Opinions needed please!

[waffles1]

Bit of background first...my 7 month old ds was sleeping well during the night up until about 6 weeks ago. Teething, developmental, growth spurt & cough and cold all distrupted his sleep to the point of waking up crying every 1-2 hours. This equaled one very sleep deprived and stressed mummy! Things are starting to improve with the night wakings reducing to 2-3 times per night which is bearable, just!!
However, this disturbed sleep has knocked out the daytime nap routine during the day that was starting to form and i think this is having a knock on effect with his night time sleep and is why he is still waking.
So my question is...do you think daytime nap routine equals better night time sleeping? if so, how have other mums implemented a daytime nap routine? I'm finding this hard to do mainly because every day is different in terms of what we do and also ds wake up time is different, it's anytime between 6am - 8am.
I'm starting to feel very frazzled with the lack of good night time sleep and can't help feel it's due to lack of routine in the day, or maybe it's not, opinons please fellow mums?!

Should have added that i usually put ds down after 2-2.5 hours of waking from a nap, so he's having approx 3 naps per day but they are not at the same time each day due to waking up at different times.
Also ds can only fall asleep with motion, i.e. being rocked, car, pram which again i really don't know how to stop and think is another contributing factor!!

Yes, some good daytime naps means babies get to bed-time rested and calm rather than wired and stressed. When things get out of whack I think you have to work a little at getting them back to some kind of natural cycle. If your baby likes motion then use it shamelessly to get the routine back where it was e.g. go for a walk with the pram at roughly the same time each morning until 'sleeping in the morning' becomes a habit. I don't think you can make it precise like clockwork but if you try to cement a mid-morning nap and a mid-afternoon nap that'll probably help the nighttimes.

Hi there!

This could have been me writing this 6 months ago :)

One thing that strikes me from your post is that three naps a day might be too many? Does your ds seem very tired when you put him down?

Up until 6 months I was quite rigid about routine naps as it worked well for us but as soon as we hit teething/weaning/illness territory we decided to just go with whatever worked on a day-to-day basis, often depending on how the previous night had been!

Our dd cut back to 2 naps a day as a result of this and eventually went down to one nap at 11 months. I know that all babies are different and some still need 2 naps until much older but we are pleased that we started taking our cues from dd more as she is sleeping better at night now. She still wakes up once or twice for feeds but goes straight back to sleep which is definitely an improvement!

Yep. Better naps did mean better nights for DS although not right now.

We used the no cry nap solution to get it sorted out.

Thanks Cogito, i agree that a mid morning and mid afternoon nap is the best routine at this age so will work at getting this back. DS does love the pram so will give walking at the same time a try.
Hi Ellesabe, did things start to improve with regards to the night time waking? Was it just a case of riding it out? I agree that now 3 naps are probably too many, i am going to try to structure 2 into his daily routine.
Fuzzled, i have just purchase the no cry book and am just starting to read it so hopefully it will help. When did you begin to see an improvement?
Thanks all!

Hi waffles1, firstly you have my sincere sympathies, I know what you're going through (being going through a lot of it myself lately with DD teething!) and sleep issues are hell.

My DD is 12 months and has been teething with 4 teeth (all at the same time!) for the last few weeks. It doesn't bother her so much during the day but at night it wakes her up at least 3 times a night and on a bad night 5+ times making her refuse to settle back down. I have found that if she's been up a lot during the night she is more than happy to make up for the lost sleep during the day but if I can I try to limit her to sleeping only after 10am and for a maximum of 1 hour. Anymore than that can make bedtime more difficult to keep going and seems to give her more scope to wake up after only being asleep for 3-4 hours at night.

Hope that helps a little, and keep your chin up x

I really got on with the Gina Ford routine with regards naps, bedtime etc. Might be worth having a look at it. I reckon 2 naps is the way forward at 7 months. Good Luck