Author Topic: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?  (Read 1919 times)

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Offline mothergoose

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Hi everyone, need some advice on my EASY please....where am I going wrong. My 11 week old spirited DD has never napped well...maybe 10 naps over the 1.5 hour mark since birth... but we have being following the 3hour EASY schedule as much as possible getting her to sleep with rocking mainly then trying to put in cot/chair. This week I have managed to get her to go to sleep in swing which is a big step forward for us as before she would not settle outside of arms. Plan to use this as a step towards independent sleep and try shush pat in cot next week again (no success with this previously)
But have been trying to nail down correct A for her first so can have as much chance of success with independent sleep as possible if catch the magic window. Its so hard because her naps are nearly always short....
What do you think re. todays EASY:
WU 6:40 fed and back to sleep until 7:30
A 7:30-8:35
then swaddled/white noise and put in swing
S8:45-9:15
E9:15
A9:15-10:00
then swaddled put in swing (tired signs and after short ?overtired nap)
S took 30min to fall asleep 10:30-11:15
A11:15-12:15 (with E at 12)then put in chair again
S 12:25-13:10 tried to resettle for 40 minutes even putting in sling as seemed like would go back to sleep but failed
A-13:10-14:50 (with E in middle - short naps really throwing this off  :-\
S14:50-15:55
A15:55-17:20 then in pram
S17:40- 18:00
feed/bath wind down
S18:45-21:00.....thats tonight. We let her sleep in DH arms for this sleep as find if this sleep is good the rest of the night is less unsettled  :-\ bad habit I know but after she learns independent sleep hope to fix this.....
She tends to wake around 10pm for a feed then 2am then early hours usually unsettled e.g. last night woke at 4am then 6:40....
Can anyone cast any light on changes that can be made? Is she already OT in morning from bad night hence 35min nap...or is she UT. Are her 45 min second and third naps OT or UT?!
Thanks for any advice ???
xx

Offline Martini~

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2015, 11:03:09 am »
Hi Hon! I would say it's a UT/OT loop. Her nights looks good honey even is she wakes often but quickly goes to sleep she sleeps from before 7pm till 7:30am - this is a restful night. But then when you put her after 1:15 at 11weeks she might be UT and does a 45min nap. You think she is OT but her resistance to go for next nap shows rather that she is UT and does another short nap. And after couple of short naps she might become OT and that probably results in unsettled night sleep.

Why not to increase her first A by 15min or another 15min until you will get 1h+ nap?
~Marta

Offline mothergoose

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2015, 18:08:22 pm »
Thanks for reply yes this is what I suspected but too scared of going wrong direction with A and adding to problem to trust myself! So first is undertired nap even though its 35min you think? Do some babies do that? Will try increasing A tomorrow
Xx

Offline Martini~

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #3 on: September 05, 2015, 20:17:49 pm »
I would try Honey - really at that age, A times gallop really fast and being totally honest - OT is easy to keep at bay with comparisson to older kids. Babies have so many naps a day that when one is OT, second one can be longer. And you still can APOP one here or there that, I would be tempted to try.

Try a longer A for couple of days and see what's happening.
~Marta

Offline mothergoose

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2015, 18:22:39 pm »
Have not had any luck with longer A so far....have been on A A of 1hr 30 past 4 days and just getting progressively more overtired baby with more night wakenings :(
She shows tired signs at about an hour but i have been alternating activities and holding her off....now have easy like this:
Nw at 11, 1am, 3am
Wu 5:30 feed and stays on sucking alternately to see her through to 7
A 7-8:30
S8:30-9:15
E 9:30
A9:15-10:45
S10:45-11:30 resettled with dummy 11:45-12:30
A12:30-14:00
S14:00-14:35
A14:35-17:00 (refused nap during this time so went for super early bt as seems really ot......
Maybe i should have shortened her successive A time after first but was still not sure if ut/ot....she is 12 weeks today.
So i dont kno whether to increase A again or go back to original A. I think she just might be a 45min napper...whwther ot/ut whatever? If this is the case when will she grow out of it?! I hope soon!!!!! Its so hard to prevent end of day OT when she does this constantly....
Any tips?xx

Offline deb

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2015, 18:27:04 pm »
Does she have a regular waking around 5-4AM? Or was the one you described a one-off?

If it's a regular thing, then she's waking for the day already tired, but a short A time to make up for it will lead to a short nap because of UT and then to OT as the day goes on.

See if anything here rings a bell: How Tracy Helped Josie and her Family Get Past 45-Min. Naps!

Offline mothergoose

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #6 on: September 11, 2015, 18:53:49 pm »
Yes she does usually have an ew which i apop bts. Yes i read that post earlier looking for some ideas....it made me sad that it seems josie continued to nap for 45min they just got better at getting her bts after that time?! Oh no...if even tracy couldnt fix it. My dd definitely does not need the extra calories she feeds far too much...because of all the short naps its basically every 2.5hours by day abd sometimez by night as well  :-\

Offline deb

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #7 on: September 11, 2015, 19:21:53 pm »
You don't actually HAVE to feed her at every waking just to keep an EASY; just feed her at the next closest convenient time. :) So some of our times between feeds were 3 hours, some 2.5, some 3.5 (longer if she slept!). The only reason we did the DF was because in our case she did need more calories to get her thru the longer night; eventually she just stopped waking then. You could also try Wake To Sleep: go in before her usual wake time and just get her to stir the slightest little bit to sort of shift the sleep cycle, see if she sleeps longer. We never had much luck with that, but others do.

Josie didn't keep doing 45-minute naps much longer; after maybe 3-4 days we got good at extending her naps to 90 minutes, and after a week or so we didn't need to do anything as she was extending on her own.

Offline mothergoose

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #8 on: September 11, 2015, 20:23:52 pm »
Oh you are Josie's mum?! Didnt make the connection sorry :) thanks for your help xx
Oh thats a relief she did start extending on her own in the end! It just seems no matter what i do she seems to wake at that mark....so disheartening. Have a toddler so not practical to try and resettle for every nap but i try it for at least 2 a day and when ds at nursery i am waiting at 40min mark for first jolt...sometimes it works sometimes not....
Do you think I have an A issue? Would love it to be something fixable. Wondering whether to go for really low A tomorrow of 60min...maybe she was ot all along? Or maybe i should extend A by a further 15min...
Any thoughts on this?

Offline deb

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Re: 11 weeks - Overtired at end of every day...does it start with undertired?
« Reply #9 on: September 11, 2015, 20:41:46 pm »
Yes, I'm Josie's mom! She's 13-1/2 now and in 8th grade! Hard to believe she's the same kid, but she definitely is. :) I decided at some point to reclaim my *actual* name, especially when I had another DD; I needed an identity other than Josie's Mom by then. :)

Anyway, I started by keeping J in her room for the entire first A time so I could watch her cues; her reflux also made her afraid of laying down, so she'd scream bloody murder when I started the nap routine, so I did that to break that cycle, to sort of sneak it up on her. ;) She got tired right on schedule at about the 60-minute mark, so I turned on a much lower light and put on soft music and just sat on the floor with her and kept the interaction low-key, maybe a blanket and/or small stuffed toy, until she could barely hold her eyes open. That's the part where we sneaked in the spare feed before nap (we needed it; you may not), and for the first nap or two I let her fall asleep on the breast because I needed the break THAT badly. Anyway, I think I was able to keep her very gently barely awake for another 10 minutes or so past the 60-minute mark, and we held it steady there for a couple of days and then added another 5-10 minutes now and again as she started extending her naps. First nap I wasn't able to extend, I don't think, but it took practice and we got better at it over the next couple days; when she short-napped, I knew it'd at least be a short A time till we could try again. LOL

HTH! (Hope this helps)