Capping nap 1

[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?