No Sleep for the Overtired

by Rebecca Caspers · Published October 25, 2015 · Updated October 26, 2015

8 Hour Nights vs. 12 Hour Nights

I thought perhaps I had this sleep schedule thing figured out… I’m hoping I still do and my theory about his frequent wakings tonight is true. I wasn’t quick enough to get him to bed after his last nap ended at 3pm. I didn’t get him attempting to sleep in his crib until 7:10pm or so. He was overtired enough to make it hard to fall asleep and didn’t manage to do that until 8pm. That’s a 5 hour wake time. Much, much too long. I’m really hoping that doesn’t affect today too much and that after this restless night he can get a couple long naps in and be ready to try again with the earlier bedtime of 7/7:30pm. He woke up at just after 11:30pm for his first night feeding, which was expected. He had a nice long session and went right back to sleep. Then he woke up at 1:45am. Not expected. That was only about a 2hr sleep time.. but I fed him again and he went right back to sleep. Then he woke up again just after 4am. Barely 2.5hrs that time… I tried the whole feeding thing again but knew it was unlikely needed. He’s been having trouble falling back asleep though. It’s almost 5:15am now and he’s still awake. Poor baby. It’s too bad he’s not going to get a nice restful night like the last two. Of course, this translates to me not getting a decent night of sleep. Thankfully I managed a second nap yesterday and am fairly rested from that. I’d like to be sleeping, but might be awhile before that happens. If only I could get him to sleep again… If he goes to bed “too late” that’s usually when he only sleeps for about 8hrs at night, sometimes I can squeeze 10hrs, but usually that includes a little longer wake time after 8hrs and before his last bit of “night sleep” in the morning. Often though he’s up for an hour or so after the initial 8hrs and then has another 2-3hr hour “nap”. I gave him another dose of acetaminophen, and hopefully that will help with any teething complaints and he’ll be able to fall back asleep now. This likely means his schedule will be thrown off for the morning, but I hope not so off that we can’t make it to church.

Yay! He’s finally back asleep now at 5:30am. I will let you know how the day goes, as this will end up being a 3 nap day (as opposed to 2 naps the last couple days). I’ve read this is usually when they transition from 3 to 2 naps (8-9 months) and even though he did 4 naps for a very long time and had only just transitioned to a solid 3 nap day for a few weeks, he’s quickly making the jump to 2 naps. My little boy is growing up!

Update

We managed to get to church for the majority of the service. We drove around a little longer before hand so that he could get a 10 minute nap in. He proceeded to take a nice long nap (a little over 2hrs) in the afternoon. Finished at his new “done with naps now” time… 3pm! I was going to have him get ready and go to bed at about 6:15-6:30pm but of course he snuck in a 5min nap on the drive home just before 5pm. This pushed bedtime up a little and he didn’t fall asleep completely until just after 8pm. Hopefully this doesn’t mean another restless night.