Hello all, I wouldn't mind a little bit of advice/guidance if anyone feels they have any wisdom to share with me. It's long and rambly.
I'm not really sure where to begin, but I guess my aim is to get him in a more appropriate/beneficial routine for him as we seem to be a little all over the place.
DS is coming up to 10 months. He's never been a great sleeper, is breastfed and wakes twice a night for feeds/comfort still. He used to have three naps a day but lately has been refusing to go to sleep for the third one. This would be fine, apart from the fact that he has been waking for the morning at 5am, having his first nap at about 7am as he just can't stay awake any longer, fusses and rubs eyes etc (three mornings a week he goes to nursery so we have to wake him at 8am) and then he normally naps at around 12pm for an hour. So he's up from 1pm until about 6pm when he goes to sleep.
Needless to say that he gets so tired during the afternoon and his dinner and groans and rubs his eyes furiously - we've tried moving his bedtime even earlier, to 5.30pm, but we can't make it any earlier than that... and it made no difference to his early waking anyway over the course of a week.
I hate that he gets so beyond shattered and wish I could structure his day a little better so that he gets the rest he needs. I feel like I'm failing him. It was all much easier when he was taking his third cat nap...
I don't really know what I'm asking to be honest. I suppose just whether it is possible to change things up for him so he's waking up a little later in the mornings so his naps are pushed back a bit. I'm not too worried about getting up once or twice in the night, but I'd love him to be able to sleep in a little bit and get the rest he seems to need.
And, what happens when baby is dropping his nap? Does he just get used to being awake for longer periods without sleep? Do babies drop naps before they are ready to?
Oh and one more question... he goes to nursery three mornings a week, from 8.30-1pm. He is normally woken up at 1pm from his post-lunch nap as it's time for him to be picked up. I guess I'm asking whether we tailor all his days after his 3 nursery days? Try to keep them all the same? If he refuses his morning nap with us, he doesn't nap again until 12pm at nursery, for an hour. And that's it. He refuses to have his catnap too. so that's one hour of sleep between 5am and 6pm, which is crazy.
Sorry, so very long. This morning he was awake at 4am ready to go (he had his morning nap at 6.30am yesterday morning, which I'm sure is what caused this) but eventually we managed to coax him back to sleep (never usually works) and he woke at 6.50am. If we could get him to wake at this time all the time, problem solved...