Tried everything!!!!

[ebmummy]

Ok, so I have been a regular lurker and contributor on this topic for a while now, and also taken away great advice (particular thanks to omama). I've shortened DS's daytime naps, and tried to keep his morning nap after 9.30 to discourage early waking. But for the past week he's still getting up at 5.30! Our routine is as follows:

5.30 wake and bf
7.30 breakfast
9.30-10.00 nap
10-1.30 bf, snack, play, lunch 12.30, play, bf
1.30-2.30/3 nap
6.30-7 bath, bottle, bed.

Should I cut afternoon nap? I always wake him up, for both morning and afternoon naps. Help please!!

It looks a bit light food wise. What's e eating for dinner?

I wouldn't wake him up from afternoon nap, let him wake himself up.

What's on the window in his room. What's on his window? We have a blackout blind but light gets in around the edge so I've been putting the blackout paper up and I do think it helps as we had 5am wake ups and now it's 6.30.

Sorry,forgot dinner! Yeah he has a snack about 3.30pm and dinner about 5pm (though recently off his food a bit).. Blackout blinds sound a good idea, though think it's the damn starlings waking him up in the mornings. Should I try later to bed?

Hi there. Can you remind me how old he is now???

Sorry hadn't finished that!!!!

Was going to suggest 6.30 might be a wee bit too early if he naps til 3pm. 7pm might even be too early but I think that may depend on his age.

Another thing to try is to shorten the morning nap a wee bit more, this will bring the PM nap a touch earlier & then this gives that extra bit of time awake before bedtime, rather than pushing bedtime too much later.

WRT capping the afternoon nap, since its generally 1-1.5hrs, no I wouldn't shorten it or you are likely to end up with an overtired little one.

HTH.x

omama, he's 13 months exactly.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try shortening his morning nap..

He actually falls straight asleep at night as soon as he's had his bottle so ideally I'd like to keep the 6.30-7 threshold. Plus I don't think I can bear to give up any of my evenings with DH just chilling out and relaxing (is that very selfish of me?!)

It looks like his morning nap is only 30 mins anyway so I can't see how you'd shorten that. Maybe its time to encourage him to drop it altogether and then heat make his afternoon one longer?

Reported

Thanks Tapir for reporting the annoying nasty troll...

I am trying mini but he's rubbing his eyes like crazy by 8.45, so I do a valiant job keeping him till 9.30!

I feel your pain eMummy, I really do. My DS had a tough night and was exhausted by 9.30 so he's asleep now. He gets horrible little pink bags under his eyes when he's tired.

eMummy - had to be done; it's like having a fly in the house. You know it's there cos you can hear it, but shooing it out of the door just isn't working

Hope you find a solution for the sleeping/non-sleeping. My ds was a little monkey when it came to this.

Can you keep gradually delaying the morning nap until it becomes a long lunchtime one?

My 13 month old doesn't work particularly early but had been sleeping dreadfully. She has always slept on the school run, about nine and three and I've struggled to change it but have taken advantage of the Easter holidays. She used to have milk first thing, breakfast, school run, dog walk and nap. I have dropped the milk first thing, just give her breakfast and then when she flags around nine, give her the milk which seems to pep her up again and then just try to keep her busy until at least 11. The last three days she has had a 2 - 2.5 hour nap and slept much better.

This has been much easier than I expected, I thought I would have to do it gradually but it would appear not. But even if it was a gradual thing and led to the improvements I,ve had I would do it again!

On the other hand, both my older DDs have had spells of early waking and nothing changed it until they were ready. I hope you find something that works for you.

I would lengthen his LTN to a full 2 hours every day. This shouldn't be a problem if you're waking him from it - but I would put him down at 12.30, no later so he's up at 2.30 or 3 at the latest.

The problem is either a) overtiredness, b) undertiredness, c) hunger, d) too cold/too hot or e) external noise waking him.

Will he settle back down if you breastfeed him in his room at 5.30am and treat it as a night feed (little interaction, quiet, calm etc)?

If you want to cut his daytime sleep, the best thing to do, as omama says, is aim to reduce and/or eliminate the morning nap. You can cut it down to 15 minutes for example before getting rid completely.

FWIW, my daughter woke at 5.30am for a while on no morning nap and managed while I was sorting out her sleep. We kept her mornings calm, lunch uber early at 11am as she was too tired to have it later and it actually gave her an energy boost to get through to lunch and bed at 12.30. A few weeks later she was sleeping regularly 7-7 and has been a great sleeper ever since. Her early wakings were ALL linked to her daytime naps which is why I am so surprised that a lot of people don't link the two together...

Personally I'd let bed creep to 8 on summer evenings, play outside if you can and have tea reasonably late. Bed when he's clearly tired.

It's only my suggestion, but I'd be really careful of a late bedtime. I'm in the middle of reading 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' by Dr Marc Weissbluth and he goes on constantly about sleep deficits causing more problems. A late bedtime is often seen as a way of getting children to sleep later in the morning, but often doesn't do this (unless this is a child's natural biological sleep pattern) and just exacerbates the problem by building up a long term sleep deficit.

If mine have a late bedtime they just wake up at exactly the same time the following day, but grumpier than before. It's a lose-lose situation!

agree with love re the really late BT - not always such a good idea - despite what people think.

And also agree that EW are IME usually linked to daytime naps - either too much or too little or at the wrong time of day (just to make it easy for us!!)

I have another Q. Is the PM nap more often 1.5hrs or just 1hr?

1hr naps were, for us, usually a sign of overtiredness. So if that is what you typically get, then I would do as love suggests & pull back the PM nap a little bit earlier. I think at 13 months 12.30 will be too early to give a 2hr nap, so perhaps try a 1pm start, & see if that gets you a longer PM nap. If it does you can push BT to a consistent 7pm.

If he isn't tired any earlier than 1.30pm, then I have to say I would try cutting back the AM nap more. I know its already only 30mins & seems a faff to wake them after such a short nap, but it is a way of keeping that AM nap for as long as possible. The longer you keep it, the less OT they will get when you switch to 1 nap, as they will be better able to handle the long awake times.

I got as far as a 30min nap with my LO & didn't want to cut it back shorter so I tried to drop his AM nap at 12/13 months because of EW, & you know what? He simply wasnt ready. After 2-3 days he would be horribly OT & we would still get EW. Looking back I wish I had shortened that nap back more, to around 15mins, & I suspect we may have been able to keep that AM nap for longer than we did.

Thanks ladies for lots of helpful suggestions. His routine has changed somewhat in the last few days to AM nap 9.30-10 (he usually wakes himself after half an hour) and PM nap 1.45-3. I have tried putting him to bed for his afternoon nap earlier at 1pm but he just isn't tired. He usually plays in his cot for roughly an hour before falling asleep. Is he having too much sleep? Should I wake him at 2.30pm? Bedtimes are still 7pm.

I reckon the morning nap will disappear soon and then he'll be ready for his afternoon nap a bit earlier.

But, and I say this very gently, you might just have to accept the early wakings for a while longer. Mine just eventually grew out of the super early wakings, at age 5 and 3 they generally don't wake any earlier than 6 and occasionally go to 7

Yes, robino makes a good point. Some children are wired to wake early. My friends 8 yr old still struggles to sleep later than 7am, often waking earlier!

Just to add my tuppence, dd and most of her friends had dropped the AM nap by about 12 months.... transition is a bit painful but try to stretch him for as long as possible then do an early lunch or big snack before a nap if he can't make it til 12.30. They quickly get used to not having a morning nap.

Hi eb I have pretty muchgiven up trying to do anythin about it. I do wake her after half an hour in the morning, but only because she will refse pm nap if I don't. Like you, I'd rather have my evening than move bedtime. I'm getting 7hours a night and frankly, I am happier for accepting that I have an early riser than stressing about how to get her to sleep longer. Took leaf from friend's book. Of course I hate it, and I still have my whinge thread on here, but at least I'm not worrying about it any more. Maybe things will improve when she drops to one nap... I can only hope!