Can we possibly be ready for the 3-2 transition?!

[ecwinters]

Just a quick update - last night was not as good as the previous night! After waking after 2 hours, he then woke up after another hour and again about 11:30pm.  He then slept through, although was quite restless - I know he woke briefly at least a couple of times but resettled himself quickly.  He woke quite early - about 5:30am I think - but went back to sleep eventually on his own. 

Today we had to do a catnap after a first nap of 35 minutes and a 2nd nap of 1 hour, 15 minutes.  I gave him 20-25 minutes in the buggy and then he was in bed an hour after the catnap ended.  Took him 10 minutes to drift off to sleep (6:15pm).  HOWEVER...he's just woken up (8:45pm) so he must still be OT!  It seems like whatever I do he has these early night wakings. I know that babies naturally wake up a lot during the night so is it possible he just does 'normal' wake ups but struggles to resettle himself?  Or is there something else going on?

I feel if I could crack the first nap we would be be progressing but it seems to be either 30 minutes or 35 minutes!  I know that everyone says push the A time (we are on 2.5 hours) but is it possible that he would do better on a shorter A time?  I'm reluctant to push the A time if I'm already getting an OT nap.  I know a lot of routines have a short (2 hour) morning A time but I also know that people say these make early morning wakings worse.  And of course if I try an earlier AM nap then we'd be back in 3 nap territory because there's no way he will do 2 naps long enough to fill the day

Sorry for another long post.

[ecwinters]

Sorry again!  Just one other quick thought...
Is it possible that he 'waits' for his evening feed?

I give him a feed any time (when he wakes) after 3 hours.  So far tonight he's woken at 8:45pm so DH resettled him and he's just woken again (9:10pm!).  If I feed him, he'll go back down for a while - he doesn't then usually wake until gone 11pm.  I'm unsure as to whether he really needs a feed at night.  He's 20lb and he eats well (solids) and has 4 milk feeds during the day too.  Could he be waking up and crying because he knows he's going to get milk at some point?

Just wondered?

[trimbler]

Hmm not sure about how many EBTs you can do - what time did he wake after the last one? I'd personally try to use EBT to catch up on OT when you feel he needs it, he might not be quite ready to stretch without the CN regularly yet, that 2h post BT nw was most likely OT. But you could try 5.30 and see how it goes... I think just try to stay flexible depending on how naps have been, keep offering the CN if you think that might be better on a given day - I used to do something like offer it but if still not asleep after 30mins then go straight into BT routine. I think he may be closer to the transition than you think

[ecwinters]

OK thanks.  Today we had a long 'catnap'!  It was 50 minutes or so and then he went to sleep an hour and a half afterwards - still did a 2 hour wake up!!  DH thinks it's habitual or something.  Basically he does early night wakings every night - no matter what's happened with naps.  Last night he did 4 between 8pm and 11pm and then slept through. It's so weird.

I'm still sure that sorting out nap 1 will help...somehow!  I put him down 15 minutes earlier today and got a 30 minute nap.  He went to sleep fine and didn't seem OT but you just never can tell with DS - his only tired cue is rubbing eyes and he normally only does this when I start putting him down anyway!  It seems to make little difference what I do.  The A time was 2 hours and 15 minutes but he'd been awake for at least 10-15 minutes in the cot before I got him up, plus I know he was awake at 5am (but he then went back to sleep!). But I have to count A time in the morning from when I get him up or it gets too confusing.  I'm not sure if I should try putting him down even earlier - it seems like going back about 2 months!

He's 8 months old tomorrow so really should be doing more than 2 hours first thing I think?

[trimbler]

Sorry I didn't see your second post before my last reply, for some reason! Tbh I'm not sure about the waiting to feed thing, does he take much milk do you think? He sounds like he's probably having enough opportunities to eat during the day... Any way you could reduce the length of time he feeds at night, if you do this gradually he may be able to make up for it during the day... He's bf isn't he? Sorry can't remember! I could ask a bf mod to pop over if you want to investigate this further - how many times are you feeding him at night usually?

Ok so I really would agree that he'll need more than 2h before his first nap, a 30min nap can be UT but he may show tired signs when you pd because he's so used to the routine, his body is telling him it's time for sleep. What was his A time the last time you got a longer am nap? I really wouldn't have thought he'd need less than 2.5h, can you stick to that for a few days and see what happens? Getting him down even earlier is more likely to end up with EWs I'd think.

Those evening NWs are usually OT here, or discomfort. It can take a while to get over it though so it may be that if he's having these wakings every night then he's just struggling to catch up on lost sleep, do you have a feel for how much sleep he's getting on average over 24h, and how much he was getting when he last had a better 24h period?

[ecwinters]

Ah I didn't know a 30 minute nap could be UT too?
Today he did 35 minutes!!! With 2.5 A time.  He woke up crying and miserable but that could mean anything!!

The last couple of nights have been MUCH better for evening wake ups - only one (at 10:30pm) last night which isn't really an early wake up - and then he slept through.  Same the night before.  I've been doing extremely short A times after the catnap to bedtime which seems to work, so he still has been getting to bed 'early' i.e. more than 12 hours before his getting up time which seems to suit him.  He's been resettling in the mornings too quite a bit. 

Tonight though I did an EBT and skipped the catnap as he woke from 2nd nap at 2:20pm.  In bed and asleep at 5:45pm.  He was OK until 8:20pm when he woke up and we've resettled him a couple of times.  So, that's probably OT again!  I think at least I can explain the NWs now (thanks!) and sometimes I just can't do much about them - I suppose I could have done a short catnap today but then bedtime would have been later which he doesn't much like either!  It's just this first nap that I'd like to fix now.  But it's always been rubbish - apart from a period of about 2 weeks when he started to sleep for about an hour - no idea why!  His A time in the morning (from getting up) has never been more than 2 hours and 40 minutes.  I've had longer naps on 2 hours 40 and 2.5 hours - but we decided to leave the A time at 2.5 when we decided to cap the first nap.  I never wake him from the first nap now, but he never goes over 35 minutes at the moment anyway.  I suppose at some point I'm going to have to push to 2 hours and 45 minutes and see what happens for a bit.  But the more I push out the morning, the less time I'll have for the catnap so I'm not sure what's best. 

I think at the moment he's getting about 13.5 hours in a 24 hour period. Between 2-2.5 hours in the day and then about 11-11.5 at night.  He's always in bed for at least 12 hours but it depends on how much he wakes up!

[trimbler]

Sorry not much time but looks like you're working out some patterns, which is great We sometimes had 10min CNs and then not much time at all till BT, you can always try that if you think best on a given day... With pushing out the morning nap - which I still think is worth a try - if it's long, then great, he may not need the CN; if short, you could still aim for the second nap around the same time as usual, which would mean a shorter second A but when you consider both 1st and 2nd A times together, he'll probably be tired enough for a decent pm nap. So I wouldn't worry about that

[ecwinters]

Yes we used to do 10 min catnaps when he was dropping the 4th nap - he doesn't really like them but they might be necessary soon!

OK that sounds a good idea about the timings of the naps.  I think I'll try pushing nap 1 to 9:15 (2 hours and 45 mins A time) but then if he does only 30 minutes I can keep nap 2 at the usual time of 12:30. 

It's a bit unrepresentative at the moment as DS has a bad cold and is sleeping lots - but he's done a longer morning nap both today and yesterday.  In fact today's was 1 hour and 40 minutes (I woke him in the end but didn't really want to!) so we've had 2 nap days and EBT.  Tonight he was asleep at 5:30pm which is the earliest I've ever put him down!  When he's better I'll start pushing that first nap to 9:15 and I'll see what happens.  If I get a 30 minute nap would you just keep it there for a while and see what happens?  How quickly would you push to 9:30?  What about if I still got a 30 minute nap at 9:30?  Would that mean I'd need to push it even later or could be doing a longer morning nap be one of these things that might always be hit and miss?

Thanks very much.

[trimbler]

Aw poor thing hope he's better soon But on the plus side, we can hope that these long naps are training him in better sleep habits I'd just keep the A times as they are until the naps start to shorten again, and I'd let him sleep for up to 2h. When they start to shorten, take it as a sign that he's starting to get better and push to 9:15 the next day (or take it more gently if you feel more comfortable with 9:10, say, you don't have to use 15min increments), see what happens, don't worry about the next move until then The good news is that it does sound he'll be ready to drop that 3rd nap completely by the new year, if not before

[ecwinters]

Thanks!  He's still doing a longer first nap so we're having lovely 2 nap days!  Night have been really good but the last 2 nights we've had that 3 hour wake up after bedtime creeping in again!  Which always means he's more unsettled for the rest of the night.  But at least I know that it's probably OT and I can put him down earlier tomorrow to try and sort it.  5:30pm bedtimes have worked really well the couple of times I was brave enough to try it! 

Once he starts doing a short nap again in the morning I'll stretch his A time a bit and see how we go.

Thanks for your help!

[trimbler]

Sounds like you have it all worked out

[ecwinters]

Just jumping back on here...it was lovely while it lasted!

Now I seem to have a new problem in that if I get a good first nap, I can't repeat that with the second nap.  I haven't had to push the first nap out as all the EBTs have resulted in DS being ready to start the day at around 6 am (which is OK - but I don't want it to get any earlier!).

We've been getting a longer nap at 9:00, sometimes until about 10:15 which I think is probably a result of the increased A time (nearer 3 hours now and sometimes more as I often wake at around 6 to find him awake too!).  So that's great.  However, I can't seem to get a decent second nap, meaning that the A time to bed is still too long - or we have to do a tiny catnap which doesn't seem to help the OT from building up.  Even if I cap nap 1 at 1 hour, I can't seem to get a decent 2nd nap. 

I've tried a 3 hour A, but get a 40 minute nap.  (3 hours works fine after a short (35-40) minute first nap though).
3 hours and 10/15 minutes A time gets me about an hour long nap, which is about as good as I've managed at the moment.  Today, I pushed it out to 3 hours and 25 minutes and got a 30 minute nap!!  I'm not expecting 3 hours 20 minutes to work miracles (although it's possible!) but assuming it doesn't, I'm stuck with days like this (at best):

Wake up: 6:00
nap 1: 9:00-10:00
nap 2: 1:15-2:15
Then I do EBT at 5:30/5:45

He usually refuses the catnap and even if he does, and I give him 15 minutes about 5:00 and have him in bed by 6:00, he still does OT evening wake ups.   He only really takes the catnap if he's woken before 2:00, or (like today) done a really rubbish nap. 

I honestly don't think DS needs 2 long naps (for him, 1 hour and 20 minutes - we never get more than this) but I can't seem to space the sleep out to get him through to bedtime without the OT.  I'm not sure if this is as good as it's going to get, or if I should cap nap 1 at 40 minutes again, and put him down for nap 2 at 1:00?  Not sure that gets me anywhere though as he'd still wake at 2:20 at the best!  There may not be a good answer, apart from sitting it out, but I just thought I'd ask.  I suppose as he gets older (he'll be 9 months on the 23rd) he'll gradually cope better with the A time to bed?  I don't like putting DS to bed at 5:30 all the time as I don't really think I can expect 12.5 hours of night sleep (even if you take off the wake ups) - but maybe it's the only option?

Sorry to ramble on - I'd be grateful if anyone has any comments please, even to say that there's no good answer!

Thanks!

[trimbler]

Tbh I wouldn't worry about long nights, if he does them then great! Actually we've just been through a phase where DD has been doing 12.5h nights on days when I'm home, DH can't get her to bed early enough for that when I'm working but she needs it when she can. We've even had phases, more with DS, of regular 13h nights, especially when naps were bad. Why not stick with the routine you posted above for a few days, then try pushing the second A again? When you get the 30jin naps, can you resettle at all? Don't be afraid of EBT if it seems to work for him

[ecwinters]

OK great - we've been just doing the EBT and its OK at the moment.  Yesterday I got nearly an hour for the 2nd nap with 3 hours 20 A time, but today, only 45 minutes.  I am going to keep slowly pushing out the middle A time like you said - if nothing else, it shortens the A time to bedtime!

After the 30 minute nap the other day he woke and then lay happily sucking his thumb for half an hour!  No noise at all - if I hadn't had a visual monitor I wouldn't have known he was awake.  I can rarely resettle him - he sometimes does it himself, but usually if he lies there for a while but doesn't go back to sleep then there's no point in trying to persuade him!

[trimbler]

Haha I only have the audio monitor and have sometimes wondered whether they've actually been awake quietly for a long time before making a noise, based on their tiredness levels afterwards - but then again I almost prefer not to know sometimes

There's always a middle ground - you don't have to do a first nap of 1h or 40mins, you could do anything in between, I actually got to the point with DS where I just couldn't get a decent pm nap without slowly trimming the am nap, so I think I started out capping at 1h 10mins, then 1h, then 55mins... And so on! Sometimes it only takes a little change. Really glad the EBT is working for you though