13 mo. old - early riser and refusing pm nap...HELP

[Leosmama]

I'm about at my wit's end, and hope someone can help me.  In the past 2-3 weeks, I started sleep-training my 13 mo. old; meaning, I broke the habit of nursing him to sleep at bedtime and got him to sleep through the night by doing the method of gradually moving farther from his crib every 3 nights.  Well, the results were great in that he now can fall asleep by himself, and sleeps through the night.  BUT, he now wakes every morning between 4:30 and 5:00, and cannot or will not go back to sleep.  Because of that early waking time, he needs a nap between 7:00-8:00am, and sleep about an hour and 15 min.  The other resulting problem is that he has been refusing his afternoon nap!  Here's an example of how our day has gone so far...

(went to bed at 6:00pm last night due to no nap)
woke up at 4:30am
stayed in crib till 5:15am, then got up and nursed
down for nap at 7:00am
woke up at 8:15am
breakfast at 8:30am (which is normally after first morning waking, around 6:00am but he didn't want it then) - cereal and cup of milk
lunch at 11:00am (solids)

.....and, he's been up every since!  Actually, I take that back.  It's 2:15pm and my husband just got him to sleep.  So now we may go with his usual 7:00 pm bedtime.

I tried putting him down for a nap at 1pm, after quietly sitting in his darkened room and singing to him.  I put him down drowsy but awake in his crib, and he immediately stands up and starts crying.  I shhh and pat him and tell him it's nap time, lay down and go to sleep.  I then assume my position on the floor next to his crib, lying down with my head on a pillow and my eyes closed.  We stay like this for 45 min., and the entire time he talked to himself, sat in his crib and played, stood up from time to time and cried before getting back down to play; it was ridiculous!  We did the same thing yesterday too, with no luck.

As for the early rising, it doesn't matter when he goes to bed.  I've tried putting him down super-early (like when he doesn't nap well), keeping him consistently on the 7:00pm bedtime, or trying to gradually move his bedtime later.  Nothing works, he wakes up between 4:30am and 5:00am no matter what.  Even when I was in the habit of nursing him to sleep, that wouldn't even work to get him back to sleep.  And I know he hasn't had enough sleep because he gets cranky about an hour later.

Should I try the Wake to Sleep technique?  I've tried staying in the room with him without picking him up, just patting him and verbally reassuring him, but all he does is just lay there and talk to himself and toss and turn.  I'm not sure about the WO/WI technique, because we're also dealing with pretty major separation anxiety right now.

Can anybody help?

Thanks,

Jennifer

[Hadley12]

Jennifer-
I'm having the exact same experience with my 11 month old (but we have not been doing sleep training - she is still rocked to sleep and put in her crib very much asleep). She refuses her afternoon nap about every other day and is up every morning between 4:30 and 5:15 (she used to sleep until 6:00/6:30). Moving her bedtime earlier or later doesn't seem to help either. With the skipping of the afternoon nap she was waking in the night. Once she got over that though she traded it for the early waking.
It could be that our little ones are going from 2 naps to 1 nap and it's just going to take a while to get on schedule. I was going to try to move her morning nap later by 30 minutes every 2 or 3 days but it seems impossible to do that when she gets up at 4:30 and is so terribly cranky by 6:00 am! Still, I'm going to start with 8:00 am today and see if I can get it later and later until we're at about 12:30. Hopefully then she'll sleep until 3:30 or so? At least that's what some of these discussions suggest will happen. Once she's on a schedule that suits her a little better maybe she'll go back to sleeping later and longer. Now she only does about 9 - 9.5 hours each night and about 2 during the day which I know isn't enough.
If anyone else has suggestions for us, please help!
Also, Jennifer, how did you go about sleep training your 13 month old? It's so hard when they can stand up in their cribs and are going through separation anxiety. Were you putting your baby down asleep for naps and night or just night before?
Thanks!
Caitlin

[Leosmama]

Caitlin, I'm sorry you're having the same problems but I'm glad I'm not alone!  As for the sleep training, we actually did the Sleep Lady method, where you stay with them by their crib as they fall asleep, and every 3 nights you move further away from the crib.  Finally you end up actually leaving their room but staying nearby so you can soothe them with your voice if need be.  For nighttime, this has worked wonders for us.  I went from always nursing him to sleep at bedtime, for night wakings, and for naps.  Now he falls asleep alone in his crib at bedtime and never wakes until the dreaded 4:30-5:00am wakeup call    The naps are a bit tougher though.

As for moving the nap later and later each day, I'd like to try that.  But I've been wondering, where will lunch fall into that?  Because as I'm moving it into the later morning, he's going to be going down for that nap before lunchtime, and then his lunch will happen fairly late in the day.  Or do I feed him a super early lunch before this nap?

agghhh, so much to think about and figure out!

[Hadley12]

What a lucky little one you have to have had the comfort of mom during sleep training. I think these "cuddly" methods are so much more appealing than the cry-it-out but I know different things work for different families. But I bet your little guy was glad to have mommy with him during the transition.

I wonder if you could split lunch into 2 parts? Half before the nap and half after? That way he will be hungry for his usual supper? My lo still nurses 4 times/day and has 2 snacks and 3 meals so I know how important all of those calories are! I think while you are adjusting to a new routine it's okay to even do 6 small meals throughout the day (that's probably better for his little metabolism anyway) until you are on a more workable schedule.

It's funny - rereading your post we really are dealing with the EXACT same issues. I am hesitiant to try wake to sleep because I'm afraid I'll just wake her even earlier than she would get up anyway! But, if she persists with the 4:45 for a few more days I think I'll go in at 4:30 and make a little noise or rub her belly until she stirs a bit and then leave. I know that trying to shift to one nap a day is so hard when they are up for the day before the sun!! Then again, maybe if we can master the one nap, she'll start sleeping in on her own again. ARGH!! I'm also trying to figure out how to get her down without the rocking and paci... Hmmm...

Good luck! Let me know how it's going...

Caitlin

[Missy Lou]

if  you guys don't mind, i'm going to move this post to the Sleeping for Toddlers board.  The fantastic moderators there will be able to help you.
melissa

[Leosmama]

Another thing I'm wondering is, while trying to push back that morning nap later and later, there's going to be a period of time where they're napping in the late morning, and I'm afraid that he won't be able to make it from the wakeup time of that nap till bedtime.  And if he were to take a very late afternoon nap, that would screw up bedtime.

I sure hope someone out there will have some tips for how to make this transition as painless as possible!

[Leosmama]

well, I know this is just one day and I don't want to jinx anything, but I feel like a miracle has occured...

Last night I put DS down at 7:30pm; he woke briefly at 1:45am and I simply went to his door and said "nighty night, go back to sleep", and he got quiet.  As usual, he woke at 4:40am, and I went right to him and immediately began rubbing his back and shh'ing while sitting on the floor next to his crib.  Unbelievably, he actually fell back asleep!!!    I layed down on the floor and fell asleep myself, and he woke up at 6:00am!

Then, I decided to keep him to one nap today, and tried to keep him up as late as possible.  Again unbelievably, he didn't seem ready to nap until around 11:30am.  After doing a nice wind down, he went right down at 12:00pm!!!  Here's hoping he sleeps for at least an hour and a half.

So there is some hope.  I know it would be dangerous to expect this from now on, but at least I've got a blueprint of what I would like our days to be like going forward.

Jennifer

[imsmum]

Hello everyone!  Sorry you are having a rough go with the 2 to1 nap transition--it's a tough one!In Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems Tracy sets out a method of switching to one npa that basically involves moving the am nap later each day and offering a late afternoon catnap until the morning nap is around 11 or so and is a couple of hours long.  Having said that my lo wouldn't go for that and we basically jumped initially to the 11:30 nap, with lunch before because she was waking so early anyways that it was her lunchtime!  what was key for us was to make sure there was no more than 5 to 5.5 hours after wakeup from her nap before bedtime or she would wake at night.  Some lo's seem to be more sensitive to the amount of A time before nap, ie they won't nap or it will be super short if they are awake too long before their nap and some are more sensitive to the A time after nap--ie.  too long and they will wake in the night. So once you figure that out you can help your lo adjust better by either moving the nap forward in increments for those with the morning A time "sensitivity"  or the big jump  for those that are more sensitive to having an overly long pm wake time .For a long time we were stuck with a 1.5 hour nap from 12:30-2, and a sleep time from 7:30 to 5:30. I should've tried shifting the whole day forward at that point but the spring time change helped on that.

It's tough because when your lo first transitions, there really are too many hours in the day for them.  An early bedtime is key to help them catch up on their sleep even if on some days that means a 6:30 bedtime! HTH

[Leosmama]

Thanks imsmum!  I feel like I've learned so much just in the past couple of days re. the whole 2-1 transition.  I think your explanation makes perfect sense.

DS napped from 12-2 today; yahoo!!!  And I put him in bed somewhat drowsy at 7:10, and he fell asleep about 10-15 min. later.  Now I'm just hoping that he has another good night, and we can start off on the right foot tomorrow.

Thanks for all the support!

Jennifer

[imsmum]

Jennifer--that sounds great!  Hope last night went well for you!