Capping nap 1

[ecwinters]

Sorry I feel like I'm constantly posting about my DS and his sleep!  I will try and be brief!

I suspect we are at the beginnings of the 2-1 (DS is just 11 months).  I've read about it and am going with shortening nap 1 gradually.  This worked AMAZINGLY about 3 weeks ago when I cut nap 1 to about an hour (previously I let him have 10-15 minutes more).  Until this week, we were doing this:

Wake up: 6:00am
Nap 1: 9:00-10:00am (capped)
Nap 2: 1:45/50-3:15pm (I usually have to wake him up)
Bed time: 6:15pm

But this week, he's started playing around when I put him down for nap 2, and taking 15 minutes + to settle.  Today, I not only had the playing around but then miserable screaming (I assume when he got fed up with trying to go to sleep!).  Eventually I calmed him down enough and he went off but I really don't want to repeat this!  He's great at going down for naps normally. 

So, I assume I need to cut down nap 1 some more?  But, do I just cut the nap and keep nap 2 at the original time, or do I need to move nap 2 earlier - so I'm keeping his awake time the same?

Wake up: 6:00am
Nap 1: 9:00-9:50am (capped)
Nap 2: 1:35-3:15pm (he may now wake earlier)
Bed time: 6:15pm

Does this look like it might work?

He gets OT very easily so I'm wondering about even just cutting nap 1 back by 5 minutes at a time?  And then, would I also have to move nap 2 earlier by 5 minutes?  I know I'm aiming (in a few months time!) to get the nap roughly in the middle of the day so I know it needs to move earlier at some point. 

Thanks very much - I just worry about his sleep so much, having worked so hard to get him to sleep a decent amount during the day (and night!).  Thanks again for your help.

[lauradj]

Hi there!  The 2-1 transition can be such a prickly time with trying to get the timing just right.  With my first boy, I actually gave him the long nap in the morning and then a CN in the afternoon and I just gradually pushed out the morning nap later and later.  Boy #2 has a CN in the morning and a long nap in the afternoon at the same time as his brother, bless you child! 
I would suggest you cut the morning nap back to just 45 mins and then have the second nap take place when you would like it to occur long-term.  As an example, this is DS2's EASY:

6:30am WU
9:30am CN
10:15 WU
1:00pm Nap
3:30pm WU
6:45pm BT

What do you think?

[trimbler]

Hi there - not wishing to contradict Laura, just giving an alternative so you can weigh them both up... Am I right in thinking that we discovered that your DS seemed to be really similar to mine in his sleep needs? Or am I getting muddled? As in, really sensitive to OT etc? Anyway, I just remember vividly that every time we shortened his morning nap (for just the same reason as you are), we'd just shave off 5mins and bring the pm nap earlier by 15mins (ie decrease the A time by 10mins) until he got used to it, then gradually bring that pm nap later again to where it was before...then at some point he'd stop settling so well so we'd shave another 5mins off the morning nap, etc, etc. We had no choice but to keep the end time of his pm nap consistent though, due to CM's school run, but it seemed to balance quite nicely for DS Oh, but hang on... No I think at this stage we just kept gradually reducing the morning nap and bringing pm nap forward, rather than pushing the pm nap later again, so that by the time he was doing a 45min nap, he was doing this (shifted to your WU time):

WU 6am
Nap 9-9:45
Nap 12:30-2:30
BT um... Maybe 6:30?

[ecwinters]

Hi
Thanks so much both of you and sorry for the delay in replying.

Woke up on Saturday morning to find DS had spots all over him!  Thought it was chickenpox but apparently it's just some other virus.  Anyway, he's pretty miserable and not settling as well for naps at the moment anyway.  So, I'm not going to change anything until he's better but I think we still do need a shift.

Both of your EASYs look great and I would love DS to do that.  Yes, Trimbler he is very similar to your DS and I remember you helped me to cut out the OT early night waking.  In fact, he's just started to STTN for some nights and we rarely get the dreaded wake up 2 hours after going down (still sometimes get the 3 hourly one but it's improving all the time!).  However to get there, he seems to need his 1 hour morning nap plus another 1.5 hour nap and then I need to get him down at night less than 3 hours after waking up from nap 2 to avoid OT. 

So, I'm worried about moving nap 2 earlier as I'm not sure he'd do a 2 hour nap regularly (although as I often wake him at 1.5 hours for the PM nap who knows?!).  I don't think he'd do your lovely 2.5 hour nap Laura though, sadly.  I have to get the A time in the middle of the day exactly right or he'll just do a shortish nap and then even with an EBT I'm pretty much sure of a rubbish evening with lots of wake ups. 

To make things more complicated, if he STTN he seems to only really do 11.5 hours, which means EBT doesn't work so well.  DH and I were discussing this earlier as we keep on getting woken at 5am each morning and it's touch and go for an hour whether we are going to have to get DS up or whether he'll doze and chat!  I don't really want to start our day earlier than 6am really. 

I'm wondering whether something like this looks really mad:

WU-6/6:15
Nap-9:15-10:15
Nap-2:10-3:45/50ish (if he'll sleep that long)
BT-6:45

So instead of cutting nap 1, I lengthen his day a bit as he never sleeps for 12 hours anyway any more.  Hopefully he might do a more solid 11.5 hour night and wake up closer to when I'd like him to get up!  His morning A is often longer than 3 hours really as he plays around in his cot for a while!

Trimbler - when he was 6 months, he needed a 3 hour A after a 35 minute nap to get a 1 hour and 20 minute 2nd nap!  He's always had a really long A time in the middle of the day.  I think TBH he could do 4 hours but am scared of trying in case he gets OT.  I don't want to shorten his night to less than 11.5 hours but I'd love him to WU a bit later.

It's all so complicated now I write it down!  I'm guessing that he needs about 14 hours sleep in 24 overall but who knows?  He gets OT so easily that maybe a bit more would be good if I could get it

Sorry this is SO long!  And thanks.

[lauradj]

It sounds like you've got things firmly under control now, at least in your head, as to how you want to move forward.  That's great!  Poor little guy with spots though, maybe Roseolla or measles?  Either way I agree with you, don't do anything until he's recovered.

[trimbler]

Aw poor thing, hope he gets better soon! I think it's quite common for some cold-like viruses to produce a rash, hope it's nothing more serious than that

Perhaps they're not quite so similar any more, my DS certainly preferred his longest A before BT at that age, but the main thing is that you have a feel for what he needs, go with those instincts just be aware that too long a first nap, after too short an A time, can exacerbate EWs, so watch out for that with the routine you suggested...

[ecwinters]

Thanks both of you.  Yes he is much better now luckily. 

Yesterday I tried giving him 10 more minutes before his 2nd nap, instead of cutting nap 1 any further, and he went down fine and slept for 1.5 hours (in fact I woke him up in the end as I wanted him to go down at bedtime). 

Weirdly though bedtime was earlier than I thought and the day ended up like this:
WU: 5:45 (he has been getting earlier and I think we do have a problem with EWs, but we are happy to have him on a 5:45am wake up at the moment as the clocks go forward at the end of the month).
nap 1: 8:45am-9:45am (woke him up)
nap 1: 1:40am-3:10/15am (woke him up)
Bedtime and asleep: 5:55pm

What does this look like as a day for 11 months?  I think the next step will be to cap nap 1 (I'l probably start it 5-10 minutes later and still wake him at the same time) as I'm worried a little about the EWs.

I'm always really surprised at his short A to bedtime, especially after 2.5 hours of day sleep, but the day was slightly over 12 hours so maybe that's just what he can handle at the moment?

Trimbler - I think you might be right about the 1st nap and EWs.  He always wakes before I am due to get him up.  I set the time for nap 1 - i.e. if he wakes and plays for 30 minutes before I get him up then I don't put him down any earlier and he's fine with that - but I'd love him to sleep more in the morning.  Having said that, 2.5 hours in the day and 11-11.5 hours at night is possibly enough sleep?  I think that's about average isn't it?  So I wonder if he's just had enough sleep.  If he goes to sleep at 5:55pm and wakes at 4:50am (like this morning - he then dozed until 5:40) does this count as an EW?

Another issue is that for the last 2-3 weeks he's been having a lovely early morning poo (!!) - sometimes I don't hear it and find out when I go in to get him up, other times I hear him about 20-30 minutes before I am going to get him up.  This morning, I crept in at 4:50am when he stirred but he was OK so I told him it was sleepy time still and crept out again.  He dozed off but then woke about 5:20 and had his poo!!!!  I'm not sure if there's anything I can do about this and DH can't believe I am discussing it on a forum (!!) - I guess it may be one of those things that will change over time.  It's annoying though as I don't know if he's waking just to have the poo and might sleep longer if not.  I'm not sure.

Sorry this is so long!  Thanks both of you.

[trimbler]

Hi there, so glad to hear he's better now

Your plan sounds good to me, although I think I'd be inclined to let him sleep longer in the afternoon to push the day out a bit? 11h sleep at night could just be enough sleep, or of course it could be the poo I'm never quite sure when it's a case of waking because of needing to poo, or just poo-ing because he's awake. My DD used to like her early morning poos Actually we occasionally still get one from her... How are his bowel movements during the day? (Yep, we're quite used to discussing this on here ) I wonder if you could encourage him to have one closer to BT in the hope that he won't then need one during the night? Eg a strategically timed laxative food? Or a bit more chance to move around after dinner? Other than that, I'm not sure there's much you can do really, it's frustrating isn't it!

It sounds like he's probably getting about enough sleep - does he seem well rested in the morning, or does he yawn constantly or otherwise act tired? I suggested letting him nap longer in the afternoon as I thought that might help him to manage a slightly longer A to BT and that would just push the day out so that he's not waking earlier than you'd hoped, ie so he's doing a 24h cycle, rather than 23.5h or something! Does that make sense?

[ecwinters]

Hello!
I spoke too soon...he's now got conjunctivitis and a cough but will hopefully be on the mend soon.  I'm not playing around with sleeps too much while he's ill but he doesn't seem to be doing anything unusual really at the moment.

The poo is annoying! This morning, he woke at 4:10am and I really wasn't sure why.  He'd had 10 hours sleep but that's definitely not enough for him.  5 minutes later he pooed and then called 'mama'!  I changed him and told him it was still sleepytime and put him back down. I honestly thought he'd never go back down but after about 45 minutes of dozing and chatting he went back to sleep properly.  So I'm assuming that he woke to poo and needed to go back to sleep?  Normally he does it much closer to getting up time so I never try and put him back to sleep although sometimes he poos and then falls straight back to sleep anyway   

He normally poos 2-3 times a day.  He used to be really regular - after breakfast, then lunch and sometimes tea but it seems to have changed.  He loves prunes so I'm going to try giving him them with yoghurt for tea and then get DH to chase him round the house for a bit!!!  He eats a lot so I assume he needs to poo a lot too!  I just wish he'd pick a better time. 

He seems well rested in the mornings - happy to get up and go!  But he's always ready to go to sleep 3 hours after getting up.  However, this could be habitual.  With the 2nd nap.  Do you mean trying something like this:

WU: 6am
Nap 1: 9-10
Nap 2: 1:55-3:40 (i.e. give him 1 hour 45 minutes if he'll take it)
Bed: 6:40pm

This would give him 2 hours 45 minutes of day sleep and 11 hours 15 of night.  I'm worried that's a long day and he'll be OT but could try?  Do you think it looks reasonable?

If we pushed the 1st nap out a bit and capped it instead, how much would we need to do it to make a difference do you think?  I thought about trying 15 minutes less to get this:

WU: 6am
Nap 1: 9:15-10:00 (45 minutes)
Nap 2: 1:30-3:15 (I'm not sure what time he'd need to go down to get a decent nap here, so I'm only guessing at 1:30.  I'm cutting back 10 minutes for every 5 minutes I cut off the start of the nap - does that make sense?  Because he's losing 5 minutes of the nap AND gaining 5 minutes of A time...)
Bed: 6:30pm???
Then hopefully an 11.5 hour night.

I'm not sure which one looks best?  Really, the EWs have only started since he's been STTN.  Which is clearly a good thing but I'd rather not be awake at 5am every day!  If he has a bad night (the other night he was restless and coughing in the middle of the night) then he'll tend to sleep later in the morning.

Thanks so much for helping again!

[trimbler]

Oh dear sorry he's ill again hope it's short-lived!

I just meant to let him sleep in the afternoon, I'd say up to 2h even. As long as there's enough day sleep, some LOs are fine with a 13h day, I know my DS was happy with that at this age, as he got plenty of daytime sleep - on days when he didn't nap so well, we'd go for EBT,  but the days with long pm naps always resulted in the better nights. However we did find that he had a limit as to how short the nights could get before he ended up too tired in the morning - just before dropping to one nap, he did fine with 10.5h naps, but once on one nap, the shortest we could let the nights get was 11h. Just an example of course, you'll find out what your DS needs at night to be well rested the next day. Our DD needs much longer than he did, for example - 12-12.5h at the moment, and it never got much shorter than that, even at transitions.

So you could try something like:

WU 6
Nap 9-10
Nap 2-4
BT 7

Which would be 14h overall. If he doesn't really need that much I'd be inclined to start capping the morning nap, I actually used to keep it at the same time and just cap it shorter. Since he seems to like a short first A, I'd probably do that as he'd end up more tired if he stayed up a bit later and then was woken earlier. But perhaps start with letting him sleep longer in the afternoon, wdyt?

[ecwinters]

Hi
Thanks for replying.  He looks a bit better today - still very red round the eyes though.  Yesterday he did his usual 1hr and 1.5hr naps and then STTN for 11 hours straight.  BUT...this was from 6pm-5am and he wouldn't go back down!  He woke up and coughed for a bit, so I went in and offered him a drink...then about 10 minutes later he had his lovely early morning poo  .  DH volunteered to go in and change him (this amazed me!) and then put him back down and told him it was still sleepy time.  DS clearly didn't believe him.  He didn't cry, but just sat up in his cot and sucked his thumb as if waiting for something to happen next!  Of course by then it was nearly time to get up anyway.  He may well have dozed off again out of sheer boredom if we'd left him long enough but maybe not.  Anyway, we all got up at 5:45am and started our day. 

I'm guessing that he does get about the right amount of sleep - 2.5 hours for naps and 11 hours at night is OK I think when you look it up on various sites.  DS has ALWAYS fallen short of the BW sleep totals despite my best efforts.  I know he was often OT though when he was younger but I think he's a lot better now.  The problem is that, now he STTN quite a lot, he just does a shorter night and so we struggle to make it through 24 hours.  If he has a bad first part of the night, he'll sleep for longer in the morning (to catch up I suppose), or at least if he does wake about 5am then he'll resettle a lot more easier.  He's just started to resist going back to sleep at that time.  And of course, we have the poo issue!

I'm worried that if he does 3 hours sleep in the day (I can't remember when he last got that much sleep in the day - probably many months ago) then he'd do an even shorter night.  Also, at some point we'd have to give him a 14 hour day to stretch from his 5am early wake up right through to 7pm for bed time.  I think he'd be exhausted by that point even with 3 hours of sleep.  I'm just really worried about making him OT again.  I was wondering about using the clocks going forward in 3 weeks time to my advantage (kind of!) and just getting him up at 5am and starting his day and trying this:

WU: 5am
Nap 1: 8-9
Nap 2: 1-3
Bed time: 6pm

This of course would then translate into much more reasonable times in 3 weeks time without actually having to change anything.  And then hopefully the poo would then happen after we'd got him up.  But I really don't want him to keep getting earlier and earlier and the danger is that he'll then do a 10.5 hour night after 3 hours of daytime sleep and we'd be back to where we started again.  I could try it though, I'm just a bit scared to!

I wonder if there's some in between option that I haven't thought of yet?  Do you think he could possibly be waking at 5am out of habit?  Or OT? 

Thanks so much!

[lauradj]

I'm just going to throw this out there, feel free to discard it.  When DS1 was this age, he was doing lots of early morning WU's, which just about did me in.  I started the 2-1 transition with him and when I got him down to 1 nap a month later, the early WU's stopped.  Do you think that might the case here?

[ecwinters]

Hmm, I'm not sure really!  We didn't transition to 2 naps until he was 8 months but he started sleeping better after that (naps and night).  But he was actually getting MORE sleep during the day after the 3-2 transition as he used to just do mainly short naps before. 

His A time is still really short though - apart from the middle bit of the day which is 4 hours, he does 3 in the morning and less than 3 (about 2 hours 45 mins).  So I thought we still had some way to go before dropping to 1 nap.  But at some point I suppose I'll have to cut nap 1.  I can't do that at the moment though as his day-night cycle is still under 24 hours!  Yesterday went:

Awake (in cot): 5am
Get up: 5:45am
Nap 1: 8:40-9:45 (woke him up)
Nap 2: 13:35-15:05 (he woke up)
Bed and asleep: 17:50

Then I heard him sometime before 5am this morning coughing away - thing is, he's still a bit ill so that's not helping at all.  He then dozed on and off until 5:45am when I got him up.  DH thinks that's OK but I feel like it's wasted time and if he cries I spend an hour going in and out of his room trying to settle him which is not much fun for anyone.  He clearly tried to go back to sleep this morning but it didn't work (or at least not for longer than 5-10 minutes). 

He seems tired at the moment, but agaun I'm not sure if it's because he's ill.  I feel a bit confused with it all to be honest. 

thanks again for the suggestions.

[lauradj]

Honestly, if he's not crying but he's just lying there dosing, leave him to it.  He may very well fall back asleep, which is the best case scenario and otherwise, at least he's lying quietly in his room in the dark.  He's still resting, even if he's not actually asleep.

[ecwinters]

Hi again.
Trimbler, please could I just clarify about capping nap 1:

I just remember vividly that every time we shortened his morning nap (for just the same reason as you are), we'd just shave off 5mins and bring the pm nap earlier by 15mins (ie decrease the A time by 10mins) until he got used to it, then gradually bring that pm nap later again to where it was before...then at some point he'd stop settling so well so we'd shave another 5mins off the morning nap, etc, etc. We had no choice but to keep the end time of his pm nap consistent though, due to CM's school run, but it seemed to balance quite nicely for DS Oh, but hang on... No I think at this stage we just kept gradually reducing the morning nap and bringing pm nap forward, rather than pushing the pm nap later again.

At the moment I still have:
WU: 6:00
Nap 1: 9-10
Nap 2: 13:55-15:25 (I have tried letting him go longer, but now he's better he does't sleep longer than this, and he's beginning to play around at the start of the nap time again and cut it short i.e. 1.25 hours). 
Bed time: 6:15

Would you reduce nap 1 in 5 minute increments? And do you mean then move nap 2 forward by 15 minutes?  So
Nap 1: 9:00-9:55
Nap 2: 13:40-15:10 (or hopefully later?)

When I last reduced nap 1, I took 10 minutes off but kept nap 2 at the same time - it worked really well but after a week I thought it was actually a bit much for DS and added 5 minutes back onto nap 1!  So, taking 5 minutes off is good, but I'm wondering if moving nap 2 forward by 15 minutes will make him UT?  I guess I could start there and see what he does   At least then I can always shift it back. 

The thing that puzzles me (and is annoying!) is his very short A time to bed.  If he naps 1.5 hours for nap 2 then he can just make it 3 hours (I get him in bed by 2 hours and 50 minutes) but a shorter nap means I need to put him down 5-10 minutes earlier than this.  If he'd give me a longer nap 2 then maybe I could stretch him by 15 minutes or so, but I'm not sure.  He's still so sensitive to being OT at bedtime!  He'll be one year old in 2 weeks time though, so I feel this is a very short A time!  Do you think I should continue putting him down this soon after nap 2, or would he gradually get used to a longer A time?  I'm still battling with staying on a 24 hour cycle and don't want to keep pushing bedtime earlier and earlier...

Thanks so much...again!

[trimbler]

Don't try to follow what worked for us rigidly - it's likely to be different for you. That 5/15mins thing probably only worked because we 'caught' his need for change at the right time for that approach to work, iyswim? So you may well be right that you only need to shave off 5mins (for example) and keep the second nap at the same time, or perhaps keep the A time the same so that it just comes forward by 5mins, if that makes sense? It seems that yours likes the middle A to be the longest, whereas my DS was very sensitive to OT in that middle A, which is probably why we had to be so careful and bring the second nap forward whenever we reduced the first nap. So I guess I'm just saying to follow your mummy instincts on that one

As for the short last A time - we still have that with our DD, anything more than 3.5h and she starts to struggle, and that's at 21mo! I've heard of other LOs who like a short A to BT, so certainly not unheard of, although IMO a bit limiting for the afternoons If you know that's what he needs, I'd probably suggest to work around that, it may change of course... hTH?

[ecwinters]

Hello again.
Sorry for the very slow reply - DS was ill (again!) and then grew a tooth so it was difficult to see what was happening with his sleep! 

That's interesting about your DD.  Is she on 2 naps a day at 21 months still?  Or if she has one, is it later, rather than in the middle of the day?  DS now seems to cope OK with 3 hours and 5 mins (!) A time from his 2nd nap to bedtime.  So he is very gradually increasing it - there's no rush though as he's still only jut 12 months.

I haven't done anything about capping nap 1 due to illness/teeth but interestingly once DS was better, for a few days he started waking up from his 2nd nap after about 1 hour 10/15/20 minutes.  This gave us a slightly shorter day than 12.5 hours but the early wakings were considerably better!  He still woke up before getting up time (maybe about half an hour) and played around but I can live with that if he's happy.  Then yesterday he did more sleep in the day (about 2 hours and 40 mins) for some reason - and this morning he woke early again (only did a 10 hour 20 min night).  So I'm really confused because it appears that too much day time sleep makes his nights shorter.  And a 10 hour and a bit night really isn't enough I don't think.  It was a struggle to keep trying to resettle him this morning and he got quite annoyed after an hour. 

Is it possible that 2 hours and 15 (ish) sleep in the day and a fairly short day (i.e. just over 12 hours) is OK?  I know on previous posts it's been suggested that I could give him 3 hours of daytime sleep and try for an 11 hour night, but I'm really worried that he's just do a straight 10 hour night if I did that.  I know that early waking is often because they are over tired though, so I don't want to start cutting back the day sleep without being really sure that it will work.

Thanks!

[trimbler]

Hi there, sorry to hear about more illness and teething Hope he's better again now?

DD was a late 2-1 transitioner, but has been on the one solidly since the beginning of the year - well, I say solid, but it's very recently that her new routine has stabilised, since I got caught out by her need for a much longer first A compared with her last A! Not entirely sure what it is right now though, due to illness and teething and of course clock change thrown in for good measure but it's something like 5.75h 1st A and 3.75h 2nd A. Funny though, as I had been expecting that she'd need to be able to manage a much longer 2nd A before transitioning to one nap, but that turned out not to be the case at all - so I wouldn't worry that your DS is just doing 3h 5min to BT at the moment, it will likely increase gradually but you don't have to get it to 5h or anything like that before transitioning, so definitely no rush

Hmm I'm always wary of saying that something definitely will or won't work but I would tend to go with your gut instincts, to start with at least It does sound from what you've described that his more natural pattern might be to shorten his pm nap and that might just be making him that little bit more tired by BT so that he pulls a good night. It's certainly possible (perhaps even common) to need to put a cap on total daytime sleep, in order to get a good, restful night. And EW can be UT as well as OT. Would you like to post a recent day where he had a naturally shorter pm nap, mostly so we can refer back to it later? I do like it when they do things naturally which work out well for us all Self-regulating is great when it happens

[ecwinters]

I think I spoke too soon about the self-regulating!! He's still waking up early.  He's better now though thankfully.  I think another tooth may appear soon though...

I have to say, I have no idea if he's under or over tired.  It's so hard to tell as he's happy most of the time whatever you do. 

3 days ago, he did this:

WU: About 6:15 (although he'd woken before 5 and then played around for a bit before dozing off again.  I got him up at 6:30am)
Nap: 9:30-10:30
Nap: 2:25-3:55
Bed: 7pm
BUT then he woke at around 5am the next morning.  He'd woken from both those naps himself and I hoped that he might do more than a 10 hour night

For the past 2 days he's also woken early, around 5am.  I was worried that he was OT by such a long A time in the morning (although I don't get him up until 6:30 as I keep hoping he'll go back down!) so I put him down 15 minutes earlier for his first nap both today and yesterday.  Unfortunately, this resulted in him capping all his naps like this:

Nap 1: 9:15-10:20 (I was going to see if he'd go on and wake up nearer his usual 10:30 and so catch up on a bit of sleep, but he didn't!)
Nap 2: 2:15-3:30
Bed: 6:55pm (he played around before settling - he was in bed before 6:30pm)

Nap 1: 9:15-10:10
Nap 2: 2:05-3:20
Bed: 6:30/35pm (he did actually seem tired - rubbed eyes - but then got hiccups so took 10 minutes to get rid of these!)

So, both days ended up slightly short but with slightly less sleep.  If he caps a nap at around 1 hour 15 is this UT?  He usually does longer for this second nap, but that's with more A time before the first nap, so he's probably more tired.  The ONLY time I've had any sleep cues from him was tonight, when he rubbed his eyes as I was putting his babygro on!  He often rubs his eyes when I put him in his sleeping bag for naps, if he hasn't been doing so before, but for the past 2 days I've had none of this.  He's woken happy and doesn't seem tired - but who knows!?

Even DH is at a bit of a loss and he's normally the one who makes suggestions about what to try next!  We're not sure how he can't be OT with all this early morning waking but maybe it's his way of giving himself more awake time?  But if it is, we're not sure what to do about it.  The only thing we can think of is to cap the first nap shorter to see if this helps him sleep in a bit longer in the mornings.  Like:

WU: 6:30 (we live in hope!)
Nap 1: 9:30-10:15
Nap 2: 1:55-3:25 (moved forward 15 minutes)
Bed: 6:30

But then he'd really have to do an 11.5 hour night or we'd be in danger of creeping earlier and earlier (and we haven't got the clocks to help us this time!).

Does that seem overly harsh, cutting the first nap to 45 mins?  It would give him 2 hours and 15 minutes sleep, which isn't that much but if he did a 11.5 hour night it's about right I think. 

To be honest, we have no idea any more!!  Sorry to ramble on.  Is there any good way of telling if they are OT or UT?  Thanks so much!

[trimbler]

Oh sorry didn't mean to give you false hope - I wouldn't expect him to be able to self-regulate just yet, but it's nice when it seems to happen on occasion

I know just what you mean about the OT/UT conundrum! I'm afraid the best I can do really is to say stick with something for a while, whatever it is, until it becomes really obvious. Eg I've found at times with DS that whatever I did he just wouldn't settle at BT for ages, this went on for a good while, but he seemed pretty happy on it - so I finally deduced that he must have been UT and changed things. On the other hand, when DD was around 12mo I thought we had UT NWs, so tried to push her more, only to find that things got loads worse and she was really showing lots of tired signs during the day, so I finally realised it must have been OT after all and that sorted it out. So... I guess I'm saying, let's plump for the most likely scenario, whatever you think that is, take the appropriate action and stay with it a while, see if things improve or worsen. A nap of 1h 15mins could be UT, but I've also known it to be OT. Try and keep looking at the day as a whole,  as I think you already are, take into account what's been happening earlier in the day too. The one reliable sign of OT in general for us has been those early evening NWs. But then again, DD's long NWs weren't at that time, she didn't do those early evening ones at that time, so just because you don't have them doesn't necessarily mean not OT.

So...if you feel that capping nap 1 further would help things, then go for it, stick with it a few days if you can, and see how that affects everything else. Tbh I would guess that the 10h nights are most likely OT, especially if there are days when he drops back off again before WU time. But then it could be that trying for a longer pm nap could help stop that OT build up by BT, whilst still accruing the A time that he needs - our DS definitely needed that. Sorry if I've confused things, I guess I just want to say trust those mummy/daddy instincts and follow through

[ecwinters]

Yes I think you're right  we just need to stick with something! 

Last night, he did a lovely 11 hour night, which is the best we usually get out of him!  No OT early night wakings either - yes, DS still does this when he's OT too.  He did wake briefly around 2:30am but was back down in 10 minutes.  He's definitely growing the 2nd tooth of the pair (the other is nicely through now!) so it could have been teething pain...but who knows!?  So giving him a shorter day, with slightly less day sleep, may work if he does longer at night.  He happily played around in his cot for about 45 minutes before I got him up for the day, so at least he was resting there too.

My instinct is that is just doesn't like long days, even with more sleep.  I know he doesn't like 12.5 hour days, even with 2.5 hours of sleep which is the most I can really get out of him reliably. 

Today, I tried pulling the 2nd nap forward slightly (to give him 5-10 minutes less A time).  I wonder if I have been pushing that middle A a bit too much as it's basically at 4 hours now after a 1 hour AM nap?  He went down straight away, which was good but then a motorbike woke him after 55 minutes and he cried miserably!  I didn't want to get him up as he clearly didn't want to be awake - but I had to go in and calm him down before he'd go back down.  So, it was a broken sleep and I can't really tell what he would have done!

I will try again tomorrow as I do think he gets slightly OT with our current routine and I agree that 10 hour nights are probably OT.  He was very tired at bedtime because of the rubbish 2nd nap so it may be all messed up tonight but we shall see!

Thanks again for all your advice!

[trimbler]

Yay great to hear of the good night How annoying about that motorbike keep us posted

[ecwinters]

...and after the motorbike he did an 11.5 hour night!!  The best he's done for ages.  He was OT though as he thrashed around and cried out at the 2 hour and 3 hour mark in the early evening (but was still asleep) and also woke once at some point in the night (sat up and cried and then flopped down again before I even had a chance to get out of bed!).  But at least he managed to catch up on the sleep. 

The following day, he capped his first nap at 50 minutes - and then did a lovely 2nd nap of 1 hour and 40 minutes! (Still gives a total of 2.5 hours though - this seems to be his max!)  So I think capping the first nap might be the way to go, but I am going to try for a few more days leaving it at 1 hour and shortening the A time between 1st and 2nd naps.  I tried today, but he had hiccups and so didn't go down until a 4 hour A time - then did a rubbish restless sleep of only 1 hour and 10 minutes.  I suspect he was OT - he seems to get OT so easily!

Recently, he's started to go to sleep initially at bedtime but then wake after about 10 minutes and roll around, eyes open briefly etc. and then he'll go down again properly after about 20 minutes of this.  Is this OT too?  Some days, it seems nothing I do will stop this baby begin OT at bedtime!! 

Thanks so much 

[trimbler]

Hey sounds like great work Hmm... Could be OT at BT, or perhaps some discomfort - that can lead to waking after just 10/20mins. Or some noise disturbed him, or he did the usual 10min 'jolt' but happened to bash an arm against the cot bars or something?