4mo gone from 7:30wu to 5:30wu :(

[CattyPads]

Hi,
We had a good routine going for my 4mo, WU 7:30, BT 8:30pm with 30/40mins naps every two hours and one long nap (around 2hrs) at around 2:30pm.
We were doing a 12am night feed until about two weeks ago but we dropped it and he seemed fine.
But the last 4 nights he has been waking at 5:30am, having a feed then napping at 7:30ish am for an hour, so obviously this isn't ideal and we'd much prefer to go back to our old routine!
Any ideas what's gone wrong? Thanks

[Martini~]

At 4mo there is a massive sleep regression so it may take couple of days no matter what you do to survive. But it's also time to introduce new routine usually as bubbas need less sleep and longer A. There are also more prone to OT in my opinion as 2h A at the age below 4mo can be a lot for them so I would say that maybe he was doing OT short naps until he crashed in the middle of the day and now he is not as easy with this long A.

Waiting for you to post a routine with feeds time!

[CattyPads]

Thank you martini
Aaaah I wasn't aware of the regression! So this should get back on track?
So 2 hrs A is Too long? To be fair my routine with ds2 isn't as good as I'd like because I have a 2 yr old and I have to take him to nursery collect him etc and I take ds2 with me on my errands and when we are out he struggles to nap as he is too busy looking around etc 
My routine with ds1 was so much better as I only had him to look after! 

Anyway on a good day here is the routine
WU 7:30
E 7:45
S 9:30 - 30/40 mins
E 10:45/11
S 13:00 30ish mins
E2:15
S 2: 30ish (long nap, 1.5/2hrs)
E 17:30
Maybe a short nap in the pram about 18:30 when I take them both for a walk
E 20:15
S 20:30

This is all a bit touch and go and sometimes he wants food after 3 hours sometimes after 4, but he has 5 feeds of 180ml per day.

So you don't thik is hunger then? When he wakes up he doesn't cry, just screams really loud.

Oh by thr way while I am at it... During the day he screams a LOT, really loud and very often, not cry but kind of whine or just plain screams.... any ideas there? My ds1 didn't do this.

[Martini~]

He seems a bit OT to me. His first A is 2 hours which is giving you a short nap - difficult to say if that's an UT or OT. But his second nap is after next 3h and it's for sure an OT one as it's almost always short. Than after 2h nap you are going till the evening on 4h A which with a short nap in between would be fine but if there is not nap, he might be OT. The last thing is that his BT seems to be a bit late. Have you considered putting him down earlier?

Re screams - sorry I cannot help. Difficult to say when not hearing. It's just normal that children are so different at that age.

[CattyPads]

ThnK you
I must have written something down wrong, I never have an A longer than 2hrs  Basically the As are two hours but sometimes longer if we are out and about and he gets distracted from his sleep?

I've been reading easy samples for 4mo and some As are 1.5 and some 2hrs, what should I aim for? Also I seem other babies are doing longer naps. My baby is 18 weeks old. And what bedtime would be better? I am happy to go for that!

[Martini~]

A time at 4mo night be 2h or more or less. It all depends on child. In general if your A is too long your naps will be short (like 30min), but if it is too short naps are also short (but more frequent is 45min here). After a short nap (30-45min) next A should be shorter than previous one to compensate for not enough sleep (whatever the reason was).

[CattyPads]

As you said it seemed to be developmetal and things went back to normal. But for the last 4 days we've been back to 5/5:30 am starts. With a toddler to look after this is killing me. I am in tears.
I can't have a decent routine with this ridiculous WU.

Ps. My toddler is one hour out of sync since the change of clocks, went from 8am WU to 7am wake up but only since Monday. Do I need to do something or will he self adjust? Thanks ever so much.

[Martini~]

Are you waking her after 3h from last feed?

[CattyPads]

Sorry I don't understand the question    I never wake him from his naps, they are so short anyway  and we dropped the night feed and he was sleeping through the night.
I don't know whether to reintroduce it (I tried a couple of times and it didn't seem to make a difference though).
He was sleeping 8/8:30 until 7/7:15, I don't understand what went wrong.

[Martini~]

Sorry Honey, i probably mixed posts:). So you are not feeding at night right now? At 4mo there is a massive growth spurt and yes he still may needs one night feed at least. Can you feed him at 5am wake up and see if he goes back to sleep?

[CattyPads]

When he wakes we feed him but he then stays awake for around an hour and a half, so to me that's alike an A therefore the day starts at 5am
Usually his last feed is at 8pm, before his BT.
When we do a night feed we do it at 11:30ish pm, but he still wakes at 5ish. 

[Martini~]

So can you post your routine right now?

[CattyPads]

hi,
sorry for the delay, it seems so hard to get  minute to myself nowadays lol!
well its a disaster, as he now fights sleep too, ending up in an extremely overtired grumpy baby...i try to get him to nap every two hours, but most naps end up being 30 minuts. sometimes i ruin the routine as I need to go and pick up ds1 etc. but anyway its something along these lines:

yesterday;
wu 6:30
e 6:45
s 10:30-11
e 11
s 12:30-1
e 14:30
s 15:15 - 16:30
e 18:00
s 20:15
nf 12:00

the day before

wu 5:30 (resettled him til 6)
e 6:30
s 7:30/40 - 8:30
e 10:30
s 12- 12:15
s 13:00-13:30
e 14:30
s 14:30-16:30
e 18:00
s 20:15
nf 12:00

its a disasteer right? and trust me, i try. but he fights sleep, has very short naps and gets very grumpy-
thank you.

[trimbler]

Hey sorry this got missed, and (((hugs))) I think everyone struggles with 4mo Did you miss out an 's' from 'yesterday's routine (ok I realise it's no long yesterday but you know what I mean?) or did he just have a really long first A time that day? Do you have a consistent routine with DS1, ie nursery drop off/collection the same time every day? And if so, what times are you out for this? Tbh with my DD (second LO) I ended up giving her lots of naps in the sling due to preschool drop off and collection for DS, it really helped to cover her face a bit (ensuring she could breathe!) so she wasn't distracted by everything around her. For both of them I found it helped a lot to get at least one good sling nap each day, as they both tended towards short naps - well DS really was a chronic short napper But at least I could resettle in the sling and kind of reset them a bit, so they could manage a longer A time after their sling nap.

On the other hand, sorry if you mentioned this before, but can he get himself to sleep independently? If not, you may be running into the situation where he needs your help to transition between sleep cycles, because that's how he got to sleep in the first place. Even if he can get to sleep independently, it seems many LOs don't learn how to transition themselves into the next sleep cycle until a little later on, but either way, he should get there in the end

I do tend to agree with Martini in that he's likely to be OT from the short naps, but he does seem to be getting a nice long one in the afternoon, so at least you know he can do it It is hArd when you have an older LO though, so much is out of your control, but it does get easier If you could perhaps post your timings with DS1, maybe we can come up with a plan of action?

[CattyPads]

Thanks for replying

I have to drive to pick ds1 up so if it clashes I hVe to wake him up to put him in the maxi cosi...also I have to run errands in the mornings so it's all a bit of a mess really. I try to get him to sleep every two hours max. He tends to skip the last nap so his last A tends to be too long, could that be causing EW?

As for ds1, the routine I intended and was getting close to achieving was WU 8am nursery 9-12:50, NAp 2:30-4 BT 9:30 (I was intending to getting it closer to 8:30pm but haven't got round to doing it yet). But the the stupid DLS change happened and he started waking at 7am ans I can't seem to fix it??  not only that, now ds2 starts screaming as early as 6Am and wakes him  so ds1 is so tired!

I think I need a new routine for both of them altogether? Is there anyway I can get ds2 to sleep til say 7:30/8am? Do I put him down too early? (7:45/8pm). Or too late? I am so lost. Ds1 was such an easier baby so I am at loss 

Sorry I am rambling on and I am not even sure if I gave you the info you need x

Edit. I meant to say, sometimes he goes to sleep really easy on his own, sometimes it's a rig battle. As for the long nap, about 50% of the time he wakes up and I am able to resettle him, and sometimes he gets through the day with just little 30mkns naps. It leaves me zero time to work or do nothing!