Overtired? Undertired? LO no longer goes down at bedtime.

[Meghanwho]

We've been following the bw routine for a while now, and for the most part it's been very good for us.

For the last few days though we've run into this issue.

Morning naps are good, albeit sometimes they can be a bit short. LO is 10 weeks and he doesn't show any real cues that he's tired. He yawned when he was younger, but he seems to have stopped that until it's wayyy too late. The other classic signs of tiredness are just things he has always done, so it's hard to find that perfect window.

But back to the issue at hand: for the afternoon naps, he'll usually go down great. Falls asleep with minimal fussing. But he won't stay asleep, and naps get shorter the later into the day it is. Eventually at bedtime he'll go down perfectly (usually) just like the other naps. But then he's up 30-40 minutes later and he is up for HOURS (sometimes falling asleep for 10-20 minutes seemingly to recharge just to freak out more). First just fussing, then full blown screaming meltdown, and eventually it's like it becomes a game. Spit pacifier out, laugh and smile and coo at mommy. Then eventually more screaming.

It doesn't matter if I stay with him to help support him through the different stages of sleep. Shush pat doesn't soothe him, even holding him doesn't stop it.

Eventually it becomes time for the d/f, which has just been a regular night feed the last few nights because he won't fall asleep before it happens.

We've tried longer wake times and shorter wake times. I just don't know what the problem is.

Any insights? Sorry if the post seems disjointed, my brain is a little bit rattled.

[theu.s.lees]

Hi there! Hugs first of all. That can be so exhausting and take a toll on your evening. Would you mind posting a typical day to help get a better idea of where the issue could possibly be? Also what kind of wind down routine do you use for naps and bed time.

[Meghanwho]

Our day is pretty much this:

E 7am
A After bottle is finished (I EP so all meals are bottles, which he typically finishes in 15-25 minutes)
S 8ish

E 10
A
S 11ish

E 1
A
S 2 (this is where naps seem to shorten, or he wakes up and I give him his soother to coax him back to sleep. Other times he sleeps fine here.)

E 4
A
S 5ish for 45 minutes if he sleeps that long. If he wakes up a lot I try to coax him back to sleep until 6 to make it 40 minutes total.

A 5:45/6 (bath/massage or just massage if it's not bath night, diaper change)
E 6:15
A Quiet activities like chatting or cuddling, nothing too stimulating. Then wind down around 6:45.
S 7pm

10:30pm d/f

Then he sleeps through until 7. Sometimes he wakes up around 5/6 but he'll go back down with a soother.

Wind down for naps is going into the bedroom, closing the blinds and saying goodbye to the light. Then we turn on his white noise machine, swaddle, and into bed.

Wind down for bed is the same, except we read 2 books before turning off the light, etc.

I feel like he could use longer wake times, but when we tried to extend them he just seemed to get overtired and really fought bedtime. We pulled his wake time back to an hour today and his naps were all great, but once again he is losing his mind at bedtime. He fell asleep for 20 minutes and then is up scream crying which is the norm for the last few nights, regardless of whether I'm with him or not. He's not even interested in the soother when he starts up, which works for all his other fussing.

Luckily my SO is home tonight to support.

[Meghanwho]

Random note, but he's currently stopped crying and is smiling/cooing at me and smacking his legs against the mattress. I'm not making eye contact to avoid him thinking it's play time. If I avoid interaction long enough he starts gearing up to freak out, and then I try to give him the soother to head it off, and he just spits it put and laughs/coos again.

It's this behaviour that makes me believe it's not gas or something making him uncomfortable...

Edited: we put him down at 7 and he finally fell asleep around 11. He slept for 20 minutes around 10 but of course woke up before the d/f so once again he was awake for that which kind of defeats the purpose. Sigh. On the bright side, most of the time he was awake he was happy/trying to play, which is an improvement on screaming fits.

[becj86]

You may find he needs to be up a little longer than an hour. At 10 weeks, he's probably starting to wake up from the sleepy newborn phase and be ready for 1:15A time or maybe even more - 'average' at 13 weeks is 1.5hr awake time.

[Meghanwho]

We had been trying to extend his wake times, but when we did this actually started happening. I know it isn't necessarily connected, but he also started taking short naps (45 minutes) when we started extending his wake time to 1.25 hours.

Yesterday we pulled it back to an hour and he napped like a champ again, but we still ended up fighting him at bedtime. 

[michaeljacknnugg]

I get similar here! I think it's down to OT and getting past the point of no return for us, but I'm darned if I can get more day sleep into him...

[becj86]

Ah, just clicked - he's sleeping lots in the morning and not so much in the PM? I think his night is running 11-midday or so and that's why he's sleeping so much in the morning but not going to sleep well in the evening. What do you think?

I'd definitely increase those A times in the morning, make an effort to get outside if you can, particularly in the first A time of the day - natural light can help his body clock sort itself out. Maybe when you first increase the A times again, just be there ready to resettle.

[Meghanwho]

Ah, just clicked - he's sleeping lots in the morning and not so much in the PM? I think his night is running 11-midday or so and that's why he's sleeping so much in the morning but not going to sleep well in the evening. What do you think?

I'd definitely increase those A times in the morning, make an effort to get outside if you can, particularly in the first A time of the day - natural light can help his body clock sort itself out. Maybe when you first increase the A times again, just be there ready to resettle.

Yes! I'm not sure what happened to make his sense of time shift, because he definitely used to be better. Maybe because it's dark now outside until after 8, darn winter. We'll definitely try this, thank you!

[becj86]

Pushing that first A time in the morning is key to shifting the day back into daytime and night back where it should be. It will be hard initially and he'll be grumpy through the last part of the first A time but after a few days if you're consistent, it should fall back into place.

[Meghanwho]

Pushing that first A time in the morning is key to shifting the day back into daytime and night back where it should be. It will be hard initially and he'll be grumpy through the last part of the first A time but after a few days if you're consistent, it should fall back into place.

We started this morning, but only got an additional 10 minutes out of him before he seemed dangerously close to getting OT. Should I be shooting for 1.5 hour wake time in the morning? I'll push it a little further each day until we hit that. He did better staying up later for the afternoon activities, so hopefully we'll get him back on track. ☺

[becj86]

A little OT in the morning is ok, you just have to be ready to resettle the OT nap waking. UT naps and long term buildup of OT is much worse than OT before one or two naps.

I don't know that you need to go as far as 1.5 hr A time as yet but more like 1:20 is probably reasonable.

[Meghanwho]

So I've been extending his awake time to 1hr 15/20 min (making sure it's nice and bright/active in the morning so he knows the day is starting), and now everything sucks. His morning naps suck, his afternoon naps suck, and he's still losing his mind when I try to put him down to sleep.

At nap time he usually goes down alright, maybe fussing for his soother a bit, but they're all short naps, 30-40mins. Sometimes I can entice him back to sleep to draw the nap out a bit. Bed time is a wash. As soon as I turn on the white noise machine he starts whining, and as soon as I lay him down to swaddle he freaks out and rejects all attempts to soothe him with a paci.

Now he stays awake crying (sometimes he'll sleep for 10-30 minutes but then he's right back at it) until after 11pm, he is never asleep for his d/f anymore, and he's been waking up around 6am instead of 7am, obviously because he's sleeping so poorly the day before.

He does stop crying if I pick him up, but I can't get him to be drowsy. It's 8pm now and I've got him out on the kick and play, and he's happy and loving it, simply because I can't take him crying anymore.

Any more ideas/help? He's 11 weeks now, if it matters.

Thanks in advance. 

[becj86]

Can you write out what your day looked like, eg.
7 - wake, feed
8:20 - nap
9 - wake
etc.

That will help more as 30 and 40 min naps mean different things.

[Meghanwho]

Here is yesterday...

E 6:30am (woke up at 6, went back to sleep until 6:30)
A After bottle
S 7:50 (fussed, asleep by 8, woke up 40mins later. Got him back to sleep after 10 mins.)

E 10
A
S 11:15 (asleep by 11:22, no fussing. Woke up 50 minutes later and wouldn't go back to sleep.)

E 1 (awake since 12:20ish)
A
S 1:40 (fussed, finally asleep around 2, woke up 50mins later, got him back to sleep after 25 mins.)

E 4
A
S 5 (went right to sleep, woke himself up 40 mins later.)

A 5:40
E 6:30
A
S 7 (freaked out until around 8:25, slept for 25 mins, then freaked out until 10, then slept and didn't wake until 7am this morning.)

[becj86]

Ok, so I think you need to increase that A time a bit - all those 40 and 50min naps are UT and he's OT by the end of the day because he's not had any restorative naps, hence the difficult evening.

[Meghanwho]

Should I be aiming for 1h30m then, instead of 1h20m? 

This would all be so much easier if he showed any real tired signs lol. 

[becj86]

Yeah, it is easier as you get to know the tired signs but if you're putting hm down before he's tired, you won't see them

I would am for 1:30 and see how it goes.

[Meghanwho]

OK, so new issue related to the current issue...

This morning LO woke up at 6:30, when normal w/t has always been 7 until this random interruption in our routine (we run a 7-7 cycle).

When this happens, what do I do? Should I feed him at 6:30, or just do A time until 7 and then feed? He doesn't wake up through the night to eat, so his last feed is the 10:30-11pm d/f the night before.

He also was only awake for 1h10mins before he started fussing. We put him down right away, he fell asleep within 5 mins, and he napped for 1h30mins, which makes me think we got his w/t right for the first nap of the day at least.

But now the issue is that everything is shifted for the day and the 3h cycle isn't lasting a whole 3h. (From wake to wake was only 2h45min.) How do I make up the lost 15min? If this happens periodically through the day it will shift bedtime earlier.

[becj86]

Yes, he's not a robot, the day will shift a bit as his A time changes and he takes naps of different lengths. The point of this routine, EAS is that there is some predictability for LO and for you.