7.5 month old - separation anxiety or schedule problem?

[robyndb]

Hi there, FTM mum here and in the past week or two, my 7.5 month old has started screaming hysterically the second I leave the room at bedtime.

Naps are fine, it's just bedtime, and she has been getting really worked up. I would think it was separation anxiety, except for the fact that it doesn't happen for naps, and because when I go back in there to soothe her, she continues crying. I've tried wi/wo but she doesn't calm down, so I've often ended up trying to rock her to sleep (which I don't usually do) or feeding her to sleep (which I don't usually do either), because otherwise she'll cry and cry. I'm fairly certain she isn't teething or has any discomfort.

If we do get her down to sleep without a fight, sometimes she'll wake after 1-2 hours, and then start crying for ages.

We recently transitioned to 2 naps a day, and I'm genuinely not 100% sure of what time bedtime should be, so I'm wondering if she could be undertired or overtired, so I'm hoping that some of you could take a look at our schedule and let me know what time you think bedtime would work, and then if we don't have any luck with getting the schedule right, I'll assume it is separation anxiety and work out a plan moving forward.

Wake up - 6.00am
Nap - 9.00am - 10.30am (any earlier than 9am and it's a crap nap)
Nap - 1.45 - 2.30pm (I'm not 100% sure of the timing on this one - I'm wondering if I should move it to 2.00pm)
Bedtime: 6.45pm

I think I originally tried putting her down at 6.00pm, but we've been trying all sorts of times (even much later) in the hopes that we could nail the schedule.

[Martini~]

Yes Honey - too me it's could be OT especially if you just moved to two naps and her last A is almost 4h after a very short second nap. On days like that can you AP third short nap around 4/5pm only for 20min?

In general I would think of pushing second nap slightly to 2pm so you can have a longer nap. If that is going to be too much you might try shorter A, but 3.5h at this age seems reasonable. And than with nap ending at 3:30 you may aim for Bt at 6/6:30.

What do you think?

[robyndb]

Now that we have 2 naps, it is impossible to get her to take a third. But, we'll aim for a 2pm nap and 6.30pm bedtime (if it finishes at 3.30pm) and see how we go.

Thanks for your help :-)

[Martini~]

Keep us posted:)!

[robyndb]

So for the last couple of days I've been keeping her up for 3.5 hours between the first and second nap and it's still only 45 minutes, and nights haven't been much different, although last night I put her down 4 hours after her last nap and she went down better than usual, so I'm thinking perhaps I'll just accept what I have and go with 3/3.5/4?

Happy for any other suggestions :-)

[Martini~]

If you fell something is working just go for that.
But generally I would say she should be down after rather 2.5h after 45min nap rather than 4h Honey.

I would still consider two options:
- maybe experiment and wake her from first nap after 45min so 1 sleep cycle and than go for 2nd nap 3h after first  one; if she has a nice second nap you could have a routine as:
6-9:15 activity
9:15-10 sleep
10-13 activity
13-14:30 sleep
18/19 BT
- push her slightly more for second nap and go for nap at 14:30 and let's see what will happen

I think my DS at that age 8mo if first nap was 1.5h would never do a second long nap:).