In a complete mess routine-wise - please help!

[tickleme63]

Afternoon all. I have posted before about my DS's sleep, but I thought I'd see if anyone could give me some advice or help as I don't know where to start.

He is an early riser - he usually starts the day at 5am and has done for a month or so. We've tried treating this as a night waking but no dice. While this isn't ideal, I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't affect the rest of his day (and ours) so much.

He is ready for his morning nap at 7am, which is crazy early, but he is tired and very fussy just 2 hours after waking up. He normally has about 1/1.5 hours, but sometimes as little as 30-45 minutes.

He then has his afternoon nap at 12 or 1pm, which is normally again about 1/1.5 hours.

He has recently started refusing his third nap (he's 10 months) and so he's awake from the end of his lunch nap (no later than 2pm) until 6pm, when we have been putting him to bed. He is SO tired without his third nap, but will not take it. The last few days, he has been going to bed earlier and earlier - yesterday he went down at 5.15pm as he was so shattered. We can't put him down much earlier and don't really want to. It's not like his night sleep is great either. He often needs resettling and still wakes for feeds, which we will address when he turns 12 months. He's a restless sleeper - prefers to be on his side, but when he rolls onto his back he often wakes and cries - despite the fact that he can easily get back to how he was.

It just feels like our day is shifting earlier and earlier and I just don't know where to start. I keep reading that he should have longer - and happier - awake time than he seems to be able to manage. When we give him dinner, he cries and rubs his eyes and looks shattered and miserable - no matter how early we move it, he is the same.

I just don't know where to start. Could anyone offer any advice please?

Don't ask me, I have no sodding clue.

But I feel your pain.

Ok I've got a bad sleeper 9 month old so haven't got any answers or she would be sleeping well. But my son was great from 11 months (after being dreadful til then). So I have some experience! But my children seem to drop their naps very early. You need to experiment because they are all different - my ds would always wakes early whereas my dd takes a longer night and likes getting up later. Maybe early to bed won't make it worse for you?

Only tip I have is to keep his blood sugar topped up. High energy snacks when he is flagging. That can postpone a nap for an hour in my experience,

My dd is 9 months is trying to go to one nap - but they are all so different.

Good luck.

hiya hun

I missed this one somehow or I would have posted sooner. Huge (((hugs))). I totally know where you are coming from b/c I had a very similar situation with my DS from 5-11 months (he's now 21months). Like your DS, mine was waking at 5ish, needing to nap between 7 & 8am & then he would need his 'afternoon' nap before lunch & then he'd have to last all the way til bedtime. For a long time we kept him up til 7pm despite him refusing the 3rd nap because we feared him waking even earlier, but he was so, so overtired, so we brought BT earlier too. Unfortunately, in doing this, he kept on waking earlier.Crunch time for us came when his wakeup time got even earlier & was regularly 4-4.30am & we even had some 3.30's. I was exhausted, depressed & desperate to fix it.

The key things to know about early waking are that while offering earlier naps & earlier bedtimes help prevent them from getting so overtired, it doesn't help the situation in the long term because they will likely keep waking early, which means they need to nap early again the next day & go to bed early again - its a vicious cycle. Also if you allow a long and early nap, this can act as an extension of night sleep & so it will also encourage the early waking to continue.

So...what fixed it for us, was to very gradually push out the morning nap, by 5mins every few days, until it started at 9.30am. At the same time we capped it shorter by 5mins every 3 days until the nap was 30mins max. And we got a lunchtime nap established at 12.30pm. Eventually he was napping at 9.30-10am & again at 12.30pm for 2hrs and he could last until a 7pm bedtime.

So looking at your situation, the afternoon nap is already at quite a decent time of 12-1pm. However the morning nap is most definitely too early. The way to look at it is this: at the moment he takes his nap just 2hrs after waking, so if your ideal wakeup time for him is 7am, then theoretically his nap should be no earlier than 9am IYSWIM?

So, IIWM I would very gradually push that morning nap later. You could do it by 15mins every 3-5 days, or every week if he is struggling. Once it is starting at 9am, you may need to think about cutting this nap down a wee bit in order to make sure he is tired enough to take his usual afternoon nap, or you may find he starts to resist. What I would recommend is pushing the start time of the morning nap 5mins later at a time & but keep getting him up at 10am, so the nap gradually gets shorter. Ideally you want to aim for a nap 9.30-10am & then PM nap 12.30-2.30. This should enable him to last til a 7pm bedtime & sleep in until a decent time in the morning.

You need to be prepared to remain consistent, and keep him up til his naptime no matter when he wakes up. Its not a quick fix, it took us some 4-6 weeks & a lot of overtiredness to turn things around so you do need to be patient & hang in there, but it will most certainly lead to an improvement.

What do you think?x

omama has a good suggestion there; did similar with dd. 5/10 mins a day will move each sleep start/end time quite effectively.
Result - deep joy

Omama Thank you so much for your advice. We've already started moving his morning nap later, as 7am was just crazy. This morning it was about 7.45am, so going in the right direction. Yesterday afternoon he napped at 1 till 2.30pm, but was still ready for bedtime at 6pm - if his lunchtime nap finishes at this time, should we push him for a 7pm bedtime? Or best to sort out his morning nap first? Or both? :) Don't want him waking any earlier... Was 4.50am this morning... :(

Do you offer him a feed when he wakes at 5am? I always found the key to be getting them back to sleep whatever it took but waking at 7am if they did go back to sleep.

Otherwise I would continue with what omama says, be patient and consistent. It took us 6 weeks to see any change.

Aye we do feed him in the hope that he might drop back off. But 9 times out of 10 (and 10/10 recently) he's wide awake...

But then he's going to bed at 6pm so it seems a bit unfair on him to expect otherwise, until we change things :)

Where does he sleep? DH was against co-sleeping as he was worried DS would get squashed. But DS started waking really early and I discovered pretty much by accident that if I brought him into bed with me, and fed him lying down, then he'd reliably go back to sleep for another hour at least.

DP got over his reservations then! (We read up on advice on safer co-sleeping

From then on, DS would go to sleep in his cot (in our room) and when he woke I'd bring him into our bed.

I would also push for a later bedtime. It may seem like a big deal, but don't forget the clocks change twice a year (assuming you're in the UK) and we all just do it!

Yup tried that too :) It used to work - DS would just twiddle with DH hair or my hair and go back to sleep. But it doesn't work now sadly. I think what will hopefully help is a slightly later bedtime and more optimal naps... We'll stick with it and see. He's just gone down for his lunchtime nap so keeping fingers crossed he'll have a long-ish one and then try to push bedtime back a bit...

Thank you all for your advice, will report back if we see results :)

Oh god, he was wide awake at 4.15 this morning. I think I'm cracking up.

He only had a short lunchtime nap yesterday for some reason, and was so tired that we had to put him down at 6pm again. But he was up and down all night, resulting in stupid-o-clock wake-up.

He had his morning nap at 7.20am and woke at 9am :( But we couldn't stretch him any alonger. What do you do when he's awake 45 minutes earlier than normal? Still try to get him to nap at the new, later time?

www.amazon.co.uk/Solve-Your-Childs-Sleep-Problems/dp/0863181228

great book
recommended by friend who used it to synchronise twins
start by keeping diary of feeding/sleep times
good luck

Hello again all, thank you for your help with this.

We've made a little progress, in that his morning nap normally happens at about 8.15am (I know it still needs to be later, but he just can't handle it) and he has about an hour and a half (again, probably too long, but he really seems to need it). He's having his afternoon nap at about 2pm for about an hour and a half again, and we've been pushing his bedtime from the stupidly early 5.30/6 to about 6.45/7pm.

We've been doing this for the last week (and I know it will take longer), but haven't noticed any difference at all with his night wakings or his wake-up time, which is still around 5/5.15am.

Is it the early and long morning nap that is causing this? If so, I just don't know what to do next as I can't stretch him out any longer at the moment while he is still waking at 5am, and don't want to cap it as he will be so tired it'll move his afternoon nap forward, so it ends earlier and therefore brings bedtime earlier and we're back where we started :(

Who knew baby sleep was such a dark art... Any words of wisdom?

Im sorry you are going through this and dont have anything really helpful as i have always had a good sleeper but My DD is 14months and was going to bed at 6pm but recently was waking earlier and earlier. We have now moved her to a 7pm bedtime which has worked but meant i had to juggle naps. DD is now only allowed 30-45min nap in the morning however tired she is then as long as she wants in the afternoon. ( usually about 90min). I have really perservered at the keeping her going and its hard work. What do you do??.....we change and mix activities, sing songs, watch a bit of TV, sit her in her high chair in the kitchen with me as i prepare tea whilst dancing and being silly. I think the keeping him going until appropriate nap times might be the key but it wont change his sleeping habits straight away and may take a few weeks to change his 11hr sleep to a later wake up. If he is so tired you cant cope maybe a power nap......10-15min only and then put down at nap time. Only a suggestion that worked for me. Keep going and he will get there, he is still a baby and there is no magic answer

i take it you have black out blinds etc, Is he waking cold???