if it winds her up, but I think probably it's more a case of needing a routine tweak to lengthen the nap.

I think I could also bath her before evening meal and put her in bed at 6.15- 6.30pm
Do you mean so you can get an ealier BT?  That's certainly an option.  Or just skip bath altogether some days if she's not that dirty.  It depends on your LO though and how adaptable they are to changes in routine.  My spirited DD1 and even not-so-spirited DD2 would prob have objected if I skipped bath!
DD1 - 8 years old
DD2 - 5 years old

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2015, 18:20:03 pm »
I will follow your suggestions and certainly keep u posted, thanks again 😊

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #8 on: September 20, 2015, 15:38:06 pm »
Hi!!! I followed your advice :-) however and since my baby got sick and she remained sick for 1.5 weeks I modified the routine so that the morning nap would last only 45 minutes (9:15-10 am) followed by 3.15 hrs (10am - 1:15pm) Activity time and an afternoon nap starting at 1.15pm.

The first week I tried this new routine, she slept the 45 mins in the morning and then an afternoon nap of 2.5 hrs! that was awesome. Since then she has been napping in the afternoon 1.5 to 2hrs and wakes up happily.

Luckily she is healthy again, but since yesterday she started again napping in the afternoon only one hour  :o ... I guess that is time for us to take another step further and cut the morning nap 15 min more. So starting tomorrow,  I will put her in bed at 9:15am but will wake her up at 9:45am. The second nap in the afternoon will be at 1pm after 3.15hrs AT. Would you recommend that I give her more AT, say 3.30hrs and put her to bed at 1.15pm? or should I stick to plan and put her to bed at 1pm?

After the afternoon nap, we dont encourage a catnap and she seems pretty happy. We have dinner at 5:45pm and start the evening activity with a bath. Finally she is in bed at 6:30 or 7:00pm

Luckily, the night waking came to an end and she again started waking up at 6:40-7am :-)

Thank you very much for your advice and for some more comments you might have to help me!!

Best regards,
Ana

Offline cath~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #9 on: September 21, 2015, 09:58:23 am »
The first week I tried this new routine, she slept the 45 mins in the morning and then an afternoon nap of 2.5 hrs! that was awesome. Since then she has been napping in the afternoon 1.5 to 2hrs and wakes up happily.
that's great :D

Luckily she is healthy again, but since yesterday she started again napping in the afternoon only one hour  :o ... I guess that is time for us to take another step further and cut the morning nap 15 min more. So starting tomorrow,  I will put her in bed at 9:15am but will wake her up at 9:45am.
yes, that's what I'd try.


The second nap in the afternoon will be at 1pm after 3.15hrs AT. Would you recommend that I give her more AT, say 3.30hrs and put her to bed at 1.15pm? or should I stick to plan and put her to bed at 1pm?
I think to start with I'd keep the A time the same, so nap is around 1pm.  I prefer to just change one thing at a time so I know where I am with things!
If that doesn't help (give it a few days so you can really tell) then you could either try a touch more A time (e.g. 15 mins like you said) or, perhaps, shorten the am nap a bit more.  I think you could try either at this stage of the 2-1 transition and see which suits your LO best. 
DD1 - 8 years old
DD2 - 5 years old

Offline cath~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2015, 13:13:54 pm »
Hiiiii!!! Iam very happy to report that we are getting to 1 long nap :) slowly but succesfully! Now our baby sleeps 20 min in the morning (9.15- 9.35am) and has a long pm nap (from 12.50-3pm) :) sometimes even 3hrs but normally 1.5-2hrs which is awesome!!! thanks so very much for the advice, it was really helpful!! I will continue shortening the morning nap until it disappears, however, for the time being I'll go slowly as my 14 month old baby seems to still need to sleep in the morning ;)

that's great :)  While it's working - no need to change anything.  If the second nap starts to shorten then cut a bit more off of the am nap :)

(I'm going to split your post to start you a new thread for your new question - that way you can get some fresh/more experienced eyes on it.  The biggest time difference I've ever handled is just 1 hr!)
DD1 - 8 years old
DD2 - 5 years old

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2015, 19:20:23 pm »
I will do, thanks for your help and very useful advice!!

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2015, 13:35:57 pm »
Hi Cath! it has been long since my last repot ::)

We are back home after 2 weeks in Mexico, as expected, the jetlag was the enemy to defeat...but we managed to survive 😊 i just stuck to the E of the routine and it was not that bad. However when we returned home, again jetlag plus more changes were waiting for us... the jetlag we defeated by sticking to the E time of the routine but we moved to a bigger apparment and my Lo had now a room for herself..these changes were stressful and still we are struggling with the colateral damage (😜) i.e. no napping and constant night waking 😢

Dear Cath if you bear with me, I am pretty sure you or any other mom that reads my post, will have positive and very useful comments that will help me, the story goes like this:

Before going on holiday:

She was having a 15 min nap in the morning at 9.15 am and a wonderful 2.5 hrs nap starting at 12.45pm

In Mexico,

after the first week of jetlag inconsistencies she continued napping at 9.15 to 9.30 and in the afternoon between 12.30 and 12.45 fon 1.5 hrs.

Here I have to say that sometimes we couldnt really follow the routine because we were visiting my relatives and there was no possible chance to do it, but still it went pretty well.

Back at home,

I tried to follow the routine like before we left, at first it seemed to be working but then the afternoon nap became shorter and shorter...I figured it was because I had to cap the morning nap so we could finally finish the transition to one long nap but my baby has always been a better sleeper in the morning than in the afternoon so it was difficult to cut the am nap all of a sudden... what i did was to shorten it for periods of 5min and it seemed to work.. for 3 days she slept 10 min am nap and 2hrs afternoon nap but now the things have gone from bad to worst!!

At night she wakes up several times, we tried at first the wake to sleep because she was waking up always at 5.40 am so we woke her up at 4.40 am and it worked.. for 2 days and then she started waking up at 12pm and then 11pm at 3 am so pretty inconsistent to apply the same "wake to sleep"

Now, I must say its horrible!!  and on top of that she just got sick with the hand, foot and mouth disease... yeah I know, just when you think things cant get worse... she gets sick!! ofcourse she is annoyed because she has blisters all over the mouth area, legs and hands and sadly the products the peditrician gave us, dont do miracles 😧

For days now she wakes up at night and it takes us from1.5-2 hrs to help her go back to sleep. we use PD method, reassure her, touch her, I rub her belly and head, but still she cries and shouts like if we were killing her 😢

For instance, yesterday she woke up at 2am and until 4am she fell back asleep, she woke up at 7.30am and we followed the A time, then I put her in bed at 9.20am  (when we got back from the doctor) and since she didnt sleep well I thought it was a good idea to let her sleep 45 minutes (guess that was my mistake) the A time was until 13.15hrs and then when I put her in bed she cried! I was with her until 13.30 that she fell asleep but for only 45 min :-( then I spent with her until 15.15 hrs (snack time) without any success... ( here I must say that PD at nap time seldom works for us) the night was awful again, she woke up repeatedly but fell back asleep on her own until 3am, that she started crying and shouting and my husband went to her room and stayed there for 1.5 hrs. She woke up at 6.48am today.

I then thought to go back to the 15min am nap and so I did that today and when I woke her up after 15 min nap,  she was very cranky and crying even. We had the A time but at 12.40am I put her in bed for she was already yawning a lot and started to be annoyed because she was tired. I thought this would help but nooooo! the moment we started our ritual she started crying! I continued, hoping she might calm down but no, she didnt:-( I stayed with her until 13.20 and then brought her out  of her room to see if that helped, it did :-) she was happy. After 15 min I tried again the ritual and again she cried, this time I put her in bed at 13.20 and I stayed with her until 13.30 that she fell asleep. Now its 14.28 and she is sleeping...not for long I fear 😣😣😣😣

Needlees to say that I am FRUSTRATED and totally wasted my cool is long lost 😢I take time outs between the shouts and go back in her room with more patience and calm but I dont know what else to do :-( I sat on the floor so she can see me, I carry her until she is calmed and put her back in bed (which is tough... I mean carrying 10kg) I talk to her, I say conforting words, I change my voice tone to a more authoritary one and say "its enough, lets go to sleep", I dont speak at all, I rub her back and belly, I dont touch her, we give her her special friend (a tiny sheep), but eventhough she hugs it for moments, she throws it as well... she also sleeps with one of my fleece jackets, it used to calm her pretty well but now, she keeps on putting it on her head, throwing it out, folding it, etc... before she used to have in her crib a sock snake that I made her and it had tiny bells that used to calm her but it became a distraction and something else to wave in the air, so I took it out of the crib. I think that we have done what we thought it might help but honestly,  nothing seems to be helping now 😢😢😢

On top of the above we have as well tantrums! God, I feel like our baby is like a combo of "when things can go wrong" most of the time I ignore her because they can get really bad...meaning, banging her head (gently) on the floor, arching her back, pulling and throwing stuff etc...

As I am the one that is on duty most of tge times, because I stay four days at home, I really need fresh eyes...I know that probably by now, you or somebody else already know what we/I have done wrong but I am so into the problem, that I need your help to sort things out!

I thank you very very much for bearing with me until the end of my post and I will be looking forward to read your comments!

Kind regards!
Ana




Offline cath~

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #13 on: December 08, 2015, 14:02:58 pm »
Hello again :)

gosh you've been through a lot!  So I work out she's around 16 months now?  Is that right?

I then thought to go back to the 15min am nap and so I did that today and when I woke her up after 15 min nap,  she was very cranky and crying even. We had the A time but at 12.40am I put her in bed for she was already yawning a lot and started to be annoyed because she was tired. I thought this would help but nooooo! the moment we started our ritual she started crying! I continued, hoping she might calm down but no, she didnt:-( I stayed with her until 13.20 and then brought her out  of her room to see if that helped, it did :-) she was happy. After 15 min I tried again the ritual and again she cried, this time I put her in bed at 13.20 and I stayed with her until 13.30 that she fell asleep. Now its 14.28 and she is sleeping...not for long I fear 😣😣😣😣

I think you were right to go back to a 15 min morning nap.  45 mins was probably too long.  She was on a 15 min morning nap at 14 months, right?

How long was her second nap in the end?

If you're just going for a short morning nap, could you APOP it (e.g. plan your day so you're out in the car/buggy for her to nap then)?  IME it usually makes waking up much easier for them and they are less grumpy.

The chances are she's probably ready to go to one nap now.  However, it's tricky with NWs making her tired but the 2 naps might well be leading to the NWs..

I think I might be inclined to push harder to get her to one nap, e.g. cap the am nap at 10mins for a few days and see if you can get a good long pm nap from this.  She was perhaps fighting her 2nd nap out of habit or perhaps she actually wasn't quite tired enough.  See what nap length you can get after a 10 minute am nap.

When my LOs (esp DD1) fight most against their naps, it's usually a sign that they're not tired enough for them.

Also, just to rule it out, could there be any teething going on?  Canines can be a total PITA.  Is she in a Wonder Week atm or not yet?
DD1 - 8 years old
DD2 - 5 years old

Offline ana.vesterinen

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Re: help! inconsistent naps and nightime sleep
« Reply #14 on: December 10, 2015, 05:42:35 am »
Hi Cath! thanks for your comments 😊
She is indeed almost 16 months now! I think too, that she might be ready to nap only once a day.

The afternoon nap in the end was of 1.5 hrs so not bad at all!

I will plan the day so that she can nap 10 min during the morning walk and see how her mood is after waking up... hopefully she can because normally eventhough she is tired, she shakes her head to keep herself awake... because at the begining when she was 4months old and we started with EASY I didnt let her sleep in the stroller like Tracy recomended. Anyway I'll start tomorrow whith this new plan 😊 since I stay at home, I can cap the am nap to 10 min and put her in bed around 12.45am

You asked me about a Wonder Week, whats that?

I will keep you posted! Thanks again and have a great day!
Ana

PS. I guess the molars are soon coming, I will keep an eye on that too 😊