Cutting naps

[letsdothis123]

Hi.

My son is nearly 16 months old and didn't really sleep through the night till he was 1. Now he sleeps through (mostly) and I'm very grateful for that. BUT he wakes at 4am (mostly). Sometimes 6 but mainly 4-4.30. He's been doing this for around 3 months.

He still sleeps quite a lot in the day. He will normally get up at 4 ish, sleep from 7.30-9.30 (or similar) and then again at 2.30-4.30. Then bedtime is anytime from 7-9.

Everyone always told me to cut his naps out to get him to sleep through and it just never seemed to make a difference. He'd be in bed earlier if I limited them but he'd mainly be horrible if he didn't sleep and it didn't make a difference. So we never cut his daytime sleep really. I've been expecting him to sort of cut the sleep himself.

Being back at work since he was 8 months, I'm ready to break. Getting up at 4 and napping at 7/8 is ok ish if you're at home but he'd be ready to sleep by the time I'd be getting him to nursery. A few weeks ago, it seemed like he was starting to cut his afternoon sleep. But he hasn't cut it, it's just got later.

So yesterday, his afternoon nap was 3.30-5.30. I actually had to wake him up. Then he wouldn't go to bed at 8.30 ish ( ended up 9.30) and was up at 4 again.

Three days ago we put a blackout blind in his bedroom as a final stab at something we could try. Doesn't seem to have made a difference. So I'm sat here this morning thinking... do I throw out my 'sleep encourages sleep' thing. Which I've mainly stood by.

If I cut his afternoon nap or at least limit it to 30 minutes or something, would it help? How long would it take to help? (Normally we don't try things for that long). Does anyone have any other advice?

Thank you

You must be exhausted

I have a just turned 16 month old. This is what is (sort of) working for us:

Start nap somewhere around 12 m
Sleep until latest 1430 (I wake her if necessary), any later and she won't go to bed on time
Bed 2000, used to put her down earlier but have realised she only needs 10hrs at night, so putting her down earlier means she wakes up before 6 (which I cannot tolerate!)

What I'd suggest in your case would be waking him after a short cat nap in the morning- maybe just 15-30mins, whatever is enough to get him through to an earlier lunch time nap starting somewhere between 11-13. I wouldn't let him nap longer than 2-3hrs.

If you're not already using it, I'd highly recommend the huckleberry app for helping to figure out awake times.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

I would try to make your morning nap as late as you can manage, ideally going to sleep at 9am. Then wake after 45 minutes so that it's one sleep cycle. Baby will be tired, so instead of the usual 5h awake time you were having, cut that to 3h and put back down for second nap at 1pm. I'd be happy with a long nap here and would wake up at 4pm if not already awake. That then gives you 5h awake time until an 8pm bedtime.

At that age my lo had a cat nap
In morning and good long nap in afternoon. Always up by 4 pm .

I agree with what the PPs have said. If he’s having two naps then try and make the morning one short, around 30-40 mins, and the afternoon one longer, and earlier in the afternoon. Naps too early in the day can apparently contribute to early wakings and we find this to be the case with our DS.

Thank you to you all for your comments about how to deal with this. I don't want to be that person who doesn't take it on, but the morning nap is the one he actually really needs. Once he's been awake 2-3 hours, he's exhausted and inconsolable (most of the time). The afternoon nap is the one that he could let go. He is still pretty unreal, in terms of being tired and unreasonable, but it's more feasible.

So since my post I've still let him have 1-2 hours in the morning and in the afternoon, I've let him have 30 minutes but much earlier (3pm). Well. It doesn't seem to have made a difference. He goes to bed a little easier (kind you that wasn't our issue on the most part).

He's had 2 hours in the morning (from 8ish-10ish) then at 3 about 30 minutes. Bedtime at 7.30, asleep at 8.

Each night has been different but he's still woke in the middle of the night, Monday he woke from 1am - 3.45am and still woke at 5. Last night, woke at 12.30-12.30 ish and awake at 3.50. I am honestly pretty hard on him, won't accept crap in the night. But when it's 4am it's like he thinks it's morning. He isn't sleepy, he's crying but that's because I've not given in to getting him up straight away. I leave him crying for 10+ minutes before I give In.

I'm just so tired, so angry, so everything. I downloaded that app that one poster suggested and besides the erratic nature of his sleep, it looks like he only needs 8 hours a night (that's what his sleep has added up to).

Do I accept defeat? And just follow his lead, do what he wants to and wait till he does it on his own.
Do I keep going limiting his daytime sleep and hope it does make a difference in the end?
Do I do as you suggest and change the morning nap? (This would be such a nightmare but if needs must).

At 16-months he doesn't need a nap in the morning, ideally should be down to 1 nap a day but if not, then the other nap should be a cat nap only.

DD is 2 next month and is an early riser - 4.45 this morning, but she won't have a nap until at least 11am. She will then sleep anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours. She's not allowed to sleep anytime after 1.30pm as she won't go to bed. This all started when she was about 14 months old. We're still not ideal (she doesn't sleep through the night either) but it's better than 2 naps a day with one being so late.

I agree with an earlier PP - don't let him nap more than 30/45 mins in a morning and then try and get him back down after dinner for a long nap but I wouldn't let that go past 2.30pm either. You'll then find that bedtime is easier and that hopefully without all the sleep in the day, he 'should' (because he already sleeps through), sleep later in a morning.

Your afternoon nap is very late. Try cutting the morning nap and having an earlier afternoon nap. Mine used to nap from 12-2.30 at that age until they were about 3. I have to say that mine are still all early risers. Its crap 🙃🙃🙃

Would he go back to sleep at 4.30am if you gave him a bottle/feed?

DS 16mo goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps until 8am. But he wakes at 4am most nights - starts chatting and giggling and seems ready for the day. I just hand him a bottle and he's asleep within 5-10 minutes and stays asleep until 8am.

He naps at 10.30am for 1.5-2 hours and some days will also nap from 3-4pm (I wake him at 4 so he goes to bed at 7pm).

I have a friend whose 15mo is on pretty much the same schedule, right down to the 4am bottle.

Do I accept defeat? And just follow his lead, do what he wants to and wait till he does it on his own.
Do I keep going limiting his daytime sleep and hope it does make a difference in the end?
Do I do as you suggest and change the morning nap? (This would be such a nightmare but if needs must).

Your child needs one nap only. However, that nap needs to be in the middle of the day, so that there are two approximately equal awake time windows either side.

The way that a baby usually moves from 2-nap days to 1-nap days is by making the first nap later and longer. So the morning nap becomes the lunchtime nap, and the afternoon nap is dropped.

Your problem is that baby wake so early and has such poor overnight sleep that you can't push the morning nap later. So the idea is instead to make the morning nap a catnap that enables baby to get through to lunchtime, then have the longer lunchtime nap.

Your problems overnight are coming from the fact that after 10am or so, your baby is getting very, very over tired. 9.5h with only a 30 minute catnap is a mammoth length of time for a baby this age to be awake for. It's just too long and meaning baby is overtired when going into his nights sleep.

An over tired baby is more likely to have more light sleep, less deep sleep. This means that baby wake more easily, the slightest thing will wake a light sleeper. And overtiredness gives you a light sleeper. So you have a fretful, disrupted nights sleep.

That then carries forward to the next day and baby is exhausted in the morning. So needs a big sleep. And so the cycles continues, the cycle worsens and baby gets more and more overtired so sleep gets worse and worse.

You need to accept that solving this is not a one-step task. You FIRST need to stop baby being over tired. That means an interim period of time where sleep isn't ideal and might be inconsistent, but keep going through this.

The aim in the end is to move the main nap to lunchtime so that the awake time between nap and bedtime is more like 5h, 6h maximum. But to get there, there will be several interim steps along the way.

I would suggest your first step wants to be having a shorter morning nap in order to encourage an earlier and longer lunchtime nap.

Thank you for the extra responses, they are all very helpful. It's hard making decisions / taking action when you're alone and exhausted.

So, by chance, we had a bit of a win... I think anyway. Sort of, but not.

Thursday evening he had one (2.5 hour) morning nap, from 9-11.30. He didn't nap again till he went to bed at 7.45. Bedtime was fine but he then woke at 11pm for a brief kick off which was ok (10 minutes or so). He then woke again at 3.30 ish and my husband fought him back to sleep / to stay in his own bed. This went on till 4.50am but he then fell back to sleep and woke at 8. This gave us the opportunity to have a much later nap and follow the advice you've been giving me.

He then (Friday) was up at 8, nap for 12.30-2.30 ish. I was so excited, thinking this was 'it'. Bedtime that night was fine, but he woke at midnight for a brief kick off (10 minutes or so). Again, at 3am all hell broke loose. He went back to sleep at 4.15 and slept till 6am today.

As of today, he had one nap from 11.30-1.30 and was in bed for 8. I've attached the sleep info, from the app the lovely person suggested.

I suppose I know nothing will change over night, will it take a while to make a difference? He's still been a nightmare in the middle of the night so that's frustrating. I wonder if he's sleeping that extra bit because of us fighting him. How realistic is this in the long term? Will it eventually work.

In the last week, we have gone from two x two hour daily naps to one 2-3 hour nap. Also managed (in the last two days) to shift that nap right up to more mid day like.

Thank you again x