13mo, 2-1, NWs and reflux...

[oofy2016]

Thanks for the advice so far. I tried really hard with the sleep work and reducing night feeds. We also went back to the paed, I tried to get a private referral but even privately the allergist was so busy he couldn't see us for 2 months. I ended up going a bit 'tiger mother' at the NHS and now see our allergist every 6 weeks. My DD started refusing all solids and vomiting randomly after feeding appx once a day. The allergist thinks she has more severe silent reflux and we are due to have a barium swallow on Thursday to see if there are any anatomical abnormalities and how bad the reflux is. She is currently on a high dose of omeprazole and ranitidine and is about to start domperidone as well. She is super smily, giggling and happy but still has trouble sleeping. With the health concerns, lack of sleep and food refusal, and I am now back at work, it has been an incredibly stressful time. I am careful to be blasé, full of cuddles and totally relaxed when my DD is up but internally I have been in turmoil! As part of this my hubby and I just decided to back off sleep training completely and just feed her whenever she woke. REALLY bizarrely, she went from waking almost hourly to waking once or twice a night for a month. It was insane!! I felt AMAZING!!
HOWEVER, I think she is now in a 2-1 nap transition and is not yet ready to go without 2 naps, but I really struggle to fit in 2 naps. In the last 2 weeks, her A time has really stretched, and she still has a long morning nap, which means her second nap is very late, and I think this has disrupted her night sleep and she has been waking 4+ times a night again....
I am still breastfeeding overnight....but am considering stopping this once we have had the barium swallow and know there is no physical reason for her sleep/eating issues.

Her routine yesterday was as follows: (bearing in mind we offer solids but she doesn't really eat them)

Awake at 7 Given omeprazole (need to wait 40 mins before feeding)
E 7.45 solids
E 8.30 bottle
A 9.30 Christmas tree farm outdoors, walking
S 11-1 cot
E 1.20 solids
A 2pm walk to playground
E 3.00 afternoon bottle
S 4.30-5 car
A 5.15 active play
E 5.45 Solids
A 6.15 active play
E 6.45 bottle
A 7.30 Bath, breastfeed, bedtime routine
S 8.40 finally fell asleep. took quite a lot of pupd.

I am just concerned that her bedtime is very late and her second nap is so late. Today she woke at 6.30 which was helpful as it means we can do everything earlier, which should mean we can fit the second nap in. she fell asleep for her first nap at 10, I am going to wake her at 11.30 and then we can do the second nap at 3-3.30, so hopefully bed time will be earlier, more like 7/7.30.

Does this sound like a good plan to you? If it works, should we start waking her earlier in the day - at 6.30 every day? It sounds a bit counter intuitive to encourage earlier mornings, if she is keen to sleep till 7 most days?

Do you have advice on how to plan the day if she sleeps till 7 every day?

The spanner in the works is that she is in nursery 2 days a week, and they don't tend to follow much of a routine, sometimes she only has a half hour nap at 11 in the day, which I am sure leads to OT and poor night sleep. Sometimes on these days I drive the long way home, so she has a sleep, but this is very late (5-5.30) and then our bed time gets horrifically late.

Hmm.

I really appreciate the advice so far. Hopefully you have some advice for me now too!

xxx

[creations]

Hi
Have you spoken with nursery about her routine and what is possible to do there?  I would have thought that a nursery catering for babies of 1yo would be prepared for nap times. Perhaps they just need some more direction or a more formal request?  It would really help if you can either get nursery on side with a routine.  Can you speak with them about what the possible options are and how they deal with other babies?
I didn't have this particular issue myself as my DS didn't go to nursery until he was older but I did find that when we had a problem the nursery worker had some great ideas to help my DS.

[Scottishmummy]

Hi! Sorry you've had such a stressful time, glad you're getting the medical support now.

For your nap routine, I found a micro-nap was really helpful at this stage. So keep the first long A time and long nap, but cap the 4.30 nap at 15mins.  This should bring BT earlier. I personally think that is an easier option than waking everyone earlier in the morning and waking from the first nap as well, and makes more sense as the 2nd nap is one she will drop.

I found set naps helpful at this age- so choose a routine and stick with nap times +/- 15mins regardless of wake time.

Re nursery: I found both of mine slept really badly at nursery in first few months, even when I asked them to stick to their home routine. I tried to just get home as quick as possible and do early BT rather than an extra nap, and even if you LO fell asleep on way home, woke as soon as posdible (quickest route home) & BT at normal time (usually 7ish for us)