Early wake ups and playing at bedtime!

[ecwinters]

Hi
DS is nearly 13 months and has always been a rubbish sleeper!  However, I have had some fantastic help from people on this forum (thanks so much) and we have struggled on through

I know we are approaching the 2-1 and I've read the info and have a plan (I think!).  I am going to keep on capping nap 1 and then move nap 2 forward gradually until it becomes his only nap.  I need to do things very gradually as DS is sensitive to both OT and UT (!!) and 5 minutes here and there can still make a difference to him. 

We've been having early wake ups in the mornings for some time, but DS has been ill and teething and so I left changing anything until he was better.  Also, I wasn't sure whether the EWUs were because he was OT or simply because he'd had enough sleep.  His routine a couple of weeks ago was like this:

WU: Any time from 5am 
Get up: 6:30 (he nearly always chats and plays/dozes until getting up time)
Nap 1: 9:30-10:30 (capped)
Nap 2: 2:30-4:00 (capped)
Bed time: 7:00

He always settled pretty well at bedtime despite the short A time to bed.  However, he did seem tired still and we were getting these EWUs and only 10 hour nights sometimes.

DH then got involved and we decided to make sure that he wasn't OT.  We decided to let him have a longer 2nd nap, but cap the 1st at 50 minutes and slightly shorten his A times like this:

Get up: 6:30
Nap 1: 9:20-10:10 (capped)
Nap 2: 1:55-uncapped in theory but we usually wake him around 3:45
Bed time: 6:45

This was interesting as the EWUs did seem to improve (we even got a couple of 11 hour nights!).  After a couple of days both myself and DH decided that it was helping the OT - he looked better in the mornings and was less grizzly after nap 2.  HOWEVER, things are never simple with DS as he's now started to play around at bedtime - I'm sure it's because he's not tired enough.  We tried giving him a bit more A time to bedtime but there's a limit to how long we want the day to get really.  Plus, when he played around a lot at bedtime he then went back to shorter nights, so I'm assuming that this was OT again!

We are thinking that the next step is to cap nap 1 further (we will try 45 minutes now) and this will then slightly shorten the day again, enabling us to have a longer A time to bed.  We may also cap nap 2 at 1 hour 45 minutes although I suppose once we cap nap 1 further we won't need to do this.

Get up: 6:30
Nap 1: 9:20-10:05 (capped)
Nap 2: 1:50-3:35 (capped)
Bed time: 6:45(we are going to start with an A time of 3 hours 10, and add on 5 minutes at a time to see what happens). 

Any thoughts or ideas from people who have tried a similar thing would be much appreciated.  I hope this is the correct place to post this - I have had other posts in the other sleep boards previously, but now DS is 1 year I think this is the correct place to post about all sleep issues?

Another thing we did think of was whether it's developmental as DS always chats away at bedtime (and we sometimes hear him in the night too).  It's just a string of the words he knows, which can be very funny (car...car...bird...all gone...etc.) but not when I think he should be sleeping!  In which case, do we just pick a routine which should work (in theory) and stick with it?

Thanks so much everyone.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Yes you are in exactly the right place! Welcome to toddlerhood lol

I would say for sure it is down to the 2-1 and perhaps partly just development. The first A is pretty short...so besides just capping the first nap you may want to bump it ahead a bit (sometimes too early of a nap can exacerbate the ew as they count on that sleep coming sooner rather than later). Also just be wary that every sleep isn't capped in some way - ie either he wakes in the am on his own or from one nap so that if he needs to tack on he has the chance. 

[ecwinters]

Thanks!

Nap 1 used to be at 9:30am (3 hours A time) but I pulled it back a bit since I've been capping it at less than an hour because I didn't want him to get as tired.  I don't think I could push it later than 9:30 as the whole day gets too long and, as you say, it's nice to let him go for as long as he likes for the 2nd nap.  I know that an early 1st nap can make the EWUs worse though - does this still apply even if it's only a 45 minute nap?

Is 45 minutes a reasonable length to cap one nap at this stage?  I've been gradually capping it bit by bit - I liked letting him have an hour but then the 2nd nap became too late to let him have a longer sleep.

How does 3 hours 45 minutes A time after a 45 minute sleep sound?  DS has always done his longest A time in the middle of the day but I'd like to pull it back a bit (again, so the day doesn't get too long) - however, I can't seem to get him to go down any earlier at the moment.  Not sure if this is because he's UT or OT!!

DS has always done better with shorter days and longer nights - and this still seems to be the case.  We're getting lots of horrible 10 hour nights at the moment (with bits of early morning dozing and playing!) which means that he wakes up quite grumpy!  I'm not sure how to give him a longer night though as he is taking 30 minutes to settle at bedtime and seems to wake up early whatever time I put him down 

Thanks for all your help.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Tbh I hae never gone the long route of the 2-1 by shortening the nap - we did the jump cold turkey all 3 times!

I would at least keep the first nap at the same time, shorten it and bring the 2nd nap closer to.it as the 2nd A does not need to be too long after a 45 min nap. The day does tend to get long while they are at the end of the 2-1.

[ecwinters]

Thanks for replying again!  I'm not sure DS is a cold turkey kind of baby, but you never know!

For the last 3 days I've put the nap back to 9:30...so

Get up: 6:30
Nap: 9:30-10:15
Nap: 13:55/14:00-15:30 (he's woken up then each day)
In his cot: 6:30

The first 2 days of this he was asleep in 20 minutes at bedtime which is much better.  But tonight he struggled again - have no idea why as his days have been the same and we'd done nothing tremendously exciting in the afternoon!  It must be developmental - as I can't figure out why otherwise.

It's annoying though - I wish I could help him a bit.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Might he need a bit more physical activity? We always get better bedtime when they are worn out from a lot of outside play!

[ecwinters]

I try and do things like take him to soft play in the afternoons and/or for a walk to get some fresh air (I heard that getting out in the light in the afternoons is supposed to help!).  But he's nowhere near walking, so we can't do outside play yet really...