Serial Cat Napper! Please Help!

[becj86]

Then he woke every 5-10mins from 4:30-5:30am and was then up for the day.

The long waking and this pattern are both classic of too short an A time in the morning.

[JCN]

Ok. This morning was a 5:30 WU ( ) and am nap was at 9am for 1h 15m. Not sure I would have been able to push further as he was dead on his feet haha.
Managed to stretch pm nap to 2pm. Hoping for at least an hour (not normally more than this is afternoon naps) - then will continue 3.5hr A pattern, from his nap WU time,  to BT, to ensure not OT.
Will keep trying.
 

[JCN]

Well, today I have stuck to 3.5hrs A time and so far we are 90mins past BT and it's disastrous.

Today looked like this:

EWU 5:30
E 6:00 bottle
E 7:00 solids
S 9:00-10:15 (2 resettles from me)

E 11:00 bottle
E 12:30 solids
S 14:00-15:15 (1 resettle from me)

E 15:30 bottle
E 16:45 solids
E 18:30 bottle
BT S 18:45

It's now 20:15 and I've already been in to resettle him 3 times. Normally when he wakes he will settle relatively quickly with his dummy but tonight his eyes seem wide open and he's not trying to settle at all.

The battle continues...

[becj86]

Maybe overstimulation? OT is usually easily resettled but OS can be very tricky.

I wonder if you would try a shorter last A time and see if that helps?

[JCN]

If I tried a shorter final A time I would need to be putting him to bed very early? Or introducing a CN?

Yesterday our day looked like this:

WU 5:30
A
S 8:00-9:15

A
S 12:15-13:15

A
CN 16:00-16:45 (car journey - although I'd been thinking he wouldn't last until BT from his last WU anyway!)

BT 19:15

He then woke every 2 hours in the night, easily resettled until 4:30am when he began waking every 20-30mins until a 5:45am WU this morning

[JCN]

Could you write out the schedule you'd be aiming for from a 5:30 WU please? He will
Only normally nap for an hour.

[becj86]

See, I'd be pushing that first A time a lot more to try to pull the morning WU later (unless 5:30 is good for you but I don't recall that being your ideal).

Something like 5:30 - WU, milk
6:30 - solids
9 - nap
10:30 ish - milk
2:00 - nap
3:30 - WU
6:30/7 - BT

I think you could even try set naps at 9 and 2.

[JCN]

  no my ideal is not 5:30! For returning to work purposes 6:30'would be ideal, but I could deal with 6;00 if he was sleeping through better.

I will continue to push the first A time. I just worry about him being OT.

Last night was SLIGHTLY better. He had a late pm CN which resulted in a later BT of 18:45. S was 18:45-00:00 when he was quickly resettled until 1:30am but then I was unable to resettle  until 2:15am. Then awake again at 4:45 and with continuous(!!!!) patting he dozed until 5:50.

Will push for that 9:00 nap this morning!

[becj86]

Are you feeding at any of these NW's? Just thinking you may have better luck settling him if you feed within reason.

[JCN]

Are you feeding at any of these NW's? Just thinking you may have better luck settling him if you feed within reason.

I used to, he used to feed at midnight and 3, then just 3 but he got to a point where he was only taking 1oz so I stopped offering as my HV said he probably was just using that for comfort- this was at 5mths old. I've tried feeding him at the 4am NWs because it's most difficult to settle him but he either thinks it's breakfast & wakes even more or has 1oz & falls asleep on the bottle, then still wakes 30-60mins later again unsettled.
I've tried dream feeds before but they seemed to disrupt him even more, but I have considered trying this again.

[becj86]

Fair enough. Just wondering if that was part of the picture. If he's definitely taking enough in the day, not really worth reintroducing NFs at this age. Is he leaving a bit in his bottles - taking his fill?

Sorry, just realised you're on the other side of the world and its summer Thoughts re: sunlight/traffic noise/birds singing causing him to wake earlier?

[JCN]

Yes I'm in the UK We have black out blinds in his room which help. The heat has been pretty bad the last few days. But he's been the same on cooler nights. We hardly have any traffic noise where we are.

That's what I thought about the feeds - if he's dropped them then I shouldn't be reintroducing them. He never finishes a bottle so I know he's having as much as he wants.

[JCN]

So, I'm managing to push that first nap toneither 8:45 or sometimes 9;00, but he'll only nap for 1 hour max (with or without a resettle) so I'm really struggling to get him past 1pm with the second nap, which is again always 1 hour so he's ending up needing  a CN before tea in order to make it through to BT.

Yesterday looked like this:
WU 5:45

S 8:45-9:45

S 13:00-14:00

S CN 16:15-16:45

BT 19:00/19:15

Last night was slightly better - less wakings... (& he was in a travel cot at my parents so different environment)
S 19:15-01:30 (resettled quickly)
S 01:30-04:30 (very unsettled, hot and bothered from tossing and turning, put him into my bed (not held) and settled back off to sleep)
S 04:45-05:45
WU



Today has been much the same EASY routine, although he was very grumpy (OT?) in lead up to CN, needed lots of help to settle off to sleep and when he woke (45mins) he was crying and yawning and continued to be like this for most of the evening.
He has already woken once at 21:30. 

[becj86]

Yeah, the days are rough for the first few when you push those A times out but the result is that the sleep at night is better which then means he can cope better in the day. If I knew of  a nice easy way to do this, I'd tell you but once you're in a hole like the one you're in, its just hard work to get back out again.

Has your LO ever slept 1.5hr solid?

[JCN]

So last night was an 'awake almost every hour' kind of night  despite having the same routine and naps as the day before etc.

LO has never slept more than 1hr 15m solid.. And that's very rare. It's normally 30-60mins. Even with resettles etc 1hr 30 is unheard of really - I can rarely resettle past the 1h mark. If I hold him and rock him after his second sleep cycle  then I can normally stretch him to 1.5hrs but this final stretch of sleep is usually more like dozing.

I'm not expecting it to be easy. I hope I've not come across that way. But it's been 3 weeks since I started altering naps and I'm just feeling a little disheartened this weekend as nothing is improving, maybe this is why you might think I'm expecting it to be easy.

However, I should be more positive - since increasing A time to 2.5-3hours he settles for a nap like a dream (before he would fight and fight and fight- as I now realise was UT). He also doesn't always need resettling after 30mins and will sometimes do 1 hour on his own. He is also easier to resettle into a second sleep cycle when needed.

It just doesn't seem to be impacting elsewhere and therefore I'm stuck in a vicious circle with EWs and lots of NWs.