EASY for 7 month old including school run

[Elauriel]

I am still having issues with 7mo son2 napping and waking all night long, but I think we have finally come to a time where he can stay awake for 3 hours at a time. I have to do the school run at 8:50 and 3:20. He will NOT go back to sleep after these runs, so he will only get a 20 minute nap. Our routine on the weekends looks like this:

Up: 7
Nap: 10-11:30
E
A
Nap: 2:30-4
E
A
Sleep:7
Awake 7:20, 8, 9, 10 (needs to eat at 10/10:30 and then nurses on and off all night :/)

So we can't do the above because I'd have to wake him at  3:20. Any other concoction of a schedule that I come up with has the same thing. 1-20 minute nap and 1 good nap. What can I do??

Also - why does he wake up so many times after he goes to bed? No matter how long he's been awake before bed he will wake up 1-4 times before 10. It's so exhausting and I pretty much never get a break all day.

[creations]

Hi there
The first thing that comes to mind is to just shift your whole routine so that you can run the same A time and nap length but fit both good naps around the school run times.  You might not like the 6.20am wake up time but if it was me I'd be happy to have a solid routine that I could count on rather than everything up in the air - sometimes a compromise needs to be made.
Your routine would look like this:
WU 6.20am
A 3hr
S 9.20 - 10.50
A 3hr
S 1.50 - 3.20
A 3hr
BT 6.20pm

NWs in the early part of the night usually indicate OT although can be for other reasons.  I would probably reduce the last A time a little, try 10 mins shorter and see how things go for a few days.  If though you have been seeing these NWs because of having the short naps then you might not need to bring BT earlier, just shift the routine to fit in the 2 long naps so that LO is refreshed.
If it's OT it can take a number of days to settle down rather than just one or two days of the long naps.

Hope this helps.

[Elauriel]

Thank you! I was going to mention that shifting it earlier will be a toss up - he falls asleep very easily in the car/carrier while I am taking my son to school. I've left at 8:50 expecting him to nap at 9:30/10 before and gotten back to the car to see that he's fallen asleep. He is so hard to keep awake! The darn school is 2 blocks away, but it's freezing out with feet of snow so we drive.

Worst case scenario I think I'd rather have the first nap be short and the second nap longer if I had to choose. So, that might work well. Thanks for the advice on the night wakings. He wakes up all night long to comfort nurse/nurse, and wakes up during each nap at least once, so I get about 30 minutes of kid free time every day. At least he's not sleeping on me at 5PM for that cat nap anymore!

Thank you!

[creations]

If he's waking all night to comfort nurse it's likely a prop habit where he has not yet learned to sleep independently and self sooth after waking. The EASY routine alone doesn't teach independent sleep.

[Elauriel]

Yeah - we kinda started that when he was up 6-10 times during the 4 month sleep regression. And then it was Christmas, and then he was sick, and then sick again, and now teething, and you know how it goes...

On a good night he wakes to nurse at 10, 1-3ish and then 6ish. On a bad night he comfort nurses all night. I put him to bed last night 10 minutes early and he only woke up 2 times before 10 (instead of the 4-6 times we were expecting), so that's awesome! He didn't nurse often last night either/ Hopefully a few more days of this and he will sleep until his first feeding. He drinks so much at 10 and I'm a little surprised that he does since as a 1 month old he could go longer than that, but whatever...I'm always awake at 10 so it doesn't bother me.

[creations]

I put him to bed last night 10 minutes early and he only woke up 2 times before 10 (instead of the 4-6 times we were expecting

nice result

[Elauriel]

So bedtime has been going great. He went to bed at 6:15 (15 minutes early) last night and woke up at 6:40, 8 and 9:30, which is pretty good for him.

Nights have been not as good. He is sleeping well and waking to nurse at 11ish and 2ish (like he always has), but wakes up at 5 and will not go back to sleep. Talks, crawls around the bed, blows raspberries. It's been happening the last 4 or 5 days, and last night he was awake for an hour. Because of this he is sleeping in until 7:30ish and I don't want to wake him at 6:30 when he doesn't fall back to sleep until 6. Our easy the last 2 days looked like this:

up 7:20 (because he fell asleep at 6 and was awake for so long he needed to sleep in)
10:00 nap (slept through)
11:40 up
2:30 nap
3:00 wake up, rocked back to sleep
3:30 wake up for school run. He was so miserable. Sorry kid
6:15 bedtime

Next week my son has vacation from school all week, so I'm hoping to give him 2 solid naps every day. Even when he was getting 2 solid naps on the weekend he was still waking at 5AM :/

[creations]

Hmm...I wonder if moving both naps later might work for you. I'm not sure what time you get back from teh school run but here's an example of an alternate routine you might think could work out better for him and your circumstances:

WU 8.30
A 3hr
S 11.30 - 1.00
A 3hr
S 4 - 5.30
A 2hr 30 (to give that earlier BT)
BT 8pm
This has a long night of 12.5hrs but based on the information you've given this might be possible (ie your EASY showed 12hr night in the first post and possibility of being OT leading to multiple NWs). If not then WU is a bit earlier and the last A time might be more like 2hr 45 - it's a starting point rather than an end point if you see what I mean.  The other possibility is that he really doesn't need 12hr nights if he has good naps and more solid night sleep (night is shorter but solid) in which case you can accept an 11 ish hr night so long as WU is at a reasonable hour (not in the night) which is why I wonder if shift everything later might suit you all better?

If you decide to shift things you would need to go in steps rather than all in one go.  See what you think.

[Elauriel]

That is a possibility - and one that I did not even think of. Son 1 was always up at like 530/6 so I can't even dream of a baby sleeping past 8. When he was taking 3 naps before he was going to bed around 8/8:30, and waking up around 7:30, so it's possible that he could sleep until 830. The only problem with that is if he wakes early, and with my other son screaming and jumping all morning the chances are good, then our whole day is thrown off.

I guess we'll see what next week brings. Since son 1 is off of school all week I have 9 days to give him whatever naps he wants when he wants them, so we'll see how it goes. Although I'm expecting we'll be visiting people's houses and going places to play so we don't go crazy. I have a feeling he'll be taking 40 minute naps in the baby carrier in that case. If he does take a 40 minute nap, should he go to bed at like 5/530 or should I just let him have a 3rd cat nap and then bedtime later on like usual?

[creations]

If he does take a 40 minute nap, should he go to bed at like 5/530 or should I just let him have a 3rd cat nap and then bedtime later on like usual?

I would gauge it on his mood on the day but perhaps also keeping in mind what you might decide to try out once school is back. If you are more likely to aim for the earlier WU routine then I'd probably go more towards the 2 naps and EBT, if the later WU routine I'd probably aim for a CN and later BT.  Having a week of visiting and knowing you are going off track can actually be a pretty good time to switch up the routine and make those changes because everything is already up in the air.

[Elauriel]

OK - that sounds good! He is very good at napping in the carrier, so he'll at least take a 40 minute nap.

So there's something else that he's been doing...in addition to the waking multiple times after he goes to bed. Today I put him down at 6:00. He woke up at 6:20, rocked back to sleep. Then he woke up at 6:50, and played and talked and smacked me in the face until 7:20. He has done this like 3 or 4 nights of the past week that he's been taking only 2 naps instead of 3. So, it seems that he's not that tired. I tried putting him to bed 10 minutes early a few times and he had LESS wakings, but still was playing during his first or second waking. Playing enough that I thought "oh crap - was this just a nap and now you're going to bed at 9!?!?" but then he falls back asleep eventually. Thoughts on this? My other son always woke up so many times in the evening. We could never get a sitter for like the first year because he would wake up so much after going to bed. Just go to bed and stay asleep kids!

Today was:
7 up
930 nap
1010 awake and back down
11 up
2 nap
3:10 up
6 bedtime

[creations]

That could be a bit of OT especially if one of the  naps was only 40 mins. The earlier BT and fewer NWs hint that it could be OT too.  I doubt he would be UT unless he is really low sleep needs (which it doesn't look like).