Us again - sleeping issues

[midivydale]

Ladies,

We are back (again) for some more sleep advice. I know a very similar post was written a while ago but I didnt want to hijack it so here goes.

Baby I has never been a great sleeper, as some of you may know I have posted several times on this. The main problem is his early waking, normally sometime between 3.30 and 5.00 (on a very good day). That is it- him done. No chance to get him back to sleep. He wants to sing, play, clap hands and chat. Whilst undeniably adorable in his efforts to get me out of bed- I am shattered. I mean 5.00am feels like a lie in....

I try to convince him that it is still sleepy time, its night and everybody is asleep etc. No lights, whisper and not engaging (although he pulls my hands to make me do the motions to twinkle twinkle little star).

He goes to bed in his cot (in our bedroom) on his own (big big milestone for us) after bath, bottle, cuddles and story. I say night night and leave the room and he goes to sleep. The first time this happend I thought that the monitor had run out of battery and couldnt believe it when he was asleep.

He wakes up at some point during the night with separation anxiety and I always go to him straight away and he comes into bed with us. It is clear that he is distressed at night when he wakes and he falls asleep as soon as he is in our bed. We then get a few more hours until he decides that enough is enough around 3.30 -5.00. I dont let him leave the bed until at earliest 5.45 as I am desperately trying to teach him that it is night time.

We are happy with co-sleeping for now. I dont care where he sleeps as long as he sleeps for longer than 5.00am.

Of course by the time he gets to his childminder at 8, he is exhausted.

I have tried putting him to bed later and even earlier but it makes NO difference what so ever.

Is it time to cut out the morning nap? Of course if he is up at 5, he is shattered by 9 and wants to sleep for hours, resulting in a poor pm nap. Which means that I struggle to keep him awake past Childminder pickup.

Any advice? I will not consider controlled crying or cry it out methods. It is not for us (no disrespect to anyone out there who uses it, I know it can be done kindly and with great success.)

Our decisions against it are based on a gut feeling, since my son has very strong separation anxiety. He is a confident but very sensitive little soul and controlled crying - I feel very strongly - does not suit him (or me).

Anything else I can try? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Sorry for long post....

[embo71]

I think time to try and reduce the morning nap. I understand he must be shattered but I assume he is making up for the bad night sleep in the morning?!?!

I have my own 14 month sleeping issues with my second daughter but recently realised that the morning nap was where she seemed to be making up the lost time (which was fine on the days when I was looking after her, and so could sit down, put my feet up - but not great when i was at work, hence trying to reduce the morning nap time).

So don't get rid of the nap altogether but maybe make it no longer than 30 mins????

Anyway sure the EDF brain will come back with lots of suggestions for you.....

Good luck (i keep telling myself and anyone who will listen, that it doesnt last forever........)

Em

xx

[Saffron]

How old is your son? CC/CIO is not recommended for children with separation anxiety anyway, but what about using some of the gradual withdrawal behavioural modification techniques?

I did a milk to water fade with shush-patting over the course of a couple of weeks to get my daughter's nighttime wakings down from 5+ to 2-3 times, and sleeping longer in the morning (by "longer" I mean up 6am, not 4am). I think your son might be a little older than my daughter was at the time, not sure by your post? My daughter was <1 yo at the time. I repeated something similar when she was 2-2.5yo, and we were still cosleeping/breastfeeding, but I would give a bottle of milk (then fade to sugar water, then plain water over a few weeks) if she woke too early. The main thing with these techniques is that you keep them going long enough. If you stop too early or go too quickly, you may find that you have to backtrack.

Where in your room is his cot? If you can put his cot directly against your bed, could you reach your arm over (or take one side off) and try some shush-patting and a bottle or sippy cup?

[Saffron]

Re changing nap times: Didn't help us :( . Still, it might be worth a try, just don't get obsessed with it if it doesn't work. It can waste a lot of mental energy, which is pretty precious stuff when you've been proded by little fingers half the night! :) xx

[Ole]

Poor you, it sounds exhausting! My instincts tell me that the morning nap probably has something to do with it. Does your childminder let him sleep until he wakes naturally? if it were me in your situation, I'd gradually cut the morning nap, say reduce it by 10 minutes every day, and see if that has any effect. You don't say how old he is but perhaps he is old enough to cut out his morning nap altogether? (my son dropped his by about 7 months I think). He may have learnt that it is OK to wake up early because he is going to get a long sleep later in the morning.

Also, to deal with the separation anxiety without controlled crying, have you thought about pushing the cot right next to your bed, so that if he wakes up when it is still official night time you can reach out to him and he can hold your hand so you are not doing the controlled crying thing but you are still laying down some rules? I tried this with my son at some point (we have had endless ups and down with sleep too) and it seemed to work.

Another thing we did when little Ole was waking up early (4:30am) was that we would put some books in his cot and he would play with them for a precious few extra minutes. This was a good tip because even now that he is a proper bed he knows that if he wakes up too early he can read a book until he hears us stir (by reading I mean flicking though the pages).

I hope any of this helps!

[KateW]

Do you use black out blinds?

[midivydale]

Thank you all! Sorry I should have mentioned - my son is 16 months.

It is hard (impossible in fact) to get a clear picture of how he sleeps when he is with the childminder (different story - different post...)but when he is with me it is def a case of making up for lost night time sleep at the morning nap.

Moving the cot next to the bed is a good idea - will go home to measure to see if there is a way.

Books in cot is a great idea and I made a half hearted attempt with this a few weeks back but he just throws them on the floor.

He is so so happy when he wakes up and it melts your heart when he uses his chubby little fingers to try and bend my eyes open and he goes "Hello mammaaaaaa, HELLO".

I just wished he would do it later than 4.20am :)

[patt1980]

We had this with my daughter and what worked for us was pushing back the morning nap each day by 30 mins (over a 2 week period) until she was having 1 sleep per day at 11am which lasted for about 4-5 months when she then moved to a 12:30/1pm sleep. She has always been and still is (at 26 months) an early riser but this helped us get to at least a 5:30am start.

[Saffron]

This is interesting... note there's a lot of variation on "normal": http://www.thealphaparent.com/2013/01/timeline-of-baby-and-toddler-sleep.html

[midivydale]

Thank you all for your input and Saffron - Thank you as always for informative reading.

C xx

[midivydale]

Thank you all for your input and Saffron - Thank you as always for informative reading.

C xx

[minder]

When your son wakes up during the night does he have a little cry or cry loudly, fully awake? If it's just a little sound/cry then could you try leaving him to settle on his own for a bit longer? We all wake up during our sleep patterns at night but then go back to sleep naturally.

Why is it impossible to get a clear picture of how your son sleeps with his childminder? Does she not tell you how he has slept etc?

Off course, if you are dropping off your son to a childminder at 8am and he is exhausted then she will have to do whatever she thinks is best to get him through the day if he has had no night-time sleep. If that means having a power nap or 45 minutes before 10am then I can't see a problem.

[midivydale]

Minder, We are having separate discussions at the moment with our CM and so therefor I would rather not get sidetracked to discuss his routine with him/her here.

I have no reason to believe that his morning nap is too long at the CM- as he/she would wake him so that they can get on with the rest of the day.

My post was not about the childminder routine (he is only there 2 days per week), but more a general ask for help on sleep.

Hope that clarifies the position. I just want to clarify that i am not being negative about the CM.

X

[alieh]

For us the morning nap had to be no earlier than 9:30 and by that age no more than 20-30 mins or it reinforced the early wake ups. Is your room absolutely pitch black to the point where he can't even really see you, no night lights, no bright clocks, etc.?? In my experience at this age they become incredibly sensitive to any stimuli at that time of day.

I think most children have dropped that morning nap by about 18 months so I think you really need to get a bit strict about that and see if it makes any difference to the mornings (it will take a week or so for him to get used to the fact that he needs to catch up on that sleep at night). Keep it very short and not before 9 or 9:30 and then work towards dropping it and try to get him through to 11:30 or so any way you can (avoid long buggy trips at that time in the morning, etc.).

We would have really struggled to have ours in our bed at that time of the morning as they would have stirred and then wanted to play! I guess there's not much you can do though about that part if you're all happy with it otherwise. If room is pitch black I would just roll over and absolutely ignore and not interact at all except maybe to "shhhh sleepy time" occasionally.

[VanessaPMR]

Hi midivydale,

My little one (13 months) is also not a sleeper, and has a rather spectacular trick of being able to vomit up the entire contents of his stomach if I leave him to cry for too long anyway...and I too would rather have my hair set on fire than have to listen to my little one cry and wail..

My little one was also an unreasonably early riser..

We've have 'success' (by which I mean compared to how things were for us..) with the following:

We very recently moved him to his own room ( i was SOO sad about the move and thought he would be too..nope); this has decreased the N of night-time wakings.

He only naps once a day now at about 1pm for 2 hours. (mostly intitated by him..the world is too exciting for him.)

We have given up on getting him to sleep at a reasonable baby time, and he tends to be down for 8pm(ish) now.

He wakes at 6am now, give or take 3 mins..he is part baby, part alarm clock... :-) [though of course, there are no constants in baby world..this is how it has been for 3 weeks...]

I worry lots about him not getting enough sleep, but he has always been like this...

Good luck with the sleep deprivation..it is pretty hellish

xxx

V

[alieh]

VanessaPMR, that's totally in the bounds of normal I think. ~12 hours/24 in total. Unfortunately my eldest has been at that amount of sleep since about 8 months and just keeps dropping. He's now at about 10.5 hrs/24 hrs at age 4.5 which doesn't seem enough to me but I think probably is for him!

His brother, on the other hand, still needs 14 or 15 hours/24 at the age of 2.5! Crazy how different their sleep needs can be.

[midivydale]

Thank you everyone. I think we need to sort out proper black out blinds and when I am at home tomorrow I will start working on that morning nap over the next few days.

Vansessa, I hear you - I also worry that ds doesnt get enough sleep but like yours he has always been like this too. In fact, our situation is a far far cry from newborn hell when he just wouldnt sleep for longer than 15-45 minutes. Ever....

Back then I would cut my arm off for a baby that slept until 4ish. Still it IS the middle of the night and he should not be awake at this time.

5.30-6.00 would be a dream!

x

[tomo]

Oh I feel your pain! It's such a tricky sleep problem to deal with. We're still no closer to finding a solution. Last night baby Tomo was up at 4am the previous night was 3.30! Which is just ridiculous! For us I'm sure it's all about him being overtired and then no being able to resettle when he comes into light sleep in the wee hours. Black blinds are an absolute must. I chopped up a magic blind so it actually fits the panes in his window and stuck them up with Velcro. Beyond caring about how ugly it looks! We've also reverted to using white noise to block out bird and plane noise in the morning. He's a bit obsessed with planes (or cars as he calls them)

After 16 months though we've finally admitted defeat and have called on the help of the big guns- sleep consultant Nicola. Have our consult next week, so hopefully we'll find a solution that works.

I agree about cutting back the morning nap though. They can use it as catch up.

Good luck- hope you find a solution that works for you.

[Convex]

I agree with working towards dropping the morning nap,

And we have had some success with gradual retreat (the book i was reading is the no cry sleep solution but there are good descriptions on the Internet)

The main thing is that with him falling asleep in his cot instead of on me he can go ack to sleep on his own at night.

That might not be relevant to you though.

Sorry you are tired, it sucks!

[reren]

Is it possible he is hungry? we had a similar problem w our son and started giving him a bowl of cereal before bed - suddenly he started sleeping through! It was quite miraculous! Our son was older - so could be that he was just shifting into a stage when he could sleep for longer - but there was definitely a connection with not being woken by hunger in the middle of the night.

[minder]

Hi Midivy, I didn't say you were being negative about the childminder but you brought this up in your post so just wondered why you couldn't approach them?

Hope my first paragraph was helpful though.

[alieh]

Blackout blinds absolute must at this time of year! I've been known to go with bin liners stuck up - visual beauty is of no importance in comparison with a bit of sleep! Also totally agree about white noise. We still have it playing in my 2.5 year old's room. Use a fan or IPOD with white noise - I was worried it would annoy me while I was sleeping when we were sharing a room but I got used to it really quickly. And definitely ignore as much as possible - even whispering explanations for why he should go back to sleep counts as interaction for him! I would roll over and just shush here and there.

Soon he'll also be getting old enough to understand something like "Mummy is sleeping. Lie quietly or you will need to go back into your own cot."

I think early wakes are the hardest thing to crack. I think some kids are just early risers - but 5 or 5:30 should certainly be achievable....anything in the 3:00s or 4:00s is beyond hellish!

[midivydale]

4.32 this morning...

Thank you all!

Minder- I am so sorry if my post was abit grumpy (caused by all these early starts...).

Thank you for your input. I just really wanted to make sure that I dont come across as critical of the childminder on this (very public) forum. As much as we for the most part are protected by cyberspace I was concerned that our CM if reading this thought I was posting negative feedback (which I wouldnt without raising concerns privately first).

I know how much local businesses (including nannies and CM's) rely on this forum for their business and I would hate if something I wrote when sleepdeprived would have an impact on their efforts to make a living.

Hope that makes sense and apologies again if I seemed grumpy (my middle name these days).

[Belle]

Hi there, haven't read all the posts but what jumped out at me was that I think at around this age we def dropped the morning nap - he was definitely waking earlier and earlier, knowing he could make up for it with the morning nap. I think we phased it out (will try to remember more helpful details) possibly over Christmas or sometime when we had a few days off i.e. could afford to change the routine (it's hard when you're in that vicious cycle of early -start/early nap). I'm pretty sure I posted on here about 4.30 type starts not that long before, though I probably didn't make the connection (too tired!). anyway T is still an early waker, but we have a rule that we don't go in till after 6, and, touch wood, even on early waking days it's not usually before 5.30. Often now when we leave him he'll go back to sleep till 6ish. Obviously if he was upset we'd go in. I did stop co-sleeping a bit before dropping the nap, which helped with night-wakes, but it sounds like that's a separate issue. Mind you, I did find that he would always wake earlier when in with me for some reason.

Anyway my advice would be to try to go down to the one nap. PM or text me if you want to talk more or meet up - summer hols coming soon and I know J would love to see baby I!