Problems transitioning nearly-5mth old to 4 hour EASY

[Ima shel Alon]

First of all I would try and stick with 2:40h A for the first A. Today you had 2:35h A time and got a short nap. I know that it sounds too rigid, but some babies need their A on the dot, mine was like that. 5min earlier and I'd got an UT nap, 5min later and it was an OT nap .
4h is way way too much for him to have as a second A. He gave you a good nap with it today, but I doubt this will last long. He crashed because he was so OT and if you continue like this for a couple more days I suspect you'd have many more problems to deal with (short nap, NW and EW). As a beginning I would try for the second nap the same A as the first one - 2:40h. After 4 days that you do it we can look at it again and see where we are at, because some babies need their first A in the morning longer or shorter than the rest of the day. The length of the nap and the way he wakes up from it will give us a clue whether he needs less or more than the 2:40h A. If the first one is short, like 45min then you can offer 2:20h approx. A time after it (though it's tricky because some babies need the A to be shortened and some don't). It all goes down to trial and error.

Don't worry about the feeds, just feed when he wakes up. He will always wake up if he is hungry. And you are right, it does get easier when LOs are established on solids, but take your time with it, naps shouldn't be a reason to force too much or too early solids.

[violagal]

Ok great - now I have a strategy I will report back in a few days!

[violagal]

Ok here are the sleep times for the last few days - is there any sort of pattern in there!? It is really difficult to get him to sleep early enough after a short nap, much easier to gently keep him awake if that makes sense. He sometimes gets really fussy and screams and seemingly white noise and holding him facing outwards is sometimes all that will calm him down!


Tues
1st nap after 1h15A (had a bad night with wind). Napped for 1 hour
2nd nap after 3h40A (suffering with wind during day as well, could not settle). Napped for 40 mins
3rd nap after 2h10A. Napped for 30 mins

Wed
1st nap after 2h35A. Napped for 50mins.
2nd nap after 2h30A. Napped for 1hr 55 mins!! Best nap by far!
3rd nap after 2h55. Napped for 15mins (I woke to try and save bedtime)

Thurs
1st nap after 2h45A. Napped for 30mins. Shh/pat back to sleep and napped for another 45 mins.
2nd nap after 2h25A. Napped for 45mins but cried every 10mins and needed shhpat back to sleep.
3rd nap after 2h20. Napped for 20mins

Today Friday
1st nap after 2h40A. Napped for 1h10mins! Woke up happy.
2nd nap after 2h45A. Started winding down after 2h20 but did want to settle, lots of crying and fussing. Napped for 35 mins. Tried to extend with shh pat but gave up after 15 mins.
3rd nap after 1h45A. Napped for 25mins.

[Ima shel Alon]

It's hard to see a pattern because your A times are different. I would try and still stick to 2:40h A time in the morning because it seems that you get a nap which is longer than an hour and that's better than 45min, right? Do this for 3-4 days and if the nap is still between 45min and 1:20h long then increase it to 2:50 and stick to that.
I have a feeling that he needs his second A time tiny bit shorter, like 2:30, what do you think?

[violagal]

I know a bit all over the place....i must find it difficult to get him asleep at the right time, if I'm trying to wind him down he will just sit on my knee or look out the window or will lie in his cot but won't close his eyes until he decides to! But if he's super fussy and crying and then crashes out I then am reluctant to rouse him awake for just another 5/10 mins or sometimes he cannot be kept awake so he goes down early. Do you have any tips for getting the 2h40?? I do however feel like we're making progress as there have been some good naps this week so not giving up yet!
Also a couple of (probably basic) questions...how long should you try an extend a nap for? Is 15 mins too long? And on the days where he doesn't get two decent naps he will need a catnap to avoid being completely OT at bedtime so should this be capped at say 30mins?

[Ima shel Alon]

Everything you are experiencing now, all the difficulties, are because he is on a low A. I am going to quote a fellow mod who is helping another mommy in the same situation, LO is also 6m old and A time is too low. I couldn't have said it better:

When you are upping A times the babies HATE it!! This is a situation where i say 'Mummy knows best!' I swear- my guy would STILL love to be up for 1.5 hours then sleeping for 40 mintues all day i reckon!! Once they are used to the A time push- this only takes a day or 2- they are much happier and sleeping better. Also- at this age they can seem tired and grumpy- when they actually need a change in scenery. My guy was a big fan of the 'oh- this is boring with boring old mummy- better go to sleep!' 

So really you just need to stick to your guns. Yes, he does look tired, but think of it as if his sleepy cues are not reliable anymore till you have him on a better routine. I had to hold DS the last 30min of his A time on my arms because he was so fussy, but if I put him down when I thought he is for sure tired enough I always got an UT nap, I had to be so rigid with watching the clock.

WRT extending naps I would say 15min sounds a good time. I mean, if he is UT you are not going to manage to resettle him because he is not tired enough, and most of your naps are UT. I never managed to extend an UT nap . Tracey said to try for 40min but I found that just messed with our routine and I didn't know when A time is starting and felt like I spent the entire day just trying to extend naps and not managing. It's depressing. But when I increased A time there was no need anymore in extending naps.
I would try and avoid the CN as much as you can, but if you have to have one then 30min sounds good to me.

[violagal]

Gosh that is so right, yday morning when he started fussing I just walked him round or changed position every few minutes and then after 3hrs A he slept for 1hr25 he cried after 30mins but still had eyes shut so I sshd back to sleep in a couple of mins. Then next A was 3h10 and nap was 35m so overtired. After that he got very fussy after 2hr mark but I kept him in my arms, walked him round the garden and after 2.5hrs he literally gave a little yawn, tucked his head in and went to sleep! I woke him after 15mins as it was 5.30 by this time. He then went down to bed at 730 and then for the first time ever slept through the night until 630!!!! He did wake a couple of times and had a little cry but went straight back to sleep. Not coincidence surely?!
I think I may even shorten a catnap to 10mins if need be - it seems that he has an 11 hour night which is my maths is right only works if both naps are 2 hours? If 1.5 hours then one of the A times gets stretched...

[Ima shel Alon]

That sounds like a good progress. Perhaps the second A time should also be 3h?
I hope you got some good sleep last night yourself!

Your naps don't have to be 2h long. I mean, it's great if they are, it will sort your day perfectly, but he might just do 1.5h naps, yk?
In that case I think I would try and have either the first or the last A a bit longer than 3h. You'd need to try and see which one works better for him, because some cope with a longer A before BT and some cope with it better first thing in the morning. You shouldn't have this problem for long, because you need to keep pushing the A time a bit more slowly. So after 4 days you are doing 3h A time and getting good naps I would try and push it to 3:10h A time (which already adds 30min to your day).

[violagal]

Well we had a second night of almost full sleep! He slept from 7.20pm-5.30am, woke up crying so took him into our bed (I know bad habit but wanted to avoid feeding him) and he crashed out again until 6:50 and then when I offered him his 7am bottle he didn't really want to know until 7.30!
Ok so it is a moving feast in terms of A time, will need to remember that.
We have had some good naps last couple of days but often he wakes at 30mins and I can shh pat back to sleep for another 45-60mins. Does the waking at 30mins indicate OT and therefore the A time was too long? Or is it him adjusting to it? Sometimes after 30min nap he seems perfectly happy and won't be resettled, just wants to play!
I definitely think capping the catnap to 15 mins has helped - today he had finished his second nap by 2.15pm so when he fell asleep at 4.15 I woke him after 15mins and he's just gone down now - I think 30mins was too long.
Thanks again for helping me through this its amazing what a nap over 45 minutes allows you to do...have a nice long shower, a hot cup of coffee, read for a bit!!

[Ima shel Alon]

Does the waking at 30mins indicate OT and therefore the A time was too long? Or is it him adjusting to it?

Was the A 3h? It does sound like he is adjusting to it, I would give it a few more days to see if he still does it.
I don't think he is OT because he wakes up happy, you say. I think that if after a few days he still wakes up after 30min then you can up the A again like we said. I mean, if we don't get rid of the CN soon then it will start causing some problems .

Really glad to hear you had good nights!

[violagal]

Yes it was after the 3hr A time. However I think we may have hit teething territory last night although he didn't need a feed (yay) he woke every couple of hours crying and needed a cuddle and shhh to get back to sleep. He had 3hr A but woke after only 20mins crying! Didn't think you could get shorter than 30mins! Lots of shhh and back to sleep and the same thing happened twice more, woke crying after 20mins. So although he was down for 1.5 hrs he slept only 1 hr. He is manically chomping on all his toys and my fingers... Do I keep going with the 3hrs and just help him past this strange 20m mark?

[Ima shel Alon]

Blah I hate teething.
Many babies are more sleepy when they are teething, you can try and shorten the A if you think he is getting too tired and then when teething is through you can go back on track.

[violagal]

Hello again
So I think we had some tooth movement in the gums rather than teething as the symptoms have subsided but no teeth.

Making slow progress on the naps... I can usually get one good nap a day but not both so we end up with one good nap and two catnaps.
Yesterday for example we had 3h20A (too long as we were faffing to get in the car to go somewhere) and got a 35min nap. Then had 2hr20A and got a 1h45 nap - all whilst we were visiting friends over lunch, they were very impressed!! Then 3hA followed by another catnap which I woke after 15 mins and he slept through from 645-6 I can definitely see a correlation between good day naps and night sleep now.

However I have had a handful more of the 20min naps - are they UT or OT? Had one this morning, 3hA and he woke after 20mins. He wouldn't be shhd in his cot so I picked him up to shhh and he went back to sleep for 45mins.

Also we've observed that we have to let him go through his fussy period near the end of A time - if we do that and just hold him or let him look out the window he does just calm down, yawn and close his eyes all in the space of about 2 mins so we put him down straight after he closes his eyes

[Ima shel Alon]

It's really hard for me to say anything about the EASY because you can't conclude anything on the bases of a day out. Babies sleep very different than they'd usually do if at home.

How does he wake up from the 20min naps? Crabby or happy? For us super short naps were UT, the 30-35min naps were OT.

[violagal]

Sorry was just trying to indicate some progress...!
He generally wakes from the 20min naps perfectly happy but looking tired. Because he's not crying PUPD won't work and shhh just seems to amuse him! He will sometimes go back to sleep within the hour for another short nap.
I've been trying to observe a lot the last few days and I'm now wondering whether his waking at 6-7 is actually when he's had enough night sleep. A couple of days ago he practically fell asleep in his high chair having breakfast which was only after 1.5A. Then this morning he woke at 620 so I brought him into bed with me for some cuddles and he was loud and chirpy then at 7 conked out again! I woke him at 730 to keep feeding on track. He seems to just be confusing me more and more!