Are his afternoon naps causing this bedtime strop ?

[Dina]

Are his afternoon naps to blame?

My Chooby (his nickname) has always fallen to sleep independantly, up until now.  Nothings changed in his routine and now screams and screams after about 10 minutes of being put in his cot.  He'll pull his dummy out on purpose and then scream as if calling for us.  I usually wait by the just outside of his door so he can't see me and I can see him popping the dummy back in and then out and then screaming and pausing to see if we come running to him.  Once he sees us, that it - he'll scream even louder, we try and roll him over to his side to side (which always used to work), but have to pick him up because he really starts getting loud ! he then seemsto want to play and turns from screams to gurgling.  As soon as we put him back down (awake) he screams even louder than ever and starts doing that strange 'body-popping' thing with his back ! Last night this went on from 7.30pm until 9pm ! this is the first time he's been like this.  I gave him some medised incase he was in pain (his top teeth may be coming thu soon), we burped him, still no sleep, then ended up giving him some milk to calm him down.  He wouldn't even sleep in are arms - he's kept screaming.

He finally fell asleep in his dads arms at 9pm. and then slept thru until 6.30am.

I think he's like this because of his afternoon nap.  It's leaving him less tired and sleepy for his night time sleep. 

Here's his usual routine:
6 - 7 am wakes up and has milk
then usually goes to sleep in our bed until 8-9am (naps for 1 hr)
9-10 breakfast
11am - milk
12.30 - 1.00 lunch
2.00pm - 4pm nap sometimes naps for 1 hr or even 2 sometimes
4pm - milk & snack
5.30pm dinner
6.30 bath, bed, sometimes milk if he's not had enough in the day.



Very Spirited Aries Boy

[Caroline-Charlies Mummy]

Hello there,

looking at his schedule, I'd say that your lo is actually not napping enough, rather than too much.  It looks like (and please correct me if I'm wrong) he has an hour nap soon after waking in the morning, and then 1 afternoon nap. This means he has from between 9am and 2pm awake time (5 hours), which I think is probably too long. How old is your lo? This may help: http://www.babywhisperer.com/forum/typical-hours-of-sleep-for-ages-1-week-to-6-years-vt3195.html .

Perhaps this is happening now b/c your lo is starting to get older and do more, and is therefore tiring himself out more.

What is your wind-down routine for naps? Has it changed at all? Unfortunately, things like colds, learning to crawl, etc, can all upset good sleepers, and it's something we have to ride out (believe me, I have personal experience of this  :roll:  ).

Have you had a read of Tracy's sleep interview? It doesn't take long to download, and it's really useful, packed with loads of great hints and tips on what to do:
http://www.babywhisperer.com/forum/a-special-sleep-interview-with-tracy-hogg-vt3186.html