Limited Day sleep and night wakings

[shimmer]

My (almost) 8-month-old was a terrible night waker, and before that suffered from a severe case of colic.  When she finally grew out of catnapping, someone suggested I limit her day sleep in order to get better night sleep.  It worked for about 2 weeks, and now we have the strangest things happening.  She cries out about 1/2 a dozen times a night, still.  It only last just long enough and loud enough to wake me and then she goes back to sleep.. We are also struggling with an early waking problem.  We've tried moving bedtime earlier, but that always eventually results in earlier and earlier wakings. She doesn't really seem to have habitual wakings... she wakes more on a cycle... meaning, 3 hours later as opposed to a certain clock time.  Please help as we are moving to a new time zone in a month and I am nervous we'll never get things straightened out!

Wake 7 AM
nap #1 9/9:15
Wake after 45 min. ( I wake her)

nap #2 12:45 PM
Wake after 2 hours (again - I wake her) occassionally she wakes early from this nap, but 99% of the time she goes back to sleep
 
bedtime 7:00PM

We tried to keep a catnap for as long as possible, but she would fight it and it would only last 1o min. at the most.  She screams like crazy at bedtime, but not until we begin her routine.  She's fine and happy until then.  HELP!

[linfran]

Could you try letting her sleep a bit longer in the mornings ,say an hour and a half?

I just ask because I am the mother of the world's wrost napper - it's a running battle most days before he eventually goes to sleep.  One thing I have worked out is that if he doesn't get enough sleep during the day he is overtired at night and tends to be a lot more fidgety, waking up at the end of a sleep cycle, having a little cry before either settling himself or needing a dummy and going straight over - it sounds the same sort of thing that your lo is doing.

She seems to do great with the afternoon nap and isn't sleeping too close to bedtime so maybe extending the morning nap might help - I guess it's a fine line between too much sleep and too little (and no one ever tells us where that line is!!).

[shimmer]

If I let her 1st nap be longer, then the 2nd one is always ridiculously short.... I mean, I could try it and see if maybe, now that she's in the habit of a longer nap....?

[Jaime]

maybe let her afternoon nap go an extra half hour??