Author Topic: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's  (Read 2291 times)

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Offline jennfullwood

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6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« on: June 28, 2016, 23:01:40 pm »
Hi!

I've received great advice from moms here for my now 4 year old when he was younger. I'm hoping to get some ideas for my 6 month old baby girl now. We're having problems with NW's and EW's (5:00-5:30am). She is just a few days shy of 6 months. Very calm, low key, happy baby. She's hefty...about 20 lbs.

For the first 5 months, I fought her sleep thinking she was OT all the time. I could not get her to EVER nap more than 30-40 minutes starting from 3 weeks old. I would leave her up the recommended amount of wake time for her age - sometimes a little more, she would give no tired signs, and sleep only 30-40 minute naps IF I could get her to sleep at all. Many times she would not go to sleep at all, she would just cry and I would treat it as OT thinking she had stayed up too long so I'd stick her in the moby wrap and try to carry her to sleep. That didn't work half the time. Knowing that 30 min naps tend to be OT, I constantly tried putting her down earlier for naps, never extending her A time, which just made the problem worse. I was beside myself and so frustrated. She never has slept through the night - we've always had NW's of sorts but not so much the EW's too. Finally at 4-5 months I started really extending her A time (ignoring what I thought were OT 30 min naps) and finally she started napping longer stretches. Now at almost 6 months, I can easily get a 2 hour nap once a day, and then usually a 1.5 hr second nap in the afternoon. I know at this age most LO's still have a 3rd catnap, but there's no way with her. Her A times are long for her age (lately 3.5 hrs after a good nap) and she handles them very well...little to no fussing at all. Sometimes she will go so long without getting fussy (3.5+ hrs) that I finally just put her down and end up getting an UT nap of 30-40 minutes and she wakes completely happy and unable to resettle. I have found that 30 min naps are still UT for her...usually meaning very UT (no fussing or tired signs whatsoever before putting her down for a nap). I'm almost sure at least.

I've pretty much come to accept that she is a low sleep needs baby - completely opposite my son which is why I have fought this so hard and so long to make sure it's not OT. I will put her down about 8pm for bed (I do try for earlier, but she is not interested in sleep without a longer A time of 3-3.5 hrs before bed). Sometimes I can get her down at 7:30pm if she has had shorter naps through the day. She will wake usually around 10:30pm and I can usually resettle this waking pretty easily. Sometimes it takes up to an hour though. Then she'll wake again anywhere between 2 and 3am - I feed her here and she usually goes back to sleep easily but I think she could sleep through that feeding now. Sometimes there are other random NW's but these are usually always present. And then the EW - she's been waking earlier and earlier every morning for about the past 2 weeks. She used to sleep until 7 or 7:30am. She's now waking between 5 and 5:30am! Her nights are between 9 and 10 hours - this seems way too short to me. But she usually wakes happy in the morning playing in her crib and eventually starts crying when I don't come get her after about 15-20 minutes. Rarely can I resettle at this time. If I do, it takes about 30 minutes to resettle (almost like she has to get tired again) and she will sleep for just a few minutes and wake back up or at the most 40 minutes, but again, this is rare. When she wakes this early, she is not hungry. I've tried feeding and putting her back down but she won't eat much and usually will not go back to sleep. She can still easily do her normal wake time of 3 to 3.5 hours before her morning nap, then usually naps for 2 hours. Then she'll have an afternoon nap. If she sleeps more than 1.5 hrs for her afternoon nap, I can't get her to bed until after 8pm. Even at 8pm, she doesn't seem tired enough for bed and will usually roll around cooing for 20 minutes until she drifts off to sleep.

I really don't feel like this is OT at this point. She is really happy all the time and is able to settle herself to sleep easily if she is tired enough. But when she wakes at night, she doesn't settle back to sleep herself and sometimes the NW can be long. Like I said, we've always had lots of NWs since the beginning...I've never been able to get her sorted out. The EWs are new as of the past 2 weeks.

Here's our EASY this past week:

Wake and E - 5-5:30am bottle - only 2-3 oz as not hungry
A - small amount of veggies or cereal
S - 8:30/9:00am - 10:30/11:00am (usually always 2 hrs as long if A is long enough)

E - 6 oz bottle at waking
A- some veggies
S - 2/2:30-4/4:30 (usually this nap is only 1.5 hrs, sometimes even 40 - she really needs a long A)

E - 6 oz bottle on waking
A - some veggies/and or cereal
Bedtime- 7 oz bottle. I try for 7 or 7:30pm but she doesn't seem remotely tired. Usually can put her down at 7:45-8pm depending on her last nap and she'll put herself to sleep in her crib within about 20 minutes or so. If she's not tired enough, she'll start crying after a few minutes and I just get her back up and try again in about 15 minutes. Eventually she'll be tired enough and will go to sleep on her own after I lay her down.  If her second nap is 2 hours, it really makes for a late bedtime. She just doesn't seem to get tired!

I know this is a SUPER long day.  My son would have never tolerated this. His days were only 12 hours for the first year and he screamed when he was barely tired. She really seems like she just doesn't need as much sleep, which I am ok with if that is the case, but these NW's and EW's have me stumped. For so long I have treated them as OT, and they were worse. I have a hard time believing she could need this smaller amount of sleep, but honestly I have been spinning my wheels for months trying to treat it as OT. Could she possibly still be UT at bedtime and maybe I need to cap the second nap?? Or should I cap her first nap and go for a 2 hour second nap a bit earlier in the afternoon and try to move bedtime up? Can UT at bedtime cause NWs and EWs?

I don't believe she is teething and she has no discomfort that I know of. I have tried Tylenol to make sure and it does not help with the wakings. She is rolling all over her bed now, but she sleeps on her stomach and seems comfortable. She's been sleeping unswaddled for the past month and is pretty used to that now. She loves sleeping on her tummy. She does have a small amount of veggies and cereal during her A times about an hour after her bottles -we started this about 3 weeks ago and she seems fine with the foods.

Can anyone give any insight on this? I would greatly appreciate ANY advice, especially from moms who have had low sleep needs babies. Thank you in advance!
« Last Edit: July 03, 2016, 00:23:51 am by jennfullwood »

Offline ginger428

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Re: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2016, 03:33:12 am »
Hi there!

So glad to hear she is a happy baby! But I see it's been hard to figure out what's been going on! Just some background... I have a low sleep needs son, and he has always needed about 1-2 hrs less than the lower end of the average amount of sleep, and in retrospect, he probably needed a LOT of physical activity and decent stimulation during A times. Around 6 mo, we also started getting 2 hr naps from frequent 30 min naps, but only propped on Daddy mostly. The second nap was a lot shorter, around 30-45 mins. We always dropped our naps early. We also had "EWs" between 4:30-5:30 often, too, but even with those EWs, I'm almost certain that we still kept bedtime between 5:30-7:00.

Several things come to mind for 6 mo olds in general...
Growth spurt, wonder week 26, and physical development (oh the rolling and moving around all the time!).  These could certainly be playing a role in the sudden EWs and NWs, especially if she is generally waking happy the have happy NWs. If this doesn't improve with things you try but suddenly get better as she nears 7 mo, it may have been the developments.

For EWs, many people have suggested to me to keep LOs in bed until desired wake up time. While I know that's hard when a child is crying or when you have NO energy to stay with them/soothe them until time to get out, it was worth it to me to try it. I would try keeping her in bed, as dark as possible, until at least 6:00am. Another piece of advice I had been given was to keep morning nap time consistent, give or take 15 mins to help set the clock no matter what.

Could she possibly still be UT at bedtime and maybe I need to cap the second nap?? Or should I cap her first nap and go for a 2 hour second nap a bit earlier in the afternoon and try to move bedtime up? Can UT at bedtime cause NWs and EWs?

She could be UT for bedtime, but OT in general as her nights are short, broken, and may be not as restorative for her (which incidentally comes with developmental leap territory and could be a matter of riding it out). How do you resettle her at the 10:30 wake? If you're not feeding, this wake might be a sign she's generally OT. She may be compensating her night time sleep with day sleep, so IMO it might be worth capping the second nap.  What was her avg ONS? If it was 11-12, I would aim to put her in bed no later than 6:30 and adjust the second nap accordingly... maybe even taking an UT tired nap around 2:30.  If this works, it could help her catch up on ONS and then you can work toward adjusting bedtime back to 7/7:30.

I know that sometimes set times were easier to handle than figuring A times, and if she's only giving you that UT nap in the pm, it could nice to get her tired for bed as I mentioned... so something like:
5:30 wake (definitely keep trying to resettle until 6:00 at least)
9:00-11:00 nap
2:30-3:00/3:30 nap
6:30 in bed

I do recognize that she is so different from your son and sounds similar to my lo. I think she may be a lower sleep needs child, but it also sounds like she's hit a developmental stage that has upset sleep patterns for now. Hopefully this will pass really soon! But if not, let me know what you think about the suggestions. =)

Offline jennfullwood

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Re: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2016, 14:53:03 pm »
Hi Ginger! Thank you so much for replying and helping me tackle this baby's sleep routine. :) I know I'm still scratching my head wondering what I'm doing here. Low sleep needs is new territory for me. I'll answer your questions and then I'll post our past 3 days/nights since I first posted. It's been interesting.

Yes, I think some of it is developmental too, but she has always had massive NWs, but the EWs are new as of the past two weeks or so. She used to sleep until around 7am. I also always try leaving her in bed until at least 6am if she's waking in the 5 hour area, or until 7pm if she's waking at 6am. I usually can bc she plays in her crib by herself for the first 20 minutes or so until she gets mad. At the 10:30pm waking, I let her fuss until she starts crying and I can tell she's not going back to sleep and I go in and give her paci. Sometimes this and patting her bum a few times is enough, but for the past 2 weeks, this waking has been really hard to settle and usually takes up to an hour before she is fully settled. I don't feed her here. She doesn't cry after I go in to her - she just tries to go back to sleep over and over but it's almost like she can't settle into sleep enough to fall asleep. She'll just kind of turn side to side until finally she's comfortable enough to get back to sleep.

So here are the past 3 days/nights since I first posted. My goal was more to follow her tired signs rather than the clock, because I kept getting UT naps and UT bedtime too, at least it seemed, especially before bedtime. The biggest change was leaving her up longer before bedtime (I know that goes against common sense but it seemed to help).

Day 1

Wake - 5:15am (in bed until 6:45, could not fully resettle but she rested some)
S-9:35-11:15 (1 hr 45 min)
S-3:05-4:30 (1.5 hr)
Bed - 8:15 (tried earlier but of course she wasn't tired) She rolled around for a bit and settled herself to sleep this night)
NW-11:30pm (instead of 10:30pm - settled at 12)
NW - 2:00am - fed and back to sleep
Woke for day - 6:00am

Day 2

Woke - 6:00 (in bed till 6:30, would not resettle at all)
S- 9:40-10:40 (1 hr - did not get her out of bed til 11am)
S- 2:35-4:00 (1.5 hr)
Bed - 8:05 (this was a longer A before bed - 4 hours, she didn't get fussy until 7:45pm)
NW - 12:30am (instead of 10:30pm - settled back by 1am)
NW - 4:00am - ate and back to sleep
Woke for day - 6:45!!!

Day 3

Woke - 6:45!! (in bed until 7)
S 10:35-11:15 - (40 min - UT)
S - 2:25-4:00 (1.5 hr)
Bed -   8:15 (another 4+ waketime before bed - surprisingly she did not seem tired here, it took her about 15 minutes to get sleepy, but it was a lower activity day (carseat and shopping quite a bit and her naps were on the UT side as well)
NW - back to 10:30pm but she almost resettled herself. I thought she went back to sleep but then started crying after about 10 minutes. I resettled by 11pm (seems like the less tired she is going to bed, the earlier this waking is and harder to resettle)
NW -3:45!! - ate and back to sleep
Woke for day - 6:45!!!


So it seems that the longer A before bed does extend the wakings a bit and she sleeps til later in the morning - we've had two 6:45am wakings in a row which is great! So I'm not sure if this helps make sense out of anything. It seems like the best thing to do is cap that 2nd nap so she can get tired before bed earlier. I honestly don't know if I could get her sleep by 6:30pm, but I will give it a go! Her last nap would have to be really early and short. She would need at least 3 hours Wake time after a 30-40 nap, maybe more before bed, from my experience. I'm not sure what ONS is? Overnight sleep? When younger, she would easily do 12, even 13 hours because I had so much trouble getting her to sleep through the day, but it was very broken then too as she has always had lots of NWs at night. I would say the most she would do now on a great night would maybe be 11 hours. I don't ever expect 12.

Can you help make some sense out of this? Thank you so much!! I appreciate it greatly!
« Last Edit: July 01, 2016, 22:25:02 pm by jennfullwood »

Offline FPT23

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Re: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2016, 23:32:51 pm »
Hi! Just sharing some thoughts! Great advice from Ginger and I hope it works for you!

I quickly skimmed as I'm out and about. I notice your awake time from her last nap to BT is almost/about 4hrs? That's way too long for her age. You may find better with an EBT if she refuses the CN. At this age, they are transitioning to two naps and it's quite tricky! Try to get that CN in if you can by any means necessary!

EBT doesn't always mean an EW. It helps catch her up and avoid OT which can lead to more NWs. Later you can work on pushing her schedule out to do a later BT if it works for you.

Xo!
Fabi






Offline jennfullwood

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Re: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« Reply #4 on: July 01, 2016, 23:56:05 pm »
Thank you, FPT23! I appreciate your response! I know you didn't have time to read my entire novel of a post (it's so long!) :) but I have been struggling with my daughter's sleep since she was born and treating it as OT this whole time. My son who is now 4 was very sensitive to OT nightwakings so I was very familiar with how to prevent and resolve OT with him. I've been trying that with my 6 mo old daughter for months (less wake time between naps, early bedtimes, catnap) and it has all resulted in sleep refusal, UT naps and endless NWs and now recently EWs too. At this point, anything less than a 3.5 hour wake time between her naps gets me an UT 40 min nap. If I give her the full 3.5 wake time, I get a 1.5 or 2 hour nap easily. She just woke up a few minutes ago from another UT nap actually - I knew her wake time was a bit shorter than the 3.5 hrs but she got cranky on me which is not normal, so I put her down and of course...only 40 min nap. I know (and am still shaking my head) at a 4 hr awake time before bed. I absolutely agree - it's too long for a baby her age...I know! But her awake times through the day are long for her age too...but for her they give good long naps. Otherwise they are 40 min naps and I have to put her down 4-5 times a day! But actually having the 4 hr awake time for the past two nights has given a 6:45am wake up time rather than 5:00-5:30am, which I have been getting for the past two weeks. It has also helped push out her NWs too further into the night. I don't understand it either.

I just know at this point, a catnap will not happen for her. I've been trying for weeks. She is just not tired! She is too happy and will not sleep. I couldn't rock or bounce her to sleep if I tried. Is this truly so unheard of for a baby her age to need only two naps? She usually takes a 1.5-2 hr nap around 10:30am and then a shorter nap in the afternoon - usually 1.5 but many times only an UT 40 min nap. I usually have to put her down early in order to somewhat protect bedtime, and bc of that, I get that 40 min nap a lot of times in the afternoon. If she sleeps 1.5 hours for that nap, she easily needs 3.5 hrs, sometimes more awake time before bed. She simply will not go to sleep earlier. She puts herself to sleep independently for naps and bedtime - as long as she's tired enough! She's had more sleep pushing her A before bed for the past 2 days...it's given her longer nights. So I can't explain it...I know it's not common and goes against everything I've read (the reason I've treated it as OT for months even though she's not cranky and gives no tired signs) ....but results are showing better sleep for it....

I don't want to not take any advice given or come across like I know what's best for her...it's just that I've been trying all of these things already for months!! I'm about to go crazy. The only thing I haven't tried is capping the 2nd nap so that she can get tired earlier for bed and having an earlier bedtime.

She took a 2 hour nap this morning and then an UT 40 min nap this afternoon, so I am hoping she will go to bed by 7pm tonight. I am going to try for 6:30pm, but if I know her, she will resist this bedtime as her A still won't be long enough for her.

I am open to all suggestions, but at this point I feel I've tried everything for overtiredness and I'm completely spinning my wheels. Really would love to hear from moms who have babies with low sleep needs. Thank you for looking at her routine!
« Last Edit: July 02, 2016, 04:09:05 am by jennfullwood »

Offline jennfullwood

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Re: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2016, 02:20:13 am »
Well the early bedtime of 6:30pm did not go well as I suspected. She had no tired signs at all, was difficult to get to sleep and then she woke up 30 minutes later at 7pm. For her this was an UT nap. It absolutely was not OT. She wasn't ready for bed and treated it like an UT nap (for her, 30 and 40 min naps are both UT). I know that normally waking 30-40 after bedtime is OT, but for her I can say that it is not. I just know this from months and months of experimenting and trying to figure her out. She used to do this all the time when I tried for early bedtimes - waking shortly after putting her down just like it was an UT nap.

There was no way to resettle her at 7pm - she was wide awake ready to play sticking her hands in my mouth and laughing when I went to get her. So now she's up for probably at least 2-3 more hours before she'll be ready to go to bed again. I'll try at 8:30 or 9pm, but it will probably be later than that.

I don't mind trying things and I don't mind them backfiring either - that's the only way I've been able to learn.

So I'd be curious to know what you might think now? Any ideas on how to best handle this? I think I've finally concluded that she is most certainly low sleep needs.


Offline ginger428

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Re: 6 month old possibly low sleep needs? - NW's and EW's
« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2016, 01:54:38 am »
Jenn, bravo for trying the EBT and honestly, sometimes it's worth it and other times you live and learn! It took a lot more convincing for dear friends on BW to get me to do EBT because I was also convinced it wouldn't work for my DS. It did and it didn't... it helped get him more sleep, but we had NW and struggles at BT. So we started over the next day. Your positive attitude in the midst of this is lovely.

Oh, great to hear about the 6:45 wake ups!

Can't reiterate how well you know your baby best.  You'll definitely see patterns over time, but it's so hard to say what is a pattern and what is stage/developmentally related. SOOO much to sort through, isn't there?! I believe you that she is genuinely not tired and needs long A times.  I also believe that can change as it did for my son! He is a mystery for sure and jumped ALL over the place in terms of avg A times, nap lengths, BT's, etc...

For the 6:30pm nap, when did her pm nap end? If you think she is truly LSN, then she might need a little LESS daytime sleep. So going back to one of your earlier responses, I would also cut her AM nap to 1.5 hrs, then her pm nap to about 1hr, while maintaining A times as they are, and see how that works. It certainly is below average for daytime sleep for her age, but we might need to balance her nap length and A times to get her tired enough for bed and sleep well at night. Who knows what will happen for sure, but worth a try?

« Last Edit: July 04, 2016, 01:58:20 am by ginger413 »