Difficulties with naps and PUPD

[Elisanah]

I would really appreciate some help with PUPD and daytime naps for my 8 month old please! We are on day 2 of sleep training using PUPD although we're combining it with gradual retreat as our LO cries as soon as we leave the room. The first day and night went far better than I was expecting however today has been a different story.

Yesterday my LO slept for 1 1/4 hours for both naps however today she woke up after 40 minutes from her first nap and 15 minutes after her 2nd nap - both times we used PUPD (although more PD due to her age) for the remainder of her nap time but she didn't go back to sleep either time (just cried on and off until we picked her up when it was time to get up). It meant we had a very sad and tired little girl for the rest of the afternoon (although she did go to sleep very quickly this evening!).

My concern is that since we've had to pick her up awake at the end of nap time, after crying and being comforted for a long time, it could affect how PUPD works. Will she now expect to eventually be picked up if she keeps crying or should it still eventually work?

Another question I have is whether or not I should be pushing to extend her morning nap. She has always varied her length of naps and tends to sleep for 45 minutes only but sometimes will sleep for up to two hours. A lot that I have read recommends 2x 1.5 hour naps for her age gap although I did read in BW solves all your problems that between 8-12 months some babies drop their morning nap to 45 minutes and extend their afternoon nap. This has left me confused as to whether I should be using PUPD to push her to 1.5ish hours sleep for each nap or just focus on her afternoon nap.

Our current routine looks roughly like this (the wake times are what I'm aiming for!)-

7am - wake and breastfeed
8.00- breakfast
9.00 - sleep (wind down and laid in cot by 8.45)
10.30 - wake
11.45 - Lunch (solids and water)
13.00 - sleep (wind down and laid in cot by 12.45)
14.30 - wake and breastfeed
16.45 - Dinner (solids and water)
17.20 - bedtime routine, inc. breastfeed
18.00 - sleep
Also still aiming to dream feed and feed once in night if LO wakes (HV thinks she could still be hungry in the night as she's quite small for her age).

Before sleep training J had been going to sleep at 12.30 for her second nap but I'm hoping to push it back to 13.00 to help avoid overtiredness in the evening. She also only consistently dropped her 3rd nap in the last month so I've brought her bed time forward as she was getting really tired. The reason we decided to do sleep training was because of short naps (often 45minutes), rubbish settling in the evening (we were up and down like a yoyo) and she was waking every1.5 hours in the night and spending most of it wanting to be held by me. I'm pretty sure this is mostly due to me feeding her to sleep each time!

Any help or advice would be really appreciated - thank you!

[Kellyjs]

Hi and welcome 

First hun, I have to say your A times are too short. You've done amazing getting her to nap for so long on those times.

You've obviously read Tracy's book and I can see you're implementing everything you can. However, if the a time is too short no amount of pu/pd will work.

Do you feel she's high sleep needs hun? Has she always slept more than the average? Many bubbas have dropped that third nap by 5-6mo.

I do think the NW's will be down to UT from the day. We had this too and the reason I joined this site actually. I had to radically push DD's A times as they too were well below where they should be. We always had short naps, but when they affected the  night sleep I knew something had to be done.

I also think there may be a little separation anxiety at play too hun, wdyt? This is a prime age for it. I'll post a link about this at the end, there's some helpful things in there.

Ok, so  a plan. Yes, I would extend the morning nap by pushing the. A times. I would jump straight away to 2.5hrs A. This might not be enough, but it's a good starting point ok? I'd hold for a couple of days and then we look at extending again. She may show sleepy cues at her usual time of going down, this will be learned behaviour and it's a case of pushing through. I know the book says to watch for cues, but at this age we do need to have one eye on the clock at well.

We will sort this, but it will take a little bit of time if you're up for it? I'm here every step of the way and you can keep me posted. I'll post some links for you to have a read through but I look forward to hearing your thoughts xx

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

Separation Anxiety

[Elisanah]

Thank you so much for your reply and welcome! It's good to hear from someone who's been through this

She has always struggled when I've tried to extend her A time - I think we've been caught in a vicious circle of night sleep affecting day time and vice versa. Also, because of her tendency to only sleep 45 minutes at a time, she seemed to need the third nap for longer to extend her amount of daytime sleep. The wake times I put down were my goal for by the end of sleep training however prior to this she would generally be up for about 2.5 hours between her 1st and 2nd nap and then 4 - 4.5 hours in the afternoon (because of typically only sleeping 45 minutes).

However, the last two nights have been her best nights yet so I feel it's good base to start trying to extend her A time as I can totally see your point. The only concern I have is that pushing her morning nap back to after 9.00 will mean we either have to miss going to the local baby groups or she will completely miss her morning nap (all the groups seem to start at 10am around here). My thought is that perhaps I can keep putting her down at 9.00 for a 45 minute nap and then really try to work on extending the rest of her A time and her afternoon nap. Any thoughts?

I definitely think separation anxiety is in play. We're doing lots of peekaboo and leaving/returning to the room. We're also combining PUPD with gradual retreat to try to minimise the anxiety. I'm hoping it helps!

So I'll try to extend her A times and let you know how it goes! Can I just check whether I should be doing anything different when extending naps with PUPD. So far, when she wakes up early, I wait for her to start to cry and then go up to her. I sit in the room (today we've moved the chair slightly away from the cot as per gradual retreat method) and reassure her with my voice and the occasional hand to her chest. I do pick up if distraught and then put immediately back down (although try not to as it doesn't seem to help settle her once lying down again). Hopefully she goes to sleep but if she's still awake at the end of nap time then I pick her up and try to keep her awake until the next sleep period. Should I at least attempt to leave the room if she stops crying? I haven't been because I know she'll start crying immediately. Or would it help reassure her that we will come back if she cries? Please tell me it will eventually work!

It's so strange feeling so clueless again - feeding to sleep was so easy!

Thanks for the links - they're really useful

[Kellyjs]

Ha ha feeding to sleep is so easy! But unfortunately not in the long run 

Yes, you could totally do that and have her first nap short. It won't be too long until she'll be hitting the 2-1 in a few months time so one of the naps will have to capped. Do be aware though a morning nap too early may lead to EW. We can but give it a go and it's not fair to miss out on those groups if you enjoy them.

Ok, if you keep the first nap where it is, we'll really have to push that second A to ensure a good lomg nap and let her sleep up to 2hrs if she is able. This will take some time to find the right A time ok? So if she wakes at 9.45am after a 45mins nap, I would actually do a full A time of 2hrs 45mins to begin with. She may need resettling during the nap as it is quite a big jump, but at least with that A time there's a chance she'll go back to sleep. I'd try that for a couple of days and see if it works.

Wrt the pu/pd yes you're doing great. If she stops crying go to leave the room. But tell her you're doing so, sneaking out doesn't really help with SA. If she cries, go back immediately and keep trying ok? You're letting her know it's ok, mummy will come back as soon as she needs but the idea of you going way needs to start happening for her to get used to it. You're really doing so well hun, this is just a phase and it will get better xx

[Elisanah]

Haha yes definitely learning that now!

I have one more thing I wanted to check if that's okay (sorry for all of the questions, you've been so helpful!). I'm putting her down about 20 minutes before I'm aiming for her to go to sleep as per BW instructions for getting a routine in place with PUPD. Do those 20 minutes count as part of the A time? When do you put your little one down for their nap? Just wondering whether I should maintain the 20 minutes after the routine is established or whether we can revert back to her tired cues? I'm guessing J will make it clear for me as time progresses

Your time guidelines are really helpful and worked well this morning - she actually went to sleep with me out of the room for her second nap (now to see for how long!).

Thanks for the advice re: leaving the room. That seemed to make sense to me but I didn't want to do anything to make her more anxious so it's good to hear that you also think that would be okay.

 I think that's all of my questions now 

xx

[Kellyjs]

I think 20mins might be a bit long tbh, I'd aim to have her in bed around 5-10mins at max. This is to save you doing more pu/pd as I'm sure we'll need to increase the A time again soon.

Tired cues become unreliable at this age. They can do it for a variety of reasons like it's learned behaviour to go down at that time, or bored and need a change of scenery. It's around this age we need to help them along on their A times. She's telling  you already she needs more A time with the short naps and NW's 

Yay and great to hear about the nap, well done you, fx it's a long one xx

[Elisanah]

That's really helpful, thank you! Ha well it was longer than the day before but only 35 minutes! That's not normal for her as she'd normally manage at least 45 minutes so I'll see how things go over the next couple of days before maybe adjusting the A time again if it doesn't improve.

Thanks again! 

[Kellyjs]

Sounds like a plan, keep me posted xx

[Elisanah]

I would love your thoughts on our progress (or lack of  ) so far please!

We had a few days of teething which massively disrupted things but that seems to be settling now so I feel like I'm getting a fair idea on how she's settling to the routine. Evenings and nights are much more settled - she tends to wake twice (around 10.30 and then somewhere between 2.30 - 4.00) where I feed her. Depending on when she wakes in the night she wakes somewhere between 6-7am (I wake her at 7 if still sleeping).

Her naps are still the main issue.  Three times this week she hasn't slept at all during her morning 'nap'. Initially I thought it was because of teething but she did this again today and teeth haven't been an issue. I've been working towards the short nap at 9am as I said above but I'm thinking that maybe she's just not tired enough to nap at that time now that she's getting more sleep at night. She doesn't seem to struggle at all with making it to her afternoon nap (around 12.45 on those days) What are your thoughts? The last few days her afternoon nap has been 1.5 hours which is great although that could be because she hasn't slept in the morning. When her naps have been less than 1hr 15mins I've tried to PUPD but she never seems tired enough to go back to sleep.

So my thoughts are:
1) In the mornings when she wakes at 6am she seems wide awake so I start the day...should I then adjust her nap times accordingly or try to push her out to the same time for her naps each day? (When she wakes seems to depend on when I've fed her in the night)
2) I think I'm going to have to go with a later morning nap so may as well be trying go with 2x 1.5 hr naps...if that's still appropriate for her age? (She'll be 9 months in a weeks time)
3) Is it okay to stop PUPD for her naps?regardless of how long she sleeps in her naps she never shows any signs of going back to sleep if I try to do PUPD in the day. She's shown that she can sleep for a decent length of time so I think my best bet is to just work on getting her A times sorted and then hopefully her naps will work out. What are your thoughts?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[Kellyjs]

Yk what hun, this is actually a massive improvement from when we started. 

If she's 9mo in a week, there is a vv large range of what's considered normal A time. Some are even on one nap by now, some on one long and one short nap whichever way around, others maintain 2 good naps for a little while yet. So we just need to find what fits yours.

I think leave  off the pu/pd unless the nap is under an hour. Then try for 10mins, if no go, get her up. She's obviously gotten what it means, but pu/pd won't be effective if the routine isn't right which is what I expect.

Pick a time you're happy to start the day, if that's 6am, by all means get her up, if not just see if she'll play happily alone for 20mins or so, this helps increase the A time too.

So if she's not sleeping for the first nap, is she making it all the way to 12.45pm from 6/7am? Or was this a one/three off? Did you do an afternoon CN on those days? Hmm, let me stop badgering you with questions and if you wouldn't mind posting the last few days easy i'll take a look for you. I'm thinking she's further down the 2-1 than we thought xx

[Elisanah]

I'm thinking she's further down the 2-1 than we thought

I was worried you might say that  I feel like I still need to give her a chance at a morning nap though as I'm aware I've not been giving her big a time in the morning.

I've been aiming for a 7am wake up and always make sure I get her up then if she is still sleeping. I need to keep an eye over the next few nights but I think there's a pattern of her waking up closer to 6 when she wakes up closer to 2.30 than 4am. Although I'm sure that some of her early wake ups this last week were due to teething so I guess we'll see. Sometimes she's happy for a little while in her cot but mostly she cries soon after waking.

She's not missed her morning nap before this week. I didn't do a catnap - she did sleep for about 1.5 hrs in her afternoon nap for each of those days but surely that's not enough daily long term? I'm pretty sure teething was a factor the first two days that she missed her nap but not so much today.

My memory is a little hazy of exact times for previous days but I can remember most of Wednesday (the lengths and times of naps are definitely accurate):

6.10 - wake and milk
7.45 - breakfast
9.05 - sleep
9.50 - wake (I woke her up as was still trying to encourage short morning nap and long pm nap)
11.45 - lunch
12.45 - sleep
14.15 - wake and milk
16.45 (ish- can't remember the exact time)
17.20 (ish) - wind down
18.00 - put down for sleep (not sure what time she went to sleep)
23.00 - milk
4.00 - milk

Thurs - we were out all day so easy didn't really happen at all! Went down to sleep at 18.10, fell asleep around about 18.40, woke 22.30 and 3.30 for a feed.

Todays EASY

7am -  wake and milk
8am - breakfast
9am - put down to sleep
9.40 - nap abandoned!
11.45 - lunch
12.40 - sleep
14.25 - wake + milk
16.45 - dinner
17.20 - wind down (playing upstairs, changing into pjs, nappy change, milk, reading book)
18.00 - put down (++ crying tonight, think teeth are part of it, went to sleep at 7pm after calpol)

Would it be helpful for me to record tomorrows easy? I'm wondering whether we need to push her bedtime back as she's still taking a while to settle in the evening (I'm a bit confused though as to how much to change things when teething is still being an issue).

I'd really appreciate hearing what you think 
Thank you so much! x

xx

[Kellyjs]

Yes it will help to keep recording it hun. Teeth may be a factor and it's hard to change up the routine when that's going on too.

Yk what? What you're doing is perfect, I can't really comment on much. There will be a period when there are some one nap days and two nap,days. It's yucky and inconsistent, but we have to just roll with it. I also think it's noticeable when she does make it closer to a 7am wu in the morning she  definitely isn't interested in that first morning nap. 2 hrs. A is a bit too short really I suppose. And it does show the A can be longer and that yields a longer nap. Might not be sustainable to jump straight to one nap just yet.

As I said, I think your plan is good. Perhaps if she does wake before 7, you try for a two nap day and just a one nap on the days she wakes at 7.

BT will have to be played around with I think, but that's a case of finding what works best and I'm unsure what will now teeth are playing up  xx

[Elisanah]

Sorry, I've just realised I never replied but thank you for all of your help!

We're gradually getting there with the naps - by extending A time to 3-3.5 hours, and only giving her a short morning nap, we're back to two naps! Still having a mare with other things but that might be another post!

Thanks again!

[Kellyjs]

That's ok, I always presume no news is good news!

Yay to keeping the two naps for now, the longer you manage to hold out (within reason) the better they can handle the OT when you do fully transition. Is there anything I can help you with here or would you prefer to start a new thread? Xx

[Elisanah]

Thank you, it is more around night waking but if you're happy to carry on chatting here that would be great, your advice has really helped so far I'm happy to repost it though if you feel that would be better! (Although naps have got a little tricky again so I might ask about that too if that's okay)

The main thing I'd like advice on is how to tell whether my lo is ready to night wean and how I go about it. Her normal pattern of waking is twice nightly (normally somewhere between 9.30-12.00 and 2.30-5.00), she tends to fall asleep almost instantly during the first feed and the last 3-4 nights she has been wide awake and really chatty during the second feed (although after feeding she has generally been happy to be put in the cot and left to go back to sleep by herself). I read in the night weaning thread that can be a sign of being ready to stop feeding?

The difficulty has come from all the various things that have led to disrupted sleep in the last month (teething, eczema and asthma flare up) and I have nearly always ended up feeding her for comfort before popping her back down (she usually falls asleep while feeding). I feel that feeding is still a prop and this could be leading her to waking up more frequently. Last week I was often feeding her 4x nightly and she would wake an hour after the last feed.

I love breastfeeding her and am happy to carry on if she is genuinely hungry but I'm just not sure how to tell. But if she doesn't really need to feed I'd rather find another way to settle her as currently my oh can't settle her at night...plus I would love to get more sleep  I'm also hoping it will help her to  settle herself back to sleep without us going in. I'm not sure how to go about doing it - should I go about it gradually or should I immediately cut one feed? I think the thing that leaves me feeling nervous is how I will comfort her at night when she's upset from teething etc...feeding settles her until the calpol kicks in. I think I'm just as dependent on comforting her through feeding as she is 

Naps are working pretty well unless lo sleeps until 7am. The last few times that lo has woken up at 7 I have found the second nap to be really difficult - either she isn't tired until quite late in the afternoon which then affects her bedtime or she just refuses her second nap or she wakes up after only 30 minutes. I'm wondering whether on those days I should shorten her morning nap even further? I currently wake her after 45 minutes.

I don't know whether it's relevant to her ability to settle at night but we're still working on being out of the room as she falls asleep. we're often stuck with having a chair near the door where we sit whilst she goes to sleep. We have made big progress in the last week though as she has consistently fallen asleep by herself for her naps for about 5 days. Going to sleep at bedtime often still takes a while though and she tends to want us to stay there.

I'm sorry, I feel this is quite rambling but I hope it makes sense. Any thoughts you could offer would be very appreciated! Thank you!

[Kellyjs]

She's nearing 10mo now isn't she?

Tbh BF isn't my forte at all, it might be worth popping over to the BF board if you feel like you might get better advice there?

What I do know is that if she's falling asleep instantly while feeding, it could well be a prop rather than actually hunger iykwim? The second one where she's chatty actually might be a routine issue wrt the A time during the day.

I definitely think feeding 4 times might be a little excessive now if she's back to feeling well in herself. You could try using ssh/pat or back to your usual pu/pd for that first NW and see how it goes?

If we look at trying to reduce the NF's for now maybe one at a time wdyt? So try to resettle for the first one, then be prepared to feed say anytime after 12am for the next one. Every other time she's up, use your sleepy phrase and resettle. It might take a day or two for her to get used to it, but she will especially as you're trying to do that with naps now. I'm going to post a link for you about gradual withdrawal wrt to BT. You're just about there with it, but it helps to have a plan! (Just ignore the bit in the link about wi/wo) xx

Toddlers: Walk In/Walk Out vs. The Gradual Withdrawal Method (HOW TO CHOOSE)

[Elisanah]

Thanks for your help, yes she is 10.5 months now. I definitely feel it's more of a prop and comfort so I think I'll try to wean her off after Christmas ( can't quite face a Christmas where we're already exhausted!!).

Thanks for the link, we were making good steps towards the door but then we just stopped! We'll take it up again - although I'm really pleased with her progress with managing to settle herself - I do feel like we're getting there on that front.

Thanks for all your help

[Kellyjs]

My pleasure. That's a good plan, let's revisit after Xmas shall we? Pop back when you're ready. Have a great time xx