Author Topic: Where to start??  (Read 1570 times)

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Offline rachaelcole

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Where to start??
« on: January 22, 2016, 19:28:23 pm »
I've posted many times before but my little dude (who is now 6.5 months) only recently has all medical issues under control.

He is a cat napper, breastfed or rocked to sleep, awake numerous times (& by that I mean 4 wake ups is a good night!) kinda guy!

He is BF on demand & takes 3 meals a day. He can go 2-3 hrs between naps but will consistently have a catnap.

My daughter (who is now 2) never had a long nap until she was nearly 10 months old when Hubby kept her up an hour longer on my second day back st work after mat leave & she's been a superstar napper ever since.

I'm wondering if I should push for the long A time but he seems so constantly tired that we are stuck in a rut-where do we start to break out of it??

Offline becj86

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Re: Where to start??
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2016, 20:13:04 pm »
Can you post the last few days in EAS format?

I think if you want to start by pushing A times and tweak from there, best to start at 2:45 A time and tweak from there. You have to be consistent with it though, reduce by 15min if UT short nap. You may find he does settle better once he's properly tired.

Constantly tired is that OT built up from too many UT naps which aren't restorative. Pushing those A times is the best way to fix it, because he will get restorative naps if he's tired enough for a 1.5hr+nap and that will sort the OT pretty quickly. Once he's not got such a mix of UT/OT going, his nights will likely improve of their own accord.

Can you give some details on the medical issues? Those can affect the methods you might use for sleep training but I often find that getting the routine right (with props, just to get LO's body into the rhythm of sleeping when he's tired) reduces/removes the perceived need for sleep training and its much easier if not unnecessary.

Offline rachaelcole

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Re: Where to start??
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2016, 06:29:46 am »
He has multiple food allergies through breast milk which cause him an extreme amount of pain. We are 2 months clear of the last reaction & his gut seems to be healing well. He had reflux when he was younger, caused by the uncontrolled allergies. He also had a tight TT & we both suffer from thrush regularly (him orally & me in the breast) which results in him having very painful wind at night. But these are all currently under control.

We don't have a normal day as everything is on demand, but it might look something like this (note feeds are an issue as he thinks watching his 2 yr old sister is much more exciting than feeding so he tends to snack 😕)

5.30-wake up & BF
7-breakfast (porridge & fruit)
7.30/8-BF & rock to sleep. Can be set down in cot. Will sleep 30-45mins.
8-8.45-wake up
9.30-BF
10.30-BF or rock to sleep
11/11.15 wake up
11.45/12-lunch
1/1.30-BF & rock to sleep
3.30-BF & rock to sleep
5-tea
6-BF
6.15-bath
6.45-story, final BF & sleep
Night wakings 22.30/00.30/03.00/04.00 & very unsettled from there until wake up.

Going off his tired cues this is roughly want a day might look like, but because he doesn't sleep well at night I think he can't do a full A time from first thing.

Last night we had a better night so I'm going for a full first A time this morning & hoping to APOP a decent nap as my eldest is with my mum so I've got a good opportunity to try this morning.

Offline becj86

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Re: Where to start??
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2016, 20:13:25 pm »
Ok, so almost certainly your A times need an increase - average for 6 months is 2:45 to 3hr, so it might be best to start there and tweak after a few days to a week, long enough for him to settle into the routine and us to see some real patterns.

There are a couple of ways to do the increase of A time:
1. increase in 10-15min increments every few days - this can be difficult in that it will take a long time because you're starting so far behind where he should be, you can end up chasing your tail because the nap lengths don't mean anything because you're changing so regularly and he may struggle to keep up, so you'll get OT length naps when he's still on too-short an A time because he's simply not used to being awake that long, that will then stall your increasing of A times and cause more issues than it solves.
2. jump to 2:45, resettle the inevitable OT nap wakings for the first few days then watch him for a few days. This is difficult because he will almost certainly wake at 25-30min into naps for the first few days and will be whingey through the last part of every A time because he's so used to having naps so close together.

I think once his A times are more age-appropriate, he will go to sleep more easily simply because he's actually tired.

Moving naps further apart and expecting them to be longer of course increases the time between feeds. What I'd suggest is a topup feed relatively close to the main feed when he wakes from a nap so he's getting topups but also getting hungry enough for a proper feed when he wakes, eg:
5:30 - wake, BF
6:30 - topup BF
7:30 - breakfast solids
8:15 - nap
9:45 wake, BF
10:45 - topup BF
solids if desired
12:30 - nap
2 - wake, BF
3 - topup BF
4:30 - catnap (45min max, try to PD after slightly shorter A time to increase chance of short nap and waking happy)
5:15 - wake, BF (this is then tanking up for night)
BT routine incl. BF
7:30 - asleep in bed

As he starts taking better feeds, you can draw those topups closer to the main feeds and even drop them altogether if possible. If the TT is still in play, he may not transfer as efficiently so they may need to stay.