Eli: Better sleeping, shifting schedule?

For most of the fall season, I'd have to say that I hadn't been happy with Eli's sleeping. Again, I have to preface this with saying that I do realize in the grander scheme of things, Eli's a good sleeper. He's slept through the night since 10 weeks, is super easy to put down to bed and we can transfer him from car to crib easily.

But it seems like ever since the Vancouver trip in August or maybe some other time mid-fall, Eli had been consistently waking up at 6:30-7AM, a bit early for my tastes. He doesn't cry-it-out easily like Tobey did and so his naps weren't as long as I would like, an hour and fifteen instead of two. He wakes up rather startled, always crying, even after a long sleep of 12 hours (like that ever happens!).

But in the past few weeks, it seems like he's relented on his wake up time. For no apparent reason (because we tried them all before to no avail), he's been waking up at 7 or later. The other morning he woke up at 8 to the delight of all. And while we were on our snow trip this weekend, even though he woke up a few times in the night because of unfamiliar surroundings, his final stretch of sleeping went until 8:30 in the morning, which was GLORIOUS. Even Tobey was happy about being able to sleep in.

His napping has also been longer which finally gave me the confidence to be able to plan on a 2 hour break in the afternooon. He could be transitioning to one nap a day too, although I'm not pushing it. The way it stands now he will konk out in the car or on an outing midday around 11:30 or 12. But if we keep that nap short, he will nap again whenever Tobey naps.

So I actually asked my growth group around a month ago, through some frustrating tears, about Eli's sleeping because it was wearing on me. It was so unpleasant to wake up to his crying, especially when I thought it was too early and he was not as well-rested. And soon after this recent wave of better sleeping came about and I couldn't be happier about it.