Author Topic: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed  (Read 16850 times)

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Offline Fireflysummer

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6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« on: November 07, 2017, 03:36:28 am »
I am feeling really frustrated with my 6 month touchy LO. I have been keeping a very detailed record since she was born of her sleeps and feeds and as hard as I try to figure her out I can't.

Recently we have been finding that her naps are anywhere between 30-1.5 hrs with awake time being 2hr15 but it depends on what we are doing, (she gets easily overstimulated by things...most of the time). I sometimes tries to base it on sleep cues which is fussiness and a sort of jittery movements but even those don't seem reliable .

The other thing is she doesn't wake up crying but seems to be soothing herself back to sleep when I look at her in the monitor but it looks like she is sleeping. However she gets fussy at about her usual length based on when I first saw her wake so now I find myself constantly starring at the monitor to see when she wakes because sometimes she has laid there for an hour before crying .  Any thoughts?

She is waking before dreamfeed sporatically . And some days she has been dropping her catnaps and then going 4 hrs on A time before bed with no night wakings. Weird!

If she is getting 1.5 naps twice a day with 50/50 chance of going down for catnap should I be pushing out A time? And when you push out A time for 3 days and hold what should I expect, immediate change in nap length or the same until day 3??

Here's a good day routine, (otherwise if I don't catch her wake time in monitor or know what's going on with her (i.e. teething, overstimulated by something) I usually put her to bed too early or too late and get 30 and 45 min naps.)

6:30 wake
7:15 bf
8 breakfast
8:30 winddown
8:45 sleep

10:15 wake
10:45 bf
11:30 lunch
12:20 winddown
12:35 sleep

2:05 wake
2:30 bf
4:10 winddown
4:25 catnaps if lucky

5:10wake
5:30 dinner
6:30 feed
7 sleep

I love this forum and I appreciate anyone's thoughts on dealing with naps and evening wakings with a touchy baby.

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2017, 11:57:07 am »
Sorry for another question/ expressing my frustration but when I have been trying to extend her awake times or push back her bedtime because of daylight savings I find it hard to  hold those extensions consistently for 3 days because everyday is different with regards to the length of her naps so then I have to adjust her awake time and bedtime earlier if she hasn't slept well. Do you have ideas as to how to accomplish extending air time despite having different types of days most days??

Thanks again!

Offline jessmum46

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2017, 20:14:07 pm »
Hi there :D

First of all ((hugs)), I know very well that feeling of keeping a close eye on everything, feeling like there must be a pattern or a way to get it 'right'!  I really struggled with that with my first and know just how frustrating it can be. 

I think overall you are on the right lines needing to extend A time.  Average A time at 6-7 months is often getting towards 3 hours and the 3-2 nap transition typically occurs around this age.  Sound like your LO is headed that way if you are getting some CN refusal too.

My suggestion would be (as realistically babies are not robots and so every day will be different!) is to push from the start of the day.  So first A time make the jump to 2h30.  If the nap is good (1h+) then go for another 2h30 for the second A time.  If the nap is short, then reduce the A time, but not by much - maybe just 15 mins or so.  You may get an OT nap but often there is a better chance of a resettle when that happens.  Get the catnap (for now) any way you can - it's ok to do it 'on the go' in the car/pram etc if needs be just until you can push out A time a bit further.

Once you are closer to 2h45-3h A time you get to an awkward phase where 2 naps aren't often quite enough, but 3 is too many.  Don't panic!  It will settle down again, but it may be that you have a mixture of 2 and 3 nap days until it does.  Early bedtime is very useful during transitions.  I had the rule that if my second nap finished at 3pm or later, we skipped CN and did early bedtime at 6pm/3h A time.  If second nap finished before 2pm, we went for a catnap.  In the middle was tricky....but we'd try for a short time for a catnap, and if not abandon in favour of 6pm bedtime.  I believe we even did 5.30pm once or twice!!

There's a useful link here too which may help - https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=246541.0

Let us know if you have any more questions x

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #3 on: November 09, 2017, 11:56:58 am »
Thanks jessmum46! I appreciate some of your hands-on tips. I just wanted to make sure I am  understanding you fully.


So if her nap is let say 1hr vs. 1h30 hr. I would keep her up at the next awake time for 2h30, regardless that she might be more rested with the longer nap? And did you mean that if her first nap is under 1hr then for the next nap of the day I would reduce the length by 15mins from her existing length, or do you mean from the 2hr30 A mark? I often don't know what time she wakes because lies in bed without making a sound for maybe an hour or less so the morning nap will be harder to figure out than the afternoon ones.

And like TH says touchy babies have a difficult time resettling when awoken and that's her. She doesn't cry when she wakes early from a nap just sucks on her fingers and  fusses 20-45 mins later so I don't have a reason to do PU/PD. I just leave her until the 1hr30min mark but count her lying in bed as awake time.

Thank you!!

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #4 on: November 09, 2017, 19:02:39 pm »
So her first nap today lasted 1h45 ,(YAH!!!) but I have no idea how long she was awake for. I saw her awake in video monitor at 6:20am but it looked like she had been awake for awhile. I just kept moving her when she got fussy and added extra 5 mins after seeing her really cranky. So based on 6:20 start she was wake 2hr15min but most likely more than that.

We went to a play group and she got fussy around 1h 30 mark but I moved her around and she fell asleep after 2h25 mins ( I thought I would reduce awake time a bit because of her personality with new environments but I am not sure if it was necessary.) She only slept for 55 mins so does that mean I could have pushed her a little longer or did I push her too long?

Should I try for 2h30 again tomorrow or push A another 15 mins since she slept well the first time?

Thank you!

Offline jessmum46

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2017, 20:14:32 pm »
I would stick with about 2h30 (or your best guess!) for now as that seemed to go fairly well today.  What a great first nap :D

Sorry if I was unclear before - after any reasonable nap (an hour or more) I would go for 2h30 A time for now, just so we can see how she responds to that.  If the nap is short, maybe go for around 2h15.  Just helps if we keep it fairly consistent so we can see what does and doesn't suit her x

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2017, 20:29:46 pm »
Thanks for you advice!

So yesterday she had a total of 4h45 min of naptime as I put her down after 1h55 for second awake time due to being out at a playgroup and she slept for 1h30. I then put her down 1h30 mins later for her bedtime as she was quite fussy.  She then woke I think really early this morning as she started fussing at 6:30 when normally she will start 7am+. So maybe the esrly waking is from letting her sleep too many hours yesterday? .

E 7:15
S8:40 (1h45)

W 10:25
E 11:20
S 12:50 (55min)

W 1:45
E 2:45
S3:45 (1h30)

W 5:15
E6:20
S 6:55

Today she had a 2hr nap in the morning but then we had company for 1h30 mins and she got fussy quite early on and seemed "buzzed" so I put her down after 2h20 mins but it might have been too long because she was crying when I laid her down . She woke 45 mins later but seemed happy enough.

My question is for a touchy baby, do I be put her down earlier if we go places or see people because of extra stimulation or should I keep A time the same?

Offline becj86

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #7 on: November 12, 2017, 19:38:33 pm »
My question is for a touchy baby, do I be put her down earlier if we go places or see people because of extra stimulation or should I keep A time the same?
I would try to keep A time the same but perhaps do a slightly longer WD given she's probably overstimulated. Spend a bit of quiet time walking away from the distractions and helping her calm down before putting her down for a nap.

E 7:15S8:40 (1h45)
Did she wake at 7:15 and eat then? Its not clear from your post. If so, she needs more A time first thing in the morning. Waking progressively earlier or additional long happy night wakings in the early hours of the morning are signs that she needs to be awake longer for the first A time of the day.

Asleep for the night at 6:55 and awake at 6:30 is a perfectly reasonable night - a 12hr night is not a reasonable expectation for many babies at this age, especially if they're still taking three naps. The day should naturally get longer with increased A times before dropping the catnap when it will get shorter again.

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #8 on: November 14, 2017, 19:45:02 pm »
That's good to know about keeping her awake as usual just providing longer winddown. I think she might be teething right now so she is showing sleepy / overtired signs quite early on so it's difficult to keep her up .

I didn't mention when she woke other than to say she made noises at 6:30 because that's my problem, she will lie quietly in bed for 5mins up to 1hr (based on naps) before fussing after waking. So at times I have woken before she has made noises and I see her on the video monitor lying there sucking on her fingers but I don't know how long she has been awake.

And that's a good point that at her age 12 hours night would be too much for her.

Offline becj86

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #9 on: November 14, 2017, 20:30:31 pm »
So at times I have woken before she has made noises and I see her on the video monitor lying there sucking on her fingers but I don't know how long she has been awake.
If she's lying there awake and not doing much, I'd count it as sleep, just for ease. I'm inclined to think that if you push her first A time a bit, she might sleep longer in the morning but that's assuming BT is around 11hr before ideal WU.

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2017, 01:36:27 am »
 Thanks!

Her morning naps have been great lately and if I based them on when I heard her she has only been up for 2 hr10 mins. It's the afternoon nap that gets wonky or she doesn't want a catnap so she is ready for bed at 5:45.  And we'll frankly the last few days have been strange because she has been crying a lot and fussing almost non stop and those are my only signs she is tired. The trouble those signs also indicate hunger and teething and Wonder weeks.

Anyway, do I need to keep pushing out her A time if she is taking 1.5hr to 2 hr naps?

Thank you!

Offline becj86

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2017, 02:19:45 am »
Anyway, do I need to keep pushing out her A time if she is taking 1.5hr to 2 hr naps?
No. What I'm saying is that if she wakes at 6am and you're not ok with that and you'd prefer 7am and are ok with an 8pm BT, one way to get her to shift her whole day later is to make the first A time 10mins longer (not changing the rest) which will entice her to sleep later in the morning and slowly shift the whole frame of your day later.

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2017, 04:10:22 am »
Hi,

Thanks for your help, although I found your words gave off a tone of impatience!

I haven't responded because despite me trying to push out her times or reduce A times or figure a pattern or cues, my LO is still sleeping at times for 1h30 and at others times 30 mins and sometimes she sleeps well in the evening and other times we have to do PU/PD for an hour even though the day is similar to other days. When I have pushed out her A times she gets so overtired and only sleeps 30 mins or goes to sleep fine and has 1h30 min nap but then the next time gets overtired early on...or something. There's lots of crying to put her to sleep.


I kind of feel helpless and don't think I will be able to help her sleep because she is so variable in her cues and A time lengths. I have tried pushing out her A time even though she seems overtired and it has been a wreck. She cries a lot, sleeps for 30-45 mins or doesn't nap at all. No two days or A times seem the same despite being obsessed with watching her and recording times, etc. I guess I need to accept she's a touchy baby who isn't easy to help sleep.


Offline becj86

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2017, 08:29:09 am »
Sorry I sounded impatient, that was not my intent at all. I just wanted to be clear as I thought perhaps I'd not made sense.

It might be worth writing out a few days of her EAS - we might be able to see some patterns and offer some advice.

For your reference, general rules of thumb are 30min = OT;  45min = UT. This obviously isn't the case for evey baby but its somewhere to start.

Have you had any luck resettling her when she wakes at 30min? Often those are easier to resettle than the 45min ones.

Has she slept better than this before or has she always been tricky? Wondering if maybe there's some food introduction that's caused her some issue or she is maybe teething or going through a developmental leap.

Offline Fireflysummer

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Re: 6 month old touchy baby-naps irregular, wakes before dreamfeed
« Reply #14 on: November 27, 2017, 03:50:23 am »
Thanks! Us "friendly" Canadians may just not be as straight to the point in how we talk! 😀

I haven't tried resettling the few times she has awoken because I have a two year old LO that I don't want to leave on her own for 30 mins while I resettle . I could try if the oldest is napping.

She is pretty much always been a tricky sleeper. She did A LOT of crying before bed for the first three months and shush Pat was too much for her for the longest time. We tried a soother, walking her,etc but they all became a prop until shush Pat finally started working. And having two 1h30 min naps has been less frequent than the normal. My oldest daughter was way easier at having long naps than this LO. I have been wondering if she is teething since she has been grumpy and she wasn't in a Wonder Week. She was sick a couple of days ago but it has passed quickly.

As for the general rule,that's what I understood too, but today she had a 30 min nap and when my dh tried resettling she started cooing and playing when he came in her room. Then she stayed up longer than she normally does and probably could have gone longer because her next nap was 1h15 min long. After that nap she seemed more grumpy and wanted to have a catnap after being up for less than 2 hours. She did have a bad night last night, waking at 7:30PM and not settling under 9pm then up at 2:30am and 5:30, then slept in until 8:50AM.

I will give a 7 days and see what you think ( I will only write down the times I breastfeed, not include solids for ease)


Day 1:
6:35 already awake for some time
7:20 E
8:30 S for 45 mins

9:15 W
11 E
11:40 S from 1h30 (started winddown at 2h15)

1:10 W
2:30 E
4:40 S for 30 mins ( winddown at 2h30)

5:10 W
6:00 E
6:15 S
 
10:30 DF

Day2:
7:10 heard but probably awake for awhile
7:20 E
9:55 S for 30 mins ( went to dr. Appt)

10:25 W
11:20 E
12:35 for 1h30  (laid down at 2hr mark)

2:05 W
3:10 E
4:30 tried for a catnaps with PUPD but wouldn't sleep
5:15 E
S
6:00 S

10:30 DF

Day 3:
6:55 saw awake in monitor
7:35 E
8:50 A for 1h25

10:15 W
10:35 E
12:45 S for 30 mins

1:15 W
2:00 E
3:15 S for 1h15 ( she was grumpy the whole time, laid her down at 1h30 mark but laid awake for 30 mins)

4:30 W
4:50 E
6:50 E
7:00 S

10:35 DF

Day 4:
5:40 W and E full feed

8;00 W (I woke her)
8:20 E
10:50 S for 1h20

12:10 W
12:30 E
2:30 S for 40 mins ( she was crying at 1h30 mark but thought it was too early so I held her off)

3:10 W
4:00 E
4:40 tried giving her a nap since she looked super hyper with PUPS but wouldnt so tried again and.
6:00 S for 35 mins (I woke her)

6:35 W
7:00 E
7:30 S

10:15 woke up, had a soaked outfit from wet diaper so had to change her completely, Took 1hr30 mins to settle her to sleep after giving DF

Next day had runny nose and was very difficult to get to nap so assumed she had a cold but then all symptoms left the next day. No signs of teeth

Day 6:
4:30Am E

7:20 saw awake but could have been awake earlier
7:55 E
9:15 S for 45 mins

10:00 W
11:30  E
12:30 S for 2h15 (woke up after 1h10 but we think she resettled)

2:45 W ( she seemed more grumpier)
2:55 E
4:45 tried to catnaps but no go
5:15 tried again but not willing to nap
5:50 E
6:15 S

7:45 W and E took 1h30 mins to resettle with PUPD. ( I found a plastic tag under her armpits the next day so she could have been bothered by that??)

10:45 DF

day 7:
1:50AM W, tried PUPd for 10mins but gave in and fed for a good amount of time
5:50 W and fed same amount of time

8:50am W (we all slept in)
9:00 E
10:50 S for 30 mins but seemed happy when she woke

11:20 W
1:20 E ( didn't seem that hungry)
2:00 S for 1h15 ( seemed ok but thought I should put her to bed)

3:15 W
5:15 S for 30 mins since she seemed hyper after 1h45 (although sometimes that means nothing)   and she was more grumpier during this A time than the last one. I was surprised she slept.

5:45 W
6:35 E (went to long by accident but she didn't seem to mind)
7:05 S

9:30 W so fed DF and she stayed awake until 10:30 just lying in bed quietly

Hope this all makes sense and you can figure out something from this.

Btw, If I put her to bed earlier than 2,h30+ it was usually because she was getting excited and screeching or she was rubbing her eyes or crying.

Thank for your time!