Do long morning naps mean early morning waking??

[waffles1]

My 10 month old ds has a long morning nap, from 9.30 - 11.30 and then another shorter nap around 3 - 3.30. In anyone's experience, could having a longer morning nap as opposed to a longer lunchtime/afternoon nap, be the reason behind waking up early? DS wakes up at 5.45am most mornings, although plays happily in his cot until 6.20ish. I realise this isn't drastically early however, from 8am ds starts getting sleepy and irritable again which makes me think he needs at least an hour longer asleep in the morning

Hi Waffles, I'm having early waking issues with my 8mth DD, she's up at 5.45 also. I hate to complain (!!) as I used to be up all night and am just grateful that she now sleeps through. However getting up before 6 is hard (unless you're going on holiday!), esp if you've had months of sleep deprevation. She also seems really tired around 8ish so for all concerned would love her to sleep a bit longer.

To try and answer your question - I keep her in a routine of a short morning nap (9 15 - 10) and 2 hours after lunch (12 30 - 1430) and wake her if she sleeps longer. Have been doing this strictly for a week but to no avail as she still wakes at 5.45. Reading stuff people seem to think that babies use an early nap as a way of catching up on night sleep which perpetuates the problem, so I've been trying to break this cycle. However she's still up at the same time! Have come to the conclusion that nearly 11 hours sleep is good going at her age - is your DS crawling? Have heard (fingers crossed!) that they sleep a bit longer then as physically tired.

So is my experience it doesn't make a difference but you could try cutting down the morning nap for a few days and seeing if it does for you.

Really interesting question as it took me a long time to work out the right balance of daytime sleep so that my daughter slept well at night. waffles, I agree with the principles of what Yorkshire is saying in that a nap after lunch is better than a long one first thing in the morning as it helps to prevent overtiredness later in the day - which IME can be to blame for early mornings.

At this age, I would suggest a short 30 min nap in the morning (930ish) and a 2 hours after lunch (exactly like Yorkshire). If you find this doesn't solve the early mornings after doing it consistently for a few weeks (it took me 6 weeks to see a change), then I think it's a sign that keeping the morning nap is throwing things off balance. Cutting that out can be REALLY hard, but do-able - which is what I did.

Of course, everyone has a different approach and for some people 11 hours is amazing, so its up to you really. If you want to try and aim for the magical 12 hours, you could try fiddling with the naps a bit and see what happens.

hope that helps

IME (mamma of another early riser!) too long/too early morning nap can cause EW, b/c LO is often overtired at BT (major cause of EW) and the early nap can act as an extension of night sleep.

I too cut the morning nap gradually shorter until it was 30mins from 9.30-10 but I also had to push mine out by an hour because I had foolishly been putting him down for his morning nap at 8am. We then did a 12.30-2.30 PM nap capped at 2hrs & a 7pm BT this also really helped us with our EW. I agree with love though that it may take more than 1 week to see an effect so you need to be prepared to hang in there!

Just to throw in another option, it is actually possible to hang onto your long nap in the morning if you feel thats what suits you/DS better. However, the way to keep it AND get rid of the EW is to very gradually shift it a bit later. While the nap continues to start at 9.30am, you will continue to get EW & they will only get earlier as he gets older.

Now if he's currently getting up at 5.45am & napping at 9.30 then he's awake for 3.75hrs before his nap, right? So if you want him to wake at 7am, then he needs to be napping at 10.45am at the earliest IYSWIM? So you could nudge the nap later by 15 mins each week until it starts at 10.45am. As this nap gets later in the morning, his PM nap will also get later in the afternoon & nearer to tea time. To make sure he will still settle at bedtime ok you will need to gradually cut the PM nap shorter until its a teeny tiny bridging nap. Once the AM nap is starting at 11/11.30 you are pretty much in a position to drop the teatime catnap and just do one long nap over lunch.

HTH.x

Thanks all for responses, some great suggestions. The general consesus is that the morning nap needs to be shorter so as ds is off to nursery 3 mornings a week from next month i would imagine he will find it hard to nap for 2 hours there so hopefully this may kick start a new routine of long lunchtime napping.
Yorkshire, let me know know you get on with shortening the morning nap. I know what you mean about hating to complain as my ds also went through a period of hourly waking for about 6 weeks and almost drove me insane, the sleep deprivation was horrendous, so now i feel very happy we're getting 11 hours, it's just i can tell ds is still tired and grumpy! Sorry to say ds is crawling and didn't make a difference to ew, however may be different for you! Good luck, keep me posted!
Omama thanks for advice re: shifting morning nap to a slightly later time as this is also something to consider, particulary as once ds is up from his morning nap he is generally happy and refreshed so not really hughly keen to drop it, although keen to see the back of 5.45am!! :-)

Waffles I found that the longer lunchtime nap was even more refreshing for my LO and meant that late afternoons were also relatively stress-free. I know it's tempting to keep the long morning nap as it seems to help him, but it probably is causing the EMW so it's a bit of a vicious circle at the moment.

Good luck!

Completely agree with love on that - my DS was also much more refreshed with the longer nap in the afternoon. If he did a long nap in the AM (we tried both ways) he would be tired and irritable come bedtime.

However I do know of mums who do follow the long AM nap successfully, so just wanted to throw it in there as a suggestion. The key of course is to push it later so it is no longer a long AND early morning nap. Keeping it at 9.30am will most definitely keep you stuck with the EW.

xx

Ive just read all this and was just wondering if not napping enough in the day either morning or afternoon could have an affect on nighttime sleep? My DS hardly naps at all in the daytime when at the childminder and he wakes once during the night and then 5.30 ish hes up for the day. But he really does fight sleep - ie rubbing eyes etc way before he eventually drifts off.
I'm confused - but have little control over daytime naps anyway!!

Hi forced - I would say yes, although there are plenty of babies out there who survive on very little daytime sleep and are great nighttime sleepers.

It's usually overtiredness which means that their nights are unsettled (although being undertired can also cause this!!!).

Is your son at the childminders full time? Perhaps you could speak to her about how she settles him for naps? Some LOs struggle when there's a lot of stimuation around them and can't just nod off, whereas others can fall asleep in the middle of a building site. The rubbing eyes etc sounds like he is already overtired by the time he is trying to go to sleep, so I would start settling him before then.

You don't say how old he is, but as a rough guide, my daughter struggled to stay up for more than 2 hours in between naps until she was about 9 months old. Having said that, there are plenty who can! They're all so different... :)

Just joining in here as DS (15 mos) has started waking 5.30 - 6am every morning - bedtime is 7.30pm. He does at least sleep through from bedtime now though, so I am counting myself lucky! I've read a lot about the long early AM nap contributing to early waking but I just can't seem to push him to nap any later. This morning he got up at 6am, was really crabby and tired by 8am - I put him down and he slept for 2 hours straight! Sometimes he makes it through to 9am before napping. He also usually has an hour around 2pm. Part of the problem is that I am so tired with his early waking that I sort of give in and once he shows tired signs I put him down so I can nap too. I'm trying to go to bed early but I often work in the early evenings which makes it difficult. How have you all pushed the nap later? Is it just activity and distraction? And has anyone tried a version of controlled crying at the 5.30 / 6 wake up with any luck? Thanks - and sorry to hijack!

Hi clarejane, we're in exactly the same boat, so welcome!
I do agree Omama that 9.30am is too early, so that's the next step, trying to push this later to at least 10am.
So now the next decision is whether to start pushing ds am nap to 10am and waking 30 mins later and then putting down at lunchtime for a longer nap, and to get this established before nursery, OR to just keep having the long am nap and hope being at nursery will do this. What do you think? (nursery starts in 3 weeks, eek!)
Haven't tried cc when ds wakes as i know it wouldn't work as he is too awake to go back to sleep but not quite awake enough to be full of beans so it's that awkward stage. May have worked for others though.

I know it's tempting to use sleep training, but in this instance I think it's unfair to try CC at 5.30am as they're not waking for any other reason than they've had enough sleep up to that point. I also think for this reason it would be really hard going and you'd probably end up not seeing it through. If it was a bad sleep habit they'd got into, perhaps CC could then be justified.

Before I tried that, I would definitely attempt to move the naps. As Omama says, as long as you keep the early and long morning nap, you'll probably also keep the early waking. Waffles I would go with your first option of doing a short 30 min nap in the morning and a longer one at lunchtime. Once that is established you can eventually drop the morning nap and he will have just one long sleep at lunchtime which is (for most children) a very restorative nap at just the right time half way through their day.

definitely agree with love here - trying CC would probably be futile. If he's had enough sleep then all that CC will do is make him worked up, & probably make you feel exasperated b/c it won't work.

clarejane I was in a very similar position to you once upon a time was putting my LO to bed at 8am b/c he was tired from early waking, but all that happened was his WU got even earlier until he was regularly waking between 4-4.30 (sometimes even 3.30) & then he'd spend almost all day crying from tiredness & it was truly awful. I truly know how shattered you are b/c I have been there, and the only way to make it stop is to push the nap later.

waffles really the choice is yours as to which way you do things. If you opt for short AM nap, I would probably forget pushing the nap later for now, & just cap it shorter so its 9.30-10am. The idea with short AM nap is that you put them down slightly UT so that its not so exhausting for them when you wake them after a short nap! You might even want to consider cutting it back gradually i.e. reduce it by 15mins every 3 days until its at 30mins, b/c to go suddenly from a 1.5-2hr nap to a 30min one will shock him a bit! However if you want to go with long AM then you DO need to push it later. WRT nursery, do you know if they will put him down when you ask or do they have fixed nap times? Many nurseries do a big nap after lunch at around 12.30ish, so might be worth finding out as it might affect your choice!

xx

My dd had a long morning nap and was an early waker too. The No Cry Sleep Solution says that if they are napping within 2 hours of waking then they haven't had enough nightime sleep, I tried all sorts of things and never fixed it, in the end I accepted it and now go to bed early. At 2.2 she now wakes at 6am which is a killer on the weekends.

Dd started nursery at 12 months and for the first little while slept whenever she was tired as she was transitioning from 2 naps to 1, but soon settled into their routine of 1 nap after lunch. They were pefectly happy to go with my routine at the start and if she didn't want to nap at after lunch nap time they just read quietly with her.

However at home she kept up the morning nap from 09.30/10.00 until lunchtime untill she was at least 18 months, when suddenly she started staying awake for longer in the morning.

Just seen your ds will be doing mornings at nursery, I think the stimulation will eventually keep him awake and you won't have a problem with the morning nap on those days but it may still continue on non-nursery days.

Thanks all! So nice to know others are going / have gone through this! It can feel a little lonely at 5.30am :)

Feeling a bit more positive today as he slept till 6am and managed to go to a little after 9am before he napped - and woke naturally after an hour. He had a lot of exercise yesterday which may also have helped. I think he's on the verge of walking too, so maybe that is also effecting his sleep.

Agreed waffles and omama and love - CC seems like it would be pointless if he is waking because he's had enough sleep. We've never done any real sleep training anyway, so the poor thing would just be confused and annoyed. I think I was just clutching at straws because he was so knackered yesterday after being up for barely two hours!

I think I just have to try to get myself to bed earlier, drink an extra cup of coffee in the AM and keep both of us occupied in order to push his first nap out. Will keep you all posted - and thanks again!

hi ladies, what would you suggest for me? Dd has just turned 8mo and has taken to ELW the last few weeks. Anywhere between 5.45 and 6.30 not hire horrendously bad I know but she would usually sleep until 7/7.30 and that extra half hour/hour makes a HUGE difference to both our sleep! shes quite happy to lay there and chat for half hour so I usually ignore her until j can summon the strength to get out of bed (she wakes numourous times for what I think is just for a comfort feed).

Regaress of what time she wakes I try and keep her ul for her morning nap until 9.30 she will sleep for 40-60min. The last two days I have been waking her after half hour to see if it will make a difference. She will then have a nap at around 12.45/1pm for 45-60min and again at 3.45/4ish. I won't let her sleep past 4.30 and she goes to bed for 7pm.

She will NOT have a longer stretch after lunch which is why she's having the extra afternoon nap but I have been wondering if I should make the naps to one late morningish and one mid afternoonish?

Sorry to jump on your post OP!!

We have a similar problem for my 6 month old Ds. He generally wakes up for a bottle between 4.30 and 5.30 am and then won't go back to sleep until he naps for an hour which usually starts one or two hours after he woke up and I generally go back to sleep for an hour then too. He then has a longer late morning or lunchtime nap. So you think if I try to push back the early morning nap he'll gradually start to wake up later?

er1507 at 8 months I wouldn't switch your naps to late morning & late afternoon. If you do that I think you'll find she'll be OT for the morning nap.

I'd say the late afternoon nap will certainly contribute to the EW at that age but I understand its difficult to drop when the PM nap isn't so long. TBH though I wonder if your PM nap may be starting too late, esp if you have capped the AM nap to 30mins, from 9.30-10, perhaps try putting her down no later than 12.30pm & see if she sleeps for longer. If you can get a longer nap here then you might find she'll be able to skip the afternoon nap.

And same for you I want candy - yes if you push the first nap later it may help, because the next nap will also go later, as will the afternoon nap & BT (assuming it is early atm). However as your LO is only 6months old, he really won't be able to handle being kept awake all the way until 9.30am, nor is he likely to handle his nap being pushed 15mins later in one go, so you might have to push it very gradually, 5mins at a time, until its starting at around 9am. Earlier for you, because LO is younger!

I've not read the replies, but most children that age have a short first nap & a long second one. If they have a short second one, they're likely to be overtired by bedtime which often results in early waking (and disturbed nights).

A too-early first nap can also cause early waking, as the first nap is basically being used instead of an extension of night sleep. You can shuffle the first nap later by 5 mins every couple of days to make it later. I doubt that's your problem, though, OP.

A very common pattern for children on 2 naps a day is a variation on the 2-3-4 pattern: first nap 2 hours after waking, second nap 3 hours after waking, bedtime 4 hours after waking.

You could try giving him a short earlier nap, then a much earlier second nap.

I'm having similar early waking problems and seeing as there seem to be knowledgeable people on here can i ask how on earth i can get my dd to nap? She's very nearly one, has always been a bad sleeper and will only nap when she's very, very tired. Even then i have to feed her to sleep, walk or drive her about. If put in her cot she screams murder. I seem to have no way of making sure she doesn't get overtired.