Desperate for advice! One year old 2-3 hour long nightwaking!

[Fazzy9723]

Hi everyone,
I came on this forum a month ago seeking advice with pupd to help with my sons nightwaking and dependency on being rocked. It was suggesed that i adjust my routine. I did so along with pupd. My son is no longer rocked to sleep nor picked up during his NW. I gave it a few weeks for adustment but it made ni difference. he still wakes 1-3 (mostly 3) times and one of these times is almost always a 2-3 hour 'wide awake episode'.
I dont know what im still doing wrong or what else i can do?!

Incoming whinge sorry.....

I can put up with the NW, but these long awake episodes are driving me mad! Im reduced to tears some nights. Its so frustrating! Why does his sleep comletely zap out of him like that? Im tired and snappy every day, and i HAVE to nap during the day or im too exhausted by evening. My eyes and head ache often! My son has never slept the whole night. So thats 13 months of sleep deprivation for me! He has very slowly reduced NW as hes gotten older, which would be great except these wide awake sessions hes been having since he was about 10 or 11 months makes up for it!

Ok whinge over...

So if someone could please shed some light on this, or just tell me what do i would be eternally grateful!

His routine is currently (sorry i dont know the abbreviations):
Morning wakes 7-730
One nap (12-1230 usually for 2-2.5hrs)
Bedtime 7-730

History (if it helps!):- very colicky first 2 months of his life, subsequently rocked and given dummy to sleep, moved to own room at 8mnths, teething frenzy 6-8mnths old, never been good napper until approx 10mnths old i started napping with him then had consistently good naps, exclusively breastfed for 6 mnths and still bf 3-4x a day now, he started crawling at 10 months and standing/cruising soon after, not walking yet, stopped nightfeeding and using dummy at 12months, stopped rocking to sleep at 13 months.

Bedtime routine: tell him its sleepy time, say goodnight to daddy, take him to his room and change nappy/clothes, brush teeth, turn on white noise (waves), read two short bedtime related books, switch off light, lullaby, rock and nurse till hes drowsy but not asleep, put him down in his cot.

 He will just turn over and go to sleep usually. Sometimes putting him down makes him alert again so he will crawl about or stand up but eventually he will get tired again and lie down and sleep. I stay with him (no engaging and with one hand on him) till hes asleep, and do that again for any NW. Eventually i would like to leave the room while hes awake, but at the moment he will cry and scream if i do.

Nap routine:- tell him its sleepy time, go to his room and chnge his nappy, roll down the blinds and turn on white noise, one short bedtime story, rock and nurse till hes asleep and then take him to my room and cosleep. During his 2-2.5 hour nap he usually wakes very briefly once or twice, but a hand on his chest and a quick shh and he will go off to sleep again.


He does not resist naps or bedtime, nor being put in his cot. When he wakes at night he cries out, i wait to see if he will go back to sleep himself before i go in (99% he does not lol). He does whinge when i lie him down but quickly quietens. He has been teething on and off (with molars, still not out yet) since he was 10 or 11months probably (i wasnt sure initually but i can see them now). But i dont think thats the cause of his awake episodes because during them hes calm and quiet but just wide awake. He seems to me to genuinely try to go back to sleep. But he will eventually get frustrated and toss and turn and crawl around the cotbed. 2 hours is a long time! I cant go off and leave him to it or he will cry. What time he has these episodes could be at any point during his nightime. Theres no pattern, i checked! Also ive never done CIO nor CC. PUPD (weĺ just PD) and gradually placing in cot awake is the only 'training' ive ever done.

Also the routine adjustment i was advised was to 2-1 nap. My son adjusted easily. He wasnt consisently getting his second nap anyway. Often he wasnt sleepy after first nap until 4pm and thats too close to bedtime.
During the day my sons generally happy babbly and full of life.
I log his sleep,he tends to get 8.5 hours of sleep at night on average. Its less than recommended but he doesnt seem tired or grumpy during the day. Just me then!

 Well thats all the pertinent info i could think to give. Sorry its a long post! I should be sleepjng right now, he could wake up at any moment. But im really just desperate to get advice!

Eagerly awaiting responses!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I would say if he seems to do fine on that amount of total sleep then perhaps you might want to think about capping the nap to get better night sleep. You mention he has never been a great napper - but has his night sleep been good up until now? My DD3 is very much a kid who will have long nw's if she naps too much (she hasn't napped at all for 6 months besides the odd day due to illness) and is perfectly happy to consolidate her sleep at night. She is low sleep needs though - do you think he is as well? We topped out at 11/11.5 hrs total sleep in 24 so I used that as my guide when cutting back the nap.

[Fazzy9723]

Hi, thanks for your reply

My sons always had nightwaking. Starting life at waking every 2.5 hours it has very slowly decreased as hes gotten older. Nowadays he wakes 1-3 times per night.

For the first time ever he slept the whole night two days ago. Although he took a while to fall asleep and woke a little earlier than usual (830pm-630am). I dont know what caused it but i tried to have a similar routine the next day hoping for a repeat performance. Nope! He took 2 hours to fall asleep and then woke once at night but took 1.5 hours to sleep again. It was his teething this time though as he was screaching and scratching his ears. Normally hes awake but calm.

Yes i thought maybe he has low sleep needs. But how do i know for sure? How do i know its not that hes just gotten used to sleeping 8 hours at night and not because thats all he needs? If it was 1 or 2 hours less than recommended i wouldnt be so concerned but 3 hours less? I dont know anything about 'low sleep needs' children though. Is it normal?

Today he napped for 1.5 hrs instead of his usual 2-2.5hrs. When i went to him he was tired and sleepy, he want to sleep more (but was distracted by noise from guests so wouldnt go back to sleep). Doesnt that show that he 'needs' more than 1.5 hrs of nap sleep, or is it just what hes become used to? he did seem fine the rest of the evening though. We'll see how tonight fairs!

According to his sleep log there have been several times when hes had shorter naps (1-1.5hrs) and  had few and many NW on those nights. Theres no pattern in when his nights are good or bad. Short naps, long naps, early bedtime, late bedtime, all seem to have produced few and many NWs. Urgh i just dont know where to make changes. And with his on and off teething discomfort it makes things more unclear. God knows what his sleeps really like without it keep coming every few days or so.

Should i just try doing 1.5hr naps for a week??

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

To me "normal" is not really a good word to apply to kids - I have 3 and they all have their own version of normal. My DD3 is very low sleep needs, which took me a bit to figure out because my older two were pretty average - high for sleep. 

It could very well be he is just used to the hours he is getting but to me if he were overtired or something you would see that in his waking hours by behaviour etc. You mentioned nursing to sleep? Is that how he falls asleep for all sleeps? If so it could be a case of a prop and when he wakes at night he cannot get himself back to sleep without that.

[Fazzy9723]

No as mentioned i do that for daytime naps only. I just wanted to make sure he gets a good long nap i to help wth his nightime issues. Im just afraid that he wont sleep if i put him down awake when its daylight and theres alot of distractions. Ive tried putting him in his cot for naps before but he wakes after 40 mins and wont go back to sleep.

However the other day i tried it again after ages, and he slept for 1.5 hrs! considering we are discussing giving him shorter naps anyway i might continue doing that frm now.

At nightime i used to rock with dummy to sleep. At 12 months i changed that to nursing and rocking till drowsy but awake. I put him in his cot on his back and he just turns over and goes to sleep himself.  It was a gradual change. If its just to make get him drowsy is it stil not a good idea? Hes used to me not picking him up nor nursing during the night. He doesnt ask for it. I dont think hes confused by the difference in naps and nightime

[Fazzy9723]

Also i remembered, his long NW started at around 10mnths old, when i was still rocking and nursing at night.  Having the props didnt prevent him from becoming wide awake and staying awake for 2-3hrs, no matter how much i rocked him. He would just lie there in my arms eyes open lol

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

At this age I would not even want to be rocking/nursing until drowsy really. After the initial few months of my lo's falling asleep bf at bedtime I worked towards them going into bed awkae and settling themselves. By the time they were this age other than teething or regressions where they needed me to fall asleep I just plopped them in bed and left them to it. It meant that at night if they woke and did not need me (ie pain, blankets tucked in!) then they were more likely to go back to sleep by themselves.

[Fazzy9723]

Well ive now gotten to the stage where i no longer rock my son at all (yey!). I do nurse him and sing a lullaby which makes him drowsy then i put him down. So youre suggesting to put him down completely wide awake? So what steps did you use to get to that stage?

Regarding his nightwaking, since adjusting his routine 5 days ago to a 1.5 hour nap plus bedtime at 8pm, he seems to be improving a bit but then he goes backwards too. He had been waking just once and then 3 times 2 nights ago. His long nightwakings went to 1.5 hrs but then 2 hrs long last night (i cant understand why as he had a good day routine). He also slept through on one night. But i cant see how that day was different to the others.

Also putting him in his cot for naps didnt go well. One day he slept for 40 mins only which caused him to wake 3x that night.

His sleeping still seems all over the place at the mo, but its early days still i suppose

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

My kids are all spirited so tbh there is no drowsy state - just on and off! So for me to be trying to get them drowsy would just be an exercise in futility. If it works for you and you keep an eye to not having it turn into a massive prop later on (unless of course you choose to do that!) then run with it for now. I just would be mindful of it going backwards.

[Maria14]

Just wanted to say we have been through this exhausting sleep nightmare too.
For us it also started at around 10 months- DD is now almost 3 and it just got better.
For us long NWs - up to 4 hrs sometimes!!- have always been due to OT.
Things were very bad when we went down to one nap and she would get OT in the afternoon if the nap was early/short.
We tried and tried with routine but didnt get anywhere really.
The NWs weren't every night just like you are describing but sometimes we had runs of 5-6 nights with 3 hr NWs in a row!! It really affected us as a family and as a couple, this sleep deprivation.
Things have got better now. but like you I was in tears in those nights and at times it felt like I was the only one in the whole world being awake for hours with my child night after night.
I was told to just shut the door and leave DD to it (she has always been independent sleeper) but I just couldn't do it and was awake for as long as her listening out and worrying about her being awake.

I don't even know what to suggest routine wise but my only advice would be to may be stick to 2 naps for as long as you can if you are still doing 2 naps, and accept a later bed time and shorter night but at least that way you LO shouldn't be overtired, if you know what I mean.
I hope it does t last for you for as long as it did for us and that things settle down!
Maria

[Maria14]

I think during 2-1 transition it can be difficult to make the second nap happen if LO refuses, unfortunately for us any longer pm without second nap meant OT and bad nights.
It's not practical driving them in the car/pushing in buggy to may be achieve a short car nap in pm to take the edge off the tiredness, but it can be helpful if you are really struggling and stuck in the OT cycle where because nights are so bad LO wants nap early in the day as they are tired.

[Baileysmom31112]

This probably sounds scary but have you considered an earlier bedtime for a few weeks? if he is really up for a couple hours a night, overall, he must be overtired. For us, it's always hard to shift the nap later in The day if they're having a rough night so the only thing we Can do is get them to bed earlier.  Like any time between 5:30-6:30. Once LO has caught up on sleep, he might be better equipped to consolidate his sleep through the night.

[Fazzy9723]

Hi maria and bailysmom, thanks for your posts!

Only just got better by 3 yrs old? Wow! well done you maria for soldiering it all that time, i can understand how tough it must have been. I dont think i would survive that long without going mad. Even one year felt soo long to me.

You know i wasnt sure about going down to one nap either, especially as my sons already lacking in sleep. But he often wouldnt be sleepy by his second nap time until late, too close to bedtime. Then that made his awake time between nap and bedtime too long, thus OT. So changing to one nap helped with his awake times. Although it didnt affect his nighttime.


But you know what ladies, my sons sleeping has improved! At first it didnt change in any way when i went down to one nap but when i started sleep training (pupd) and putting him down awake, that turned things around. He started waking mostly just once! Still had long awake sessions though. Then when i adjusted his routine to a slightly shorter nap lengh (2.5 to 1.5hrs) and later bedtime (7pm to 8pm) things improved even more!

Out of the last 8 days hes had 11+ hours of total nighttime sleep for 5 days! which is an amazing improvement from 8.5hrs. His long NW happen slightly less often and are shorter at no more than 1.5 hrs, improving from 2-3 hrs. Also he slept through the whole night twice! Yeyy. And theres been no early waking.


Ive realised that the slightest deviation frm routine makes him have NW, eg if his nap goes shorter or his bedtimes gone a bit late. So i really have to make sure hes on schedule every single day. Not easy! But i dont mind im so glad theres been such great improvement. My bodies not used to it though. I still wake many times at night lol

But thanks so much to masynspencerelliote  for suggesting to cap his naps and that he could have low sleep needs. It never ocurred to me but i think it was the answer.

Im still tweaking his routine, as i want to get to a stage where theres zero LONG awake sessions. I dont mind one NW per day if its only brief lol.

[Fazzy9723]

Also im thinking i need to really watch his awake times befoe and after the nap. It may by the last piece to the puzzle!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Oh I am so happy things are heading ina good direction sleep wise! Once you crack the A times hopefully it will be smooth sailing. My middle DD really thrived on a strict by the clock routine where her sisters did not so a set nap and bedtime once you find the sweet spot for A time might work well.