Author Topic: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!  (Read 5353 times)

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Offline ecwinters

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #30 on: October 18, 2015, 14:40:58 pm »
Sorry to come back on this but it's getting even worse!

We moved the first nap out to 9:45 (from a 7 am) WU time but we are still only getting 30-35 minutes.  He wakes up tired and miserable.

Also, I have just had a 30 minute nap for the 2nd nap too!!  He is so OT but I can very rarely resettle him if he wakes up whether it's an OT or UT sleep - it makes no difference. As he goes to sleep independently there's little I can do unless he does it himself.

Last night he woke 6 times:
8:45 (self settled)
9:45
11:45
12:50
2:00 (self settled)
5:00

Then went back to sleep until 7 am when I woke him.  I feel like I never sleep any more and I don't know what to do to help him!  The only way he will resettle at night is with a feed - only needs to be a couple of minutes so he's not hungry - so he's clearly comfort sucking!

I am dreading tonight after such an awful day of naps! 

I might put his first nap back to 9:30 because it has only made it worse - at least I was getting a longer 2nd nap most of the time.  We are nowhere near getting rid of that catnap as he'd have to do a much longer 1st nap.  Arrgghh!

We are a bit at a loss now.

Offline becj86

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #31 on: October 18, 2015, 22:43:13 pm »
Maybe he just needs his A times increased in smaller increments - if he's so difficult to resettle it might be easier to increase by 5min every few days than in 15min chunks.

What was the reasoning behind capping the morning nap at 40min?

Offline lily_layne

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #32 on: October 18, 2015, 22:56:48 pm »
(((hugs))) If he was giving you a better nap at 9:30, I would stick with that.
DD - August 2012
DS - November 2014

Offline ecwinters

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #33 on: October 22, 2015, 13:17:42 pm »
Yes - he's pretty much impossible to resettle!  I do try - but he can keep up the screaming for 45 minutes so I often just get him up straight away.

The problem with the morning nap is that he'll normally do a short nap (40 minutes).  So we decided to start capping it at 40 minutes because then at least I'd know when the 2nd nap would be!  It was getting so unpredictable.  Also, when he did do a longer 1st nap it was very very rare to get a decent 2nd nap even with a longer A time.  He doesn't usually get 3 hours of sleep during the day (he may or may not need it - who knows!?) it's more like 2-2.5 hours.  So I think two 1.5 hour naps would be too much for him possibly.  The other day he did a 40 minute nap, then a 1.5 hour one - waking at 2:40pm.  He then refused a catnap and went to bed at 7pm.  He didn't wake up until his usual 3 hourly wake up and didn't sleep any worse (or sadly any better!) than usual and didn't seem overtired even though I would never willingly keep him up for over 4 hours!

I think ideally I'd like to get an hour out of him in the morning and then a longer 2nd nap - and get rid of the catnap.  Once the clocks have changed I will start slowly pushing the A time in the morning to see if that helps.  He did 2 hours and 50 minutes (he woke early) this morning and still only did his usual 40 minutes.

One thing that has happened in the last two days - 2 teeth have started to come through (front bottom) - his first two!  I would love to put the last month of terrible nights down to teeth but don't believe I can!  Giving him meds makes no difference to his nights.

Another thing - I was reading another post on this board and realised I should have mentioned that DS had silent reflux when he was younger.  He was on meds for that but it upset him, so I literally cut everything out of my diet that might irritate his reflux, raised his cot on a slant and he was much better - it had basically cleared by 5 months.  Anyway, since we've been on solids, a few foods have seemed to make the reflux flare up again - apples, carrots (maybe?) and mangoes.  We tried cheese yesterday just because I want to try him on dairy and he is really refluxy and hiccupy today.  Went back to the doctor and got new meds - so will start trying them and see if they make a difference.  His cot is still raised on a slant. He doesn't appear to be waking up choking as he did when he was younger, but I guess if he's even a bit uncomfortable then this might disturb him enough to not resettle by himself?

Sorry for another huge post!

Offline lily_layne

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #34 on: October 23, 2015, 01:27:54 am »
Reflux certainly could be causing sleep problems. We have a reflux board if you want more specific support for that (and lots of mamas with reflux experience).

It ok if you choose not to resettle. Life's too short to be spent in a dark room trying to get a baby back to sleep. Some moms on here just made the decision to not resettle and get on with their day after short naps as it just added too much stress.

It sounds like you know that 3 hours day sleep is just not what he needs. Some LO's just don't and it can cause lots of problems trying to get them to sleep more than they need. The day you posted with the 4 hours to bed actually doesn't sound too ridiculous. A lot of routines in other books/websites have shorter first A times and a long A to bed. If you felt 4 hours was too long, you could go for BT 3-3.5 hours after the last nap (so if he woke at 240 aiming for asleep by 615ish). I have been rereading BWSAYP and Tracy mentions only a 2/2.5 hr first A time at 6 months (nap around 9/930 if awake at 7) and a longer last A once the CN is gone rather than pushing all As out to ditch the CN.
DD - August 2012
DS - November 2014

Offline ecwinters

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #35 on: October 25, 2015, 19:40:28 pm »
Thanks, I will go over and have a look at the reflux board.  So far it's inconclusive whether the meds are making a difference. The bottom teeth are both through but there may be top ones coming through...and he has a cold!  There seems to be always something.

I think he may just like a shorter first A time.  The issue with DS is that he almost never sleeps until getting up time so the A time from wake up to nap 1 always varies - which is why I like setting that first nap as it's too unpredictable otherwise.  At the moment I do a 2.5 hour A between getting up and nap number 1 - sometimes he is falling asleep as I'm putting him into his sleeping bag but other times he's fine.  DH is reluctant to cut this A time as he feels it will make the EWUs worse - but I'm not sure.

After some dreadful nights, we decided to try cutting out all the feeds except the first feed.  It wasn't helping DS sleep well - he was practically waking up every sleep cycle for milk at once point!  I am reluctant to cut out all feeds as I am not 100% sure that he won't be hungry even though he eats well in the day.  The first night it took DH 1.5 hours to resettle DS for one of the wake ups and we had many other shorter ones.  However the next night I resettled him 4 times and it was quite quick each time.  Last night we also tried wake to sleep for the first wake up, as it's definitely habitual, and he woke up 40 minutes later than he normally does - and then slept through until after 6am!  We are going to keep on trying the wake to sleep and see what happens tonight.

I would prefer to feed DS early morning as I think this would encourage him to resettle and sleep later - do you think this might work?  Or would it disturb him more?  I would have no idea how to introduce that feed though - I'd also have to cut out the early night feed too.

Also, now the clocks have changed we are stuck on a 6am-6pm routine which is a little early for us - also makes EBT a bit too early!  I have no idea how to shift the schedule of a baby who doesn't ever sleep through until wake up time though - I can't wake him up 5 minutes later each day and putting him to bed later doesn't make him wake up later.  Should I just try getting him up 5 minutes later each day and shift feeds, naps etc. accordingly?

Many thanks for your help.

Offline lily_layne

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #36 on: October 26, 2015, 01:53:02 am »
It is always something, isn't it! I hope the cold doesn't last long.

That's great that you're seeing progress at night! Keep at it - you may hit a blip around night 3 or 4 but keep going and you should see improvement again. Keeping 1-2 NFs is totally reasonable at this age. WRT the early feeding, if he's not waking between 4 and 5 there's probably not much you can do. My DD preferred her NF earlier in the night whereas DS was more of an early morning guy. If he is waking then, a feed would likely help him sleep a bit longer.


  The issue with DS is that he almost never sleeps until getting up time

What do you mean by getting up time?

If he's waking at 6 with the clock change, when was he waking before? If it was 7 then that may be earlier than you like but definitely not an EWU! There's likely not much you can do to get him to sleep later than 7 so I wouldn't push that nap later if you've discovered he likes that shorter A time first thing. Really, almost all other routines I've seen have that first nap at 9/930 after 2/2.5 hours of A time. It just seems to work well with most LO's body clocks. I found that the first nap was easy to set. I just went off of DS's usual wake time and a 2.5 h A time so it ended up being at 9:30. If he woke earlier (say 6), I would put him down at 9/9:15. Even if he slept in until 730/745 he was still ready for the 930 nap. It worked great.

We don't change clocks where I live so I don't have experience but I think a lot of parents just push BT 15 minutes later every 3-4 days until you are back to where you were before. There may be some other threads about it or something in the FAQs.

DD - August 2012
DS - November 2014

Offline ecwinters

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #37 on: October 27, 2015, 18:08:05 pm »
Hi!
Getting up time - a while ago I decided to set the time I got DS up as he always woke at a different time each morning (sometimes would sleep until 7, other times woke before 6) and this was throwing the whole day off.  If he's crying then I do get him up, but if he's playing and/or dozing then I just leave him and get him up at the same time each day.  I've always ignored the time spent in the cot as it gets too confusing otherwise.

To be honest, the first nap isn't great at the moment - today it was 25-30 minutes, yesterday was 35 minutes and the day before was 40.  I have looked and looked for patterns and the ideal A time in the morning but even if he wakes at the same time two days running and the A time and activities are the same, one day it can be a rubbish nap and the next day I'll have to wake him.  That's really why we started capping that first nap - so at least I'd be able to set the second nap as well and have some predictability. 

I've pushed bed time by 10 minutes tonight but I don't think this will make him wake any later.  I may have to post about shifting schedules if I can't find any threads about it! 
Thanks

Offline lily_layne

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Re: Nearly 6 months and NW gone crazy!
« Reply #38 on: October 27, 2015, 23:03:28 pm »
That makes sense with the getting up time. I do pretty much the same with my LOs. Capping the first nap so you can have predictability was a sanity saver for me. I was always second guessing otherwise and I got tired of calculating A times. I think Tracy says somewhere in BWAYP that LOs between 6-9 months often do have one short nap and there's not much you can do to change it.

Sorry that I'm no help with shifting. Feel free to start a post if you need.
DD - August 2012
DS - November 2014