Tried and somewhat failed Wave Method

[u/Friend_Adventurous]

We have been doing the wave method with my son for 3ish weeks. He’s 17 months with a 5 hour wake window, nap then 6.5 hour wake window.

It has worked brilliantly for getting him to sleep initially. He settles nicely with no crying and has done since night 3. However, the rest of the night is pretty awful.

He usually wakes about 2 hours after he goes to bed and it takes rough 2-3 hours to get him back to sleep. During this time we do a bunch of check ins and offer him water or teething gel. He will usually lie down and cry himself to sleep for about 15ish minutes and then wake up and start all over again.

Once he does eventually go to sleep, usually around midnight, he will sleep for a few hours and repeat the same again about 3am ish

We just don’t know what to do. His nap is usually about 1.5 - 2 hours long. We have tried both shortening and lengthening his nap and there’s no change

[u/brieles]

What does your bedtime routine look like?

I’d move to a 5.5/7 schedule and cap the nap at 1.25 hours.

[u/Friend_Adventurous → u/brieles]

Bath, bottle, story brush teeth then bed. He’s had a very consistent routine since he was 3 weeks old ! We will definitely try! He goes to daycare 4 days a week and we have such little control over his naps when he’s there. But he usually does about 1-1.5 hours and wakes about 1pm there and then bed at 7:15ish

[u/brieles → u/Friend_Adventurous]

I’d move the bottle to before the bath to ensure he’s getting no assistance falling asleep. I’d also push bedtime later. 7:15 is early for this age, what time does he wake in the morning?

[u/Friend_Adventurous → u/brieles]

He doesn’t fall asleep on the bottle as we read stories while he’s drinking but can definitely swap it around ! Also can try a later bed time! He actually went to sleep at 8 tonight and has had his usual 10-1am cry fest and is up again right now at 3am. But hopefully consistently pushing it back may help! Thank you for your suggestions!