9 month napping and early awake times!

[SamMV]

Hello

I have a 9 months old boy (soon 10 months) who is extremely active and has always had napping issues. He really struggles to sleep more than 30 minutes and cannot put himself back to sleep after he wakes up. He has also stopped responding to being rocked to help him. The other issue with this is that after these short naps he can barely stay away longer than 2 hours at a time. Maybe 2.5 hours at a painful push.
The last month he has been waking up at 5am and today at 4am. He has been on a 3/4 nap schedule for the last month because of his early awake times. We have been adviced not to go back to a 4 nap schedule but I feel like today is one of those days were we have to otherwise his bedtime will end up being ridiculously early. He tends to only really sleep 11 hours at night. So if he only has three naps today bedtime will be early and then tomorrow will be an earlier awake time.

Any comments or suggestions greatly appreciate. We are very tired and desperate parents and trying to get him in a routine and working with helping him sleep longer during the day (in preparation for kindergarten in October - where they only nap once a day!!! eeeek!)


Old schedule:

6-6:30 awake/breastfeed on waking
8:00    nap 1 (30-50 minutes)
9:00     awake/breastfeed on waking
11:30      nap 2
12:30     awake/breastfeed
13:30     lunch
15:00     nap
15:45     awake/breastfeed (normally doesnt want it)
16:45     dinner
18:00     bedtime

recently he's been doing

5:00      awake (refusing breast)
7-7:30   nap 1 (extremely exhausted and wants a bottle)
8:00      awake! (refusing breast)
10:30    nap 2 (wants a bottlefeed before nap)
11:30    awake
12:00    lunch
14:00    nap (bottlefeed before nap)
14:30    awake!
17:00    toooo tired bedtime!! bottle or breast before bed (which I never use to do) 

[tamlev]

Hi Sam,

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

I have several ideas, hope they help:

1. you mentioned that now even rocking to sleep doesn't work... my dear, rocking should not be used for puting to sleep... one of the baby whisperers main points are to teach your child to fall asleep on their own with no prop. a prop is anything that the baby must use to fall asleep (rocking, breast, car ride, holding moms hand or even a pacifier or blanky can sometimes be a prop). I suggest you don't use any of these for putting to sleep.

2. regarding the number of naps, you mentioned that in October he will start daycare where there is 1 nap. that is ok since he will be over a year by then and at the age of 1 they usually drop to 1 long nap in the middle of the day (2-2.5 hours). now it seems odd to you beacause your baby seems soooo tired. you will see once you get back on track and once he is older that he will be just fine with 1 nap.

3. the sleep cycle is known: good sleep during the day means good sleep during the night and the opposite. so we really need to get you guys on track.
if you have the BW book, take a look at the chapter of PU/PD and read the part that is relevant for 11 months (by now your baby can sit or maybe stand so it is mostly just PD). you need to decide that you really are planning to do everything according to the book and then start. the BW always says: START AS YOU MEAN TO GO. if you keep on changing methods (rocking, shushing etc.) this mixes up your baby and he doesn't know what is expected. If you decide to set things straight with PU/PD then read about it, find a weekend where you can start since it will be hard with lots of screaming (your husband should probably do the first nights and naps if it is possible). if you stay with it (even if it takes an hour or more to put to sleep) it WILL get better with time. each nap will take less time to put to sleep.
The older the baby is, the harder it is to change habits but it is still possible.

4. you meniotned that the old schedule dinner is at 16:45 and bed time is 18:00. that is too early.... bed time should be around 19:00-19:30. Dinner should be at about 18:00 and then bath, book/song, bedtime (bottle/breast before bed if you have that).
16:45 is more of a snack time if required (fruit, peice of cheese, some cheerios)...

5. I suggest you take a look at the suggested number of nap times for an 11 month old (it may be 2, I don't recall). I know it seems odd but the point is that if he naps well during each nap, he won't need a 3rd one and will be able to go to sleep at about 19:00. in order to have the naps longer this is where PU/PD comes in to the picture. so check out the part about making naps longer.


Let me know if you have any specific questions.
Good luck!
Tammy

[creations]

Welcome SamMV

Thanks for paying it forward Tammy

Here's a link to the guidance A times
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=84884.0
You will see that at 10 months the guidance time (for two naps) is around 3hr 30 - 4hrs.
I recommend you increase your LOs A time right away. The A time you are using of 2hrs to 2.5hrs is suitable for a 5  month old and it really does not give your LO adequate activity time to get tired enough for a longer nap.  He looks tired because he is so used to takign a nap so early, you can push past this by offering a change of scene or a different toy, a song or a cuddle looking out the window and talking about what you see.
I suggest moving immediately to 3hrs for all A times, hold it at that for 3 days or so and then increase by 15 mins to 3hr 15 and hold there another couple of days.  Then increase again to 3hr 30.  There is a chance you will see some longer naps and then they will shorten again...you may need to increase to 4hrs or even more.
Many LOs are moving towards 1 nap at this age so you are only looking for ONE long nap and the other nap can be left shorter (two naps in the day, not 3 or 4).
Beginning PUPD with a LO who is not on an adequate time is going to be unpleasant and non-productive to be honest. You need those A times to increase first and then use PUPD to sleep train if/when needed.

Looking ahead your LO will need to drop the shorter nap and have the A time increased to around 5hrs to manage with the day care routine of one nap - or it may be possible that LO does one long nap at day care and one cat nap or micro nap on the way home from daycare in the car (napping in the car is a prop but it will be dropped eventually so I wouldn't worry about that, it could help to keep LO well rested until he is ready for one nap per day) - so it is not impossible to continue with the two naps for a while longer.  I would suggest asking your kindie what time naps are so that you know in advance what you are aiming for - you don't need to achieve their routine right now but it could help with your plan.