Shifting Sleep Schedule: success?

jld49

Anyone successfully shift your baby's sleep schedule in the last few months? I have a very earlier riser and earlier sleeper for the night, so we've been trying to shift his sleep time for the last 7 days by increasing the hour at which we put him to bed. Our Ped suggested increase it by 15 minutes every second night. So far, we've ZERO change in wake up time. He just sleeps less!

Originally it was 5:30 pm asleep to 5 am wake up, but then it started becoming 4:30am wake up and that's when we said we've got to change this.

Now we've gotten to 6:30pm asleep, but it's still a 4:30 am wake up. Ugh!

His "afternoon" nap is notoriously short, from 12:30/1 to 1:30 the latest so he's just beat by 5, but I can't seem to shift that nap to later either. He just gets tired quickly at 2 hr mark.

Do we just need to give it more time? Anyone have experience with this? I'm starting to think we can't control it and just have to wait til he's older and he shifts it on his own. Ideas?

ababymaybe

What's his morning nap like? I know it's hard... We had this issue too. I would treat any waking prior to 11 hours after bed as a night waking. Treat it the same as you would a 1am waking for us I check on him and then leave him I will do more checks if he's distressed but if he's just whining or playing I won't.

Most babies need between 1113 hours overnight sleep. I picked 11 as my cutoff because I figured even if he falls a little below that, 2030 minutes awake in the crib before I come get him is okay.

Finally we got to bedtime around 77:30 and I don't get him til 6:30. But it took awhile. Do whatever you can to get him to nap better during the day because that will let you push bedtime a little later. I'd say it took at least a week though before it helped.

jld49

He usually naps right after the first feed, about an hour or so after waking.

So 4:30 to 5 am wake up gets 8 oz bottle. He always wakes with a poop
so we can't ignore him too long.

6/6:15 to 7/7:15 Nap

8:45/9 to 10/10:30 Nap

12:30/1 to 1/1:30 Nap

And then bed time that we're trying to shift from 5:30pm, to perhaps 7pm.

That last nap of the day 12:30/1 one is sometimes too short, just 30 min and then his afternoon is so long for him.

We're hoping if he can sleep a little later in the morning, then he'll lose that first morning nap which is part of his night sleep. And yup, we do treat it this way, feeding in the dark, in silence.

If he just gets to the two naps, perhaps he'll sleep longer for both, shifting his schedule to later wake up times and therefore not such a long stretch in the late afternoon. Then putting him to bed at 7 becomes reasonable.

On day 8 of trying this he woke at 5:30am. That's progress!

michpedelle85

How old is your baby? It sounds like he is ready for 2 naps. 3 short naps at 9-12 months is a lot of naps. If you do 2 naps they will last longer. Try a 5:30 wake up an 8:30 to 10am nap then a 1:30;to 3pm nap with a 6:30 bed. After you get the 2 naps then stretch the awake times in the morning and afternoon to get the bedtime later. My son has had this schedule since 8 months and he still wakes at 5:30;but takes 2 good naps and goes to bed at 7:30.

jld49

He's just 9 months.. Born 3 weeks early though.

I agree! He just needs two naps... But when he wakes at 4:30am even two naps makes his bedtime so early.

We're going to keep pushing him to
stay up at the end of the day for at least another week. He only did two naps today and both were longer. But we're traveling at my inlaws so not sure the change will be permanent at home. Hopefully!

michpedelle85

mine was born at 37 weeks too! My boy does wake up at 4:30 sometimes and I try my hardest to get him to sleep until 5:30 but sometimes we are up at 4:30 and then his nap time is at 8am -10am and then 1-3pm. it will all work out! good luck! i think its hard to adjust their wake time. even pushing my son one hour later to bed he still wakes at 5:30 but takes longer naps. 

jld49

What time is your guy going to bed when he wakes at 4:30 or 5:30? I'm
so afraid to extend the wake time to 3 hours between the two naps bc he looks tired after two hours already and I don't want to hit the overtired state. Does your guy last the 3 hours from 10 to 1 no problem?

ababymaybe

What does he do if you do a quick change and feed at 4:30 then back to bed? Keep it dark and quiet. No lights etc. personally we use a bit of CIO I am not willing to start my day before 6.

jld49

We've done CIO for naps and tried it several times for the 4:30am wake up as well, but it hasn't resulted in him sleeping later.

Problem is he always wakes with a poop, so we have to go in and change him. Then, if we don't feed him he gets really upset. The CIO is very intense and he seems unable to go back to sleep. After all, he's slept 11 hours. So for this reason we don't want to keep trying CIO bc it doesn't seem to be working for that 12 hr of sleep.

When we change the diaper and feed he then goes back to sleep, but that whole process is not short and it also hasn't resulted in him eventually sleeping later.

We want to not have to go in before 6am too! That's the goal.

Thank you all for your thinking/perspective/experience on this!

michpedelle85

He does perfectly fine with the 10 to 1 stretch. We go run errands or take a bath.. something to keep him from getting bored and fussy at the 3 hour mark. We tried CIO and it has always been a big fail.

lcourter24

I'd try a longer morning waketime. At least 2.5 hrs, working towards 3 hrs bf first nap.  Then another waketime of at least 2.5-3 hrs for second waketime.  He can probably be up even longer for the last waketime maybe 4 hours.  If he needs to let him take a short catnap before bedtime (only if he's woke really early that day though)  if not I'd just stick to an early bedtime of 6:00.