early waking 10 1/2 month old

[Katet]

Emma, where in Sydney are you? My Sis is an Aussie in UK... althought technically she is a pom as we are duel citizens & have UK passports.

Well Liam was up 2x for full on feeds, but slept until after 7.15am... pitty Aiden wakes at 6.30 on the dot.

I think Liam's prob is teething, there are 2 just through & another 2 red & swollen gums... also yesterday his meals were kind of messed up, so I think he missed a bit on the bf side & he had a really late 3rd nap... 4hours of awake time before as it took me over an hour to get him to nap... can't wait until he gets to 2 naps properly... but then it will be a mess with Aiden on 1 nap... can't get it right in this Mummy game :lol:

[Pominoz]

can't get it right in this Mummy game

Kate, can anybody??  I'm sure you are a fantastic mum.  It must be very hard with two very young ones.  The trouble is that it is such an inexact science.....there is only a very vague "norm" and they all deviate so widely from it.  I swear it's the most wonderful job in the world but also the hardest.

We live in Rozelle, in the Inner West.  How about you?  We are going for citizenship soon so will also have both Pommie and Aussie passports (Tamsin has both already!).  We may decide to move back to England eventually (love Oz but can't stand being so far away from the families), but if we are Aussie citizens at least we can to and fro easily between the 2 countries. 

Your sister is like my alter-ego - she would have to have the handle "Aussieinpommieland"  :lol:

I have a question for Kate and any other mums of 2 or more - is this nasty early waking scenario likely to happen when the bubs move from 2 naps to 1?  If so, is there anything that can be done to prevent it?! 

Cheers all

Emma (9am and feels like midday already!)

[debandbrian]

Ok, I'm jumping in on this thread in hopes that someone will be able to point us in the right direction....as we must eliminate this 5 am wakeup!!!!!!!!
Hopefully this won't be too long of an explanation, but here goes...

DS started sleeping through in October, but has always had a 5 am wakeup. He is very very scrawny for his age (just under 16 lbs at 9 1/2 mos) - so I've always been happy and willing to give him that 5 am feed. We were in a pretty good routine before the holidays of feeding at 5 then he'd sleep for 1 1/2 to 2 more hours. All was well.

Well, over the holidays with travel and everything that wakeup started creeping back little by little and he was up at 4:30, then 4, then 3:30...things were spiralling out of control!!! At his 9 mo checkup, I told his doc about this, and she said that he didn't need the 5 am feeding, despite the fact that she wants him to put on weight pronto. She suggested a bottle of water (I knew he'd never go for that, as he's never taken to a bottle no matter what's in it), or letting him cry, or doing whatever to get him to go back to sleep without the feed.
So we set out with having dh go in and soothe him to sleep. We eliminated the feed, but it's been over a week now and he's still waking up (with the exception of one night, where he slept 8 pm to 6 am hours without a peep - I thought I'd won the lottery!!). For a few of the nights he's put himself back to sleep with a whimper here and there, but most of the nights - or I guess I should say mornings - it's full-out crying pretty quickly.

So here's the dilemma...do I try wake to sleep, or do I try moving his 3 naps to 2 - which, btw are not necessarily a sufficient amount of sleep as we've been plagued by the 30 minute nap problem which I've been trying (with little success) to fix.

I would be more than willing to start the day at 5 am if he were well rested, but he's miserable. And dh has to get up at 6 for work, so if we could even just make it that extra hour that would work too. I have problems with 'night wakings' myself, so right now I feel like I need to be in bed by about 6 pm in order to get 8 decent hours myself!!!!!!!!!!

At the moment, with 2 naps of about 80 mins each (but rarely straight through - I often have to help him go back to sleep part way through) and a cat nap at about 4:30 pm, he can barely keep his head up past 7:30. I know in general he's just not getting enough sleep, but I just don't know what to do for him (and us).

Thanks for reading......any insight we could get would be wonderful!
Deborah

[Pominoz]

Hi Deborah

I think you are having exactly the same problem as us - that your ds really needs to go onto a 2 nap schedule but isn't quite ready for it.

I am pretty sure that the key (for us, and maybe for you) is to try to make the first nap as late as possible.  My dd has been waking between 4.30 and 5am, then going back down for a nap at 7.45.  She has been having to have 3 naps, as her day is so long that with her current awake time (about 3 hours), 2 is just not enough.  After getting advice from this thread I am pushing her first nap forward until 8.30.  She sleeps until 10, then she goes back down again at 1.30 for another 1.5 hours.  She goes to bed at about 6.15.  It's pretty tiring for her, but she is managing OK.  And this morning she woke up at 5am, which sounds abysmal but is better than her usual 4.45am.

It sounds as though it might be harder for you because your ds has shorter naps.  Can you outline a typical day, giving the actual times that he would probably go down for naps?

It's hard isn't it?  It's exhausting getting up at that time every day.  I usually go to bed at 9.30, but last night I just really wanted to stay up and spend some time with dh.  I went to bed at 10.30 (it's pathetic but that feels late to me now), and today I'm bushed!

Take care

Emma

[zelkad]

HI Deb...I don't have much time right now but hang in there...I wonder if you'd get help too if you posted this on the naps forum too.  I'll write more later tonight!!

[Katet]

Deborah

your ds is a few weeks older than Liam & I have the benefit of having been through this before.

My thought is at 8.5 months the textbook sleeping would be pretty close to

7am - wake
feeds (milk & solids)
10am sleep 1.5 hours
feeds (milk & solids
2.30pm sleep 1-1.5 hours
4pm feed milk
6pm solids
bath
7pm milk & bed

Ok for me it is
between 6 &7 wake up & feed... sometimes back to sleep
9am nap 45mins-1.5 hours
10 (on wake up if longer sleep) bf
noon solids
12.45/1pm nap - 2 hours
3pm bf
5.15pm solids
6.45pm bath
7pm bf
7.15 bed
sometimes have a night feed

My routine is this way so I can get both my toddler & baby sleeping at the same time & still do playgroup & swimming lessons otherwise I would have the more "traditonal" textbook patterns.

What I wouls suggest is to try & keep your lo up at least 2.5 hours from the morning wake up, but keep it as low key as you can from first wakeup to "ideal wake up" - I sit & cuddle & rock Liam if he is awake before 6.45am (toddler get up time). Then when you get close to the nap time, keep it as low key as possible. try to get the lengths between naps to at least 2.5hours & closer to 3 if you can.  I have been having to have bedtime at 6.30pm sometimes as the last nap is early, but that doesn't result in an earlier wakeup... later to bed can sometimes give early wakeups...more often with boys than girls too.

[debandbrian]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
I think we are on to something with the 2 naps. DH and I were backtracking in our minds - when he had the great night on Monday, he'd not had a late nap that day - I think he still had 3, but the first one was quite early and short because we had swimming from 10 - 10:30. So he had his second nap soon after we got home (11ish?) and the 3rd one was earlier than normal (maybe 2ish?) That night was the night he slept 8 - 6 straight through.
Yesterday he also didn't have a late afternoon nap - just because he didn't seem to need it. He was exhausted by 6:30, but we held him off until 7 then did bedtime a bit early and he was asleep at 7:40. He actually woke up several times in the night - 9pm, midnight, 4am - which is not normal for him at this point - but he only moaned for a minute or two and then put himself back to sleep. His final wakeup was 6:15 this morning - which is just fine by me.

So here's the thing - he is sooooooo sleepy 2 1/2 hours after wakeup, which puts his am nap at about 8;30 or 9 (it's 8:30 now and he just went to sleep). I don't want him to be cranky, but I really need to push back both the morning and the afternoon nap. I guess I'll just keep trying to add 10 min increments to the awake time and see where it goes from there....starting tomorrow, as dh has to go to a funeral today (an old employee of my FIL - dh just wants to pay respects so no need for condolences to us) so we are going to combo it with lunch with the IL's and a trip to toys r us as we desperately need to get a baby gate - all of this is about 30 mins from our little town. We're not so big on outings, so anytime we do trek out it throws everything off. But I digress!!

OK, I'll keep you posted. I think going from 3 to 2 naps really is the key - hopefully we won't be too unbearable in the process. Thanks again - you all are genius!!
Deborah

[Pominoz]

Deborah - just wondering how your transition to 2 naps is going?

We seem to be managing OK.  Tamsin has woken at 5am for the past 2 days, which is a slight improvement on 4.45.  Then she has had naps of 1.5 hours at 8.30am and 1.30pm.  It's definitely tiring for her, and she's going to bed about 6.15pm, but she's doing great.  I'm really hoping for a slightly later wake up time soon - if we make 5.15am I'll be delighted!

Cheers

Emma

[debandbrian]

Thanks Emma for asking.
Today it just plain didn't happen...

Yesterday just after lunch ds started having a bit of a sniffle, and by bedtime his nostrils were faucets!!
He was up several times - I actually rocked him back to sleep at midnight, something he hasn't needed in a long time, nor does he let ME do (what with the whole wanting to nurse thing...but I guess he really wasn't feeling well!!!) The other times he just whimpered and put himself back to sleep.

Well, this morning he woke at 5:45 but was in good spirits, so we just got up and started our day. He napped from 8-9 am (which might've been longer if the &^%$# dogs hadn't started to bark). This was actually perfect timing for our swimming class which starts at 10 - because he had a cold, I wasn't sure if I was going to take him or not, but since he was in a good mood I figured the nap time was a sign that we should go. Anyways, he had nap #2 soon after we got home - from 11:30 - 1, and seemed sleepy again at 3 so I tried to put him down but as soon as we started to wind down he perked up and showed no interest in sleeping. I thought if he were going to have a third nap that this would be better than later, but no luck. No surprise, he did get tired again and slept from 4:30 - 5:15.

DH is putting him to bed right now (it's almost 8 here) which is back to his normal bedtime. I have no idea what is going to happen tonight, so we will go from there. The 5:45 was fine, I could live with that if today is going to be the norm...we'll see.
I have decided though that I am not going to make myself too crazy since he is sick. And, dh is going out of town next week so I am going to be on my own for 3 nights...I may end up throwing all of my work out the window just to survive.

Let me know how things progress for you. I kept trying to get on to this board today but just got distracted every time. I was curious to know what the best nap times would be if he were only having 2 a day, and sleeping 8 pm to 6 am (he seems to only need 10 hrs...though I think if I could lengthen the nighttime by a half hour or more, he'd be a bit happier)?

OK, I'm off to bed myself, keep your fingers crossed that it's a good night, and good luck in your pursuits!
Deborah