Re: Waking after 45mins

[NewMommy724]

My son is 6.5 months old, and he has always taken 45-minute naps. When he was really little, it was hard for me to get him to take naps at all so I did a little AP and held him for his naps. That may have been how he got in the habit. However, he has been falling asleep on his own in his crib for months now for naps and at night. We have not really had a problem going down at night since two or three weeks old.

He almost always wakes up happy and alert. He coos and plays in his crib for 15-20 minutes after waking and then cries. I interpret the cry as "okay, come get me" so I go in at that point. I've tried pu/pd to extend the naps, but it just makes him upset. My question is whether this pattern is just due to biorhythms and maybe I should just accept it and go on. Even Tracy in her books admits that there are some babies who don't need the longer naps. Even on the day he was born he was awake most of the day. He has been like that since birth -- not seeming to need much sleep.

My question is whether I should try to extend the naps or not put myself through that. I'm considering dedicating a week or two to try, but if it's not going to change anything, then I don't want to go through that turmoil myself, nor do I want to put him through it. I fear it will make him resistant to naps at all if they become a cry-fest as a result of pu/pd.

Here is our daily routine:
7:00 wake and meds (has reflux), BF
Bible stories, books and music time
8:00 solids
8:30 nap
9:15 activity
11:00 BF and meds
11:30 nap
12:15 solids
activity
2:30 or 3:00 - nap
3:00/3:30-ish (depending on when nap happens) - BF and meds
4:30 solids
5:30 bedtime routine, including BF
6:00 or 6:30 asleep

We just started solids last month. I try to get them in an hour after BF, but we have to work around naps. The short naps cause problems with the routine now that we've introduced solids. Prior to that, the adjusted EASY was working great. I also just moved from a 3.5-hour routine to a 4-hour routine, which also must be worked around naps. I was doing 3.5-hour because that worked well with the naps falling as they were, but I switched to 4-hour in hopes of sleeping through the night.

Lately he has been extending his morning nap on his own -- usually to almost two hours when it happens. But that happens about every other day or so. The rest of the naps remain 45 minutes. The "problem" with the extended morning naps is that he doesn't get the third nap in on those days. I've tried the evening catnap, but it has been a no-go the four evenings I've tried.

As for nighttime sleep, it went down to only one waking (at around 1:30 or 2:30 a.m.) once I switched to the 4-hr routine and added a dream feed, but now it has gotten worse again. We've also recently started bedtime battles, which I think are due to his being hungry for his 7:00 feed even though he's going to sleep at 6:00 and has just had solids at 4:30. It could also be due to the long wake time between the second nap and bedtime on those days when the morning nap is long. And, as I mentioned above, the catnap hasn't been happening (even with pu/pd) so we just keep his early bedtime. He also has started waking up a couple of times between bedtime and midnight, which I think are caused by getting used to the dream feeds. We can usually just go in and reassure and not even pick him up for those wakings.

Our wind-down routine is very short for naps. We go into his dark nursery (as dark as I can get it -- he can still see by the faint light from the covered window, which gets him very excited), and I rock him for about one minute while I sing a lullaby. (He gets very fidgety whether I rock him or not so I usually only hold him for a minute.) I put him in the crib while I continue to sing, and then I stay until he falls asleep. He used to fall asleep within 5 minutes, but lately he wiggles and kicks and babbles for 20-30 minutes, sometimes longer. I don't consider that our A times are overly stimulating as he isn't terribly physical yet -- can roll over and sit up, but we do most of that type of activity in the morning right before his morning nap, which has always been his best nap.

Is that enough information? I know this is a nap board, but I figure the nighttime stuff could be related so I wanted to provide as much info as I could. Here are my questions:
Should I bother with extending the naps, or does he seem to be doing okay? I feel like he used to do okay, but I wonder about these recent bedtime battles and also the gap between the second nap and bedtime on days when the morning nap is long. Extending the second nap would help, I think, but if he doesn't need it, then I'm not going to do it. Any advice?

[Meg's Mom]

Hi NewMommy

I moved your post as this board is so busy, it got buried.

I am sorry you having such trouble.

Have you tried gradually extending his awake time?  That usually helps at this age w/ those 45min naps.

My question is whether this pattern is just due to biorhythms and maybe I should just accept it and go on.

  but as you say here, if he is totally happy when he wakes then extending is a bit pointless.  But extending the A time might help.  I am looking at the a time for nap 1 and 1 hr 30min doesn't seem very long for this age.

that is great news the morning nap is extending, that means he learning to sleep longer and sounds like a great time to extend a time.

I hope this helps some.

[NewMommy724]

Thanks for moving my post. I realized it was getting overlooked, too. I hope more people will comment now. Sorry it was so long, but I wanted to give as much information as I thought might be needed.

I've tried lengthening A time, but every time I do that, he gets so hyper that he doesn't take his morning nap at all. Actually 1.5 hours IS the lengthened time. It used to be 45-60 minutes. Today he was already tired after 45 minutes or so, but I wanted to get his solids in so I kept him up. I guess it was too long because when I put him down after that, he was extremely hyper in his crib and talked and played in it for two hours. I don't know if he ever actually went to sleep at all. The longest periods of silence I heard were only a few minutes at a time. At least he wasn't crying. In fact, I started to think that maybe I had misinterpreted his cues, after all, and instead of being hyper and overtired (as I assessed) he was just not quite tired yet. However, after two hours of listening to him NOT fall asleep, I think I kept him up too long and he actually WAS hyper from being overtired.

The morning nap is really not my concern, though, as much as the other naps of the day. Introducing solids has made it a little difficult to keep him on track since the naps don't fit with the timing of the meals. I'm not sure what I should do.

The good news is that he slept from 10:30pm to 4:30 am without waking last night!!! And actually, when he woke at 10:30, all I had to do was give him four pats on the back and he put his head right back down and went to sleep. I think sometimes he wakes up when he rolls over onto his tummy because he thinks he's stuck (even though he has been able to roll in all directions for more than a month now).

[Livbueno]

Hi newmom

My son is only 6 weeks old and like you i thought he was a diferent baby and doesn't need much sleep.He only had 20' and 45'naps, and would sleep well at night. feed every4 hr.
But after reading the book etc... I decided to try to make it longer and see how he went.
What I did, I first observed him for one day. Stayed in the room for the intire nap!
then I realized, he needed to be warpped (your baby is probably to old for that), and I now go in the room after 45' when he usually wakes up and to Ssh/pat until he goes back. Now his naps are at least 90', he still has some short 45'ones, but most of them are long now.

All the best..
luv
Liv

[Caroline-Charlies Mummy]

When I read your first post, I was going to reply to say that you should extend A times, but Michelle beat me to it . The biggest clue was that he used to fall asleep in 5 mins, but now takes longer - maybe he just isn't tired enough to take a nap just yet?

How have you been extending them? It must be done very gradually, or you will end up with an overtired baby. If you extend your A time by just 5 mins a day, that shouldn't get him overtired, but, after a week, he's up for a good 35/40 mins extra. I really think that this will help with your situation. This also might be preferrable for you than trying to extend the naps.

I think you are right that the nightime wake-ups are related. If extending the A times works, and you get better naps, then the nightime stuff should really ease off.

Also, I just wanted to add that your lo is at an age where there is a lot of developmental stuff going on, and it is a prime age for sleep routines to be disturbed - more physical activity/teething/starting solids/becoming more aware of their surroundings - this can all affect sleep. I know we went through very similar problems. Hang in there

HTH

[NewMommy724]

Thanks for your suggestions. In an effort to extend morning A time, I spent yesterday morning observing every little thing and noting the time.

I woke him at 7:13 (because I've found if he sleeps later than 7:15, it messes up his naps even worse)
First yawn 50 minutes later
Solids at 8:05
More activity
8:30 definite sleepy cues
8:33 yawn
8:36-8:41 wind-down and placed in crib with pressure and soft lullaby
8:49 asleep
9:30 stirred a little
9:42 woke - total sleep = :58
9:42-9:55 babbled
9:55-9:59 asleep again?
9:59-10:21 - babbled
10:21 cried out

The next nap occurred at 11:40, and he seemed tired afterward (40 min.) but wasn't crying. He settled much more quickly (5 min.) for both of those naps with me keeping my hand on him once he was in the crib. However, for the third nap, I tried for an hour to get him down, but he kept acting hungry so I caved and fed him. He finally fell asleep at 2:55 after much excited play in the crib. (He's on the verge of crawling, which might be part of the problem, plus a possible bf issue that I posted on that board). That nap was 45 min. He was very tired at bedtime.

Today I overslept and didn't wake him by 7:15. Here's today:
7:26 woke up crying (strange for him -- usually babbles)
7:58 first yawn
8:11 yawn
8:21 yawn in high chair while waiting for breakfast
8:30 started getting a little hyper, but I tried to keep him up to make A time a little longer than yesterday
8:50 started burrowing his head
8:56 started wind-down
9:25 - took him 30 minutes to fall asleep
I attempted wake-to-sleep during the nap, and he did go a little longer than 45, but I don't know if it had anything to do with that.
10:25 or 10:35 (can't remember) - woke. There was a loud noise that seemed to startle him. I don't know if that's what woke him or not. He woke crying, which he usually doesn't do. I waited for him to fall back to sleep before I attempted sh-pat or pu/pd. Sh-pat made him very happy to see me, and any attempts after that were futile.

I didn't track the rest of the day b/c dh was in charge today because I needed a break and had things to do. I'll start the attempts again on Monday. I no longer think the short naps are biorhythm. He woke crying all three times today and had difficulty settling in all three times, too.

I'll keep you posted. Please don't forget about me in the meantime! =)

[NewMommy724]

Well, we've managed to extend the morning wake time and have had longer morning naps for three days now. I've also been going in and doing wake to sleep. However, there has been no positive effect on afternoon naps, and I don't see how there would, anyway, because there was already two hours of A time between those. Now the longer morning nap has just made it to where he only gets one afternoon nap in, and since it's still only 45 minutes, he goes a long time between that nap and bedtime. Pu/pd doesn't seem to help extend his naps, either. It only makes him more upset -- very upset today, in fact. He ended up being inconsolable until we finally just had to leave the nursery completely.

Can anyone give me a success story on how pu/pd actually helped extend naptime?

[dionne]

Hello I have a three month old who also is taking 45 min naps and waking twice at night.  Wonderring if the suggestions to extend A time would apply to my little guy. 
He use to go down pretty easy with a paci.  He is not swaddled (seems to resist) and I am not sure if I should as he is trying to use his hand to soothe. 
I have tried to go in before he jolts awake but he will not settle
He is bottle fed.  Difficulty sticking to the EASY because he has such short naps and doesn't seem to want a full bottle at  a time therefore he tends to get more frequent small meals


Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[Meg's Mom]

NewMommy - That is great that you have had longer am naps - yippie!  You say for the afternoon nap he is at 2hrs of A time?  Well the typical A times for 6-8 mth old are:
2.5 after am wake up – usually 1.5-2.0hr in length
2-3hr after end of am nap – same as above

So
7am wake
9.30 am nap – wake no later then 11am
1.00 or 2.00 pm nap – wake no later then 4pm
3.30 or 4.00 catnap (if needed) – 30/45min
7.00 – 7.30 bed

I would continue to GRADUALLY extend those A times until you reach the nos above,the short naps go away or he seems he can't handle anymore A time.  Do 5min every day or so...  Once you get that pm nap longer and A times the problem of a long time between nap and bed will also go away.

PU/PD is really a hard a way to go...i would stick w/ extending, W2S and shh/pat.  PU/PD is/was a last resort for us.

Dionne:
From 0-3 months babies work on organizing their night sleep. From 3-6 they work on organizing their day sleep. What is happening is biological and is a normal blip.  Not that it makes you feel any better, but if he took long naps before, he it is likely he will again in a month or two.

NO, extending A time is not recommend before 4mos.

IME, you have 4 options (most outgrow it by 5-6mos):
1.   try to extend the short naps via wake to sleep or shh/pat
2.   just go with it and adjust EASY to fit the short naps
3.   very, very gradually extend A time - if your LO can handle it, but this is not always recommended as they get overtired so easily.
4.   wait until 4mos and extend A time when you move to 4hr EASY.

I can offer suggestions w/ any you choose if you like.  As i said, it does get better i promise.

[NewMommy724]

We've made it to where he's falling asleep for the morning nap pretty much exactly two hours after he woke for the day. And we've had several days in a row with long naps!!!! Yippee!!! I did wake-to-sleep for a couple of days, but I don't know if that did it or if it really was the longer A time or both. (I credit God answering desperate prayer!) Yesterday and today he did it without wake-to-sleep. I stayed in there the whole nap to help if needed, but he briefly woke several times, resettled, and continued sleeping. He even sneezed, which I thought would wake him for sure, but it didn't.

Now we've got to fix the afternoon nap. I was thinking maybe he needed to be awake longer before that one, too. We'll keep trying.

Yes, pu/pd is a last resort for me, too. What usually works better to calm him down is to lean over and sing or whisper in his ear. Still, he never goes back to sleep even if we stay in there for the rest of his S time. He'll just play and talk. Oh well. Like, I said, I'll try the longer A time. I hope that will also fix these new bedtime battles. Also, we found out yesterday he has an ear infection. That could be part of it, too. Thanks for your help!

[josie k]

Having read all of these posts i can see i have very similar problems with my 15 week DS 45 minute naps.

I feel i really need advice as to extending his nap times, as using pu/pd is really, really gruelling and doesn't tend to work. I feel really unsure why i am actually doing up/pd, as more often than not he doesn't fall back to sleep but only achieves an epic tantrum for the remainder of nap time- another 45 mins.

So i would like to know how does this technique actually encourage a baby to sleep through the next sleep cycle?  I'm really confused about this technique being used as a teaching 'tool'. I also recently read a post that said to only continue doing pu/pd for about another 20mins to try to exend sleep, but according to Tracy in her book one must keep going for the whole of the nap time if necessary...

Anyway tomorrow i am going to try the wake to sleep technique instead, after 40 mins of sleep, which seems to have been very effective for many of you other mums, to see if this is better.

Does anyone have advice about night feeding also? My main motivation for starting easy, which i have been trying my best to do for over two weeks now, is to hopefully get him sleeping better at night, but so far i haven't seen much difference.

As a newborn my lo fed around the clock every two hours, which untill easy i had continued to do until two weeks ago, as i feel as though i am going out of mind with tiredness!!

So now he is on the three hour easy, he feeds-yep- every three hours around the clock, which is better, but i really feel now at nearly 15 weeks surely i can get him to go a little longer...I just don't know how. I'm sure Tracy would be horrified with me for continuing this round the clock feeding! 

I am following her advice on cluster feeding at 4, 6 and topping him off at 7 and giving him a DF at 11.00. All of which so far have made no difference. He still wakes three hours later at 2 for his next feed. (I am sure however this may,or may not, be solved if i changed to the 4 hour easy...Which is something a feel i need to rapidly work towards.)

I also feel all the 'good' work i am doing with him in the day, structuring his feeds and sleep etc, is being undone at night as i am surely reinforcing the prop i have established, by constantly feeding him back to sleep throughout his night wakings?

But although i do feel he is genuinely hungry, as he often takes a full feed from both breasts and wakes at differing times each night, i also feel his waking is totally a habit and apart from me refusing point blank to feed him i can't see a way out of this at the moment.

Anyone have any suggtions?!Sorry, i know these aren't specifically nap problems but are part of my bigger picture.
Thank you for any advice, as i'm going crazy!

[NewMommy724]

Josie K,

Be encouraged:  You sound just like the position I was in when my son was about your son's age. His naps were only 45 minutes, and I was trying so hard to stick to the order of EASY that he ended up being nursed every two hours to keep the routine in order. At almost four months, someone corrected me and explained that he shouldn't be eating that often so I put him on a 3-hour feeding schedule (yes, schedule -- sorry, Tracy) and then gradually moved to a 3.5-hour schedule over two weeks' time. (I concentrated only on getting the feeds on track and put the nap-lengthening on hold until the feeding schedule was established. Therefore, I would kind of have to fit the meals around the naps, and 3.5-hour feedings worked better than 4-hour even though I knew he should be at 4 hours.)

At age six months, he was still waking up a lot at night, and I read in Tracy's book that a 6-months old on a schedule designed for a younger baby will wake up more often at night. I don't know why that's true, but I decided to give it a shot, and I moved ds to a 4-hour schedule. (I still hadn't tackled nap length at this point.) After we established the 4-hour nursing schedule and added the dream feed, he started waking only one time at night! (Of course, that's still just about every four hours.) And now, as you see above, I have started tackling the nap problem and am having success. (I don't know how to get rid of that middle-of-the-night feed, though. He's genuinely hungry.)

Anyway, my point is that your son is close enough to age 4 months that I recommend moving to the four-hour routine. Also, I think by age four months, Tracy recommends cluster feeding only if your ds is going through a growth spurt. But I'm not an expert on that.

Regarding pu/pd for naps, I have had much more success by lengthening the A time and attempting wake-to-sleep. As with your ds, mine would get very upset after 20 minutes of it. It confused me, too, because my son wasn't really even crying after his naps so why was I doing this? Anyway, hopefully I won't have to go there. How long is your A time between naps?

[josie k]

Hi New mommy
Thanks for your reply and i do think you are right, moving to the four hour will hopefully help.

I have been extending his A time by 15mins a day so i plan to do this for three days, tomorrow is day three, to be fully on the four hour. This does seem fast to establish this but i really feel he is ready.

At the mo his A time is about 1.5 hrs but today he went 2 no problem and i am sticking to the feeding times so far no probs with that either.

 last night was again simply awful, waking at random times, won't settle after his night feeds. I often sit with my hand on him for up to an hour and as soon as i remove it he wakes...At 5.00am i left the room to let my DH take over.

So yeah i am pinning all of my hopes on these changes i'm making.I do feel i really have drawn the short straw in the sleep dept, but then i look on this web site and realise i'm not alone!

Tonight i plan to DF him at 11.00 and then at three. If he wakes before this, which no doubt he will, i won't feed him untill three so i am predicting a very stressful hour or so...( I also feel is it worth that stress as if i am going to feed him in the end anyway, why make him wait in misery)  but hopefully this will faze out this constant night feeding...

I also tried W2S this morning to extend his morning nap, which have now dropped to 35mins, which seemed to work, to 1.5hrs. But maybe it was extending his A time, who knows!

I also found yesterday PU/PD did actually work, he basically screamed himself into submission and slept for 10 extra mins before i got him up for his next feed. The nap after he needed less PU/PD time, so i guess this is how it works. Tracy talks about this is how his internal clock changes so i guess i have to trust her and although i find it so hard i feel i can't carry on the with his nights the way they are.

My problem with the nights is the fact he is so used to feeding around the clock so he is now conditioned to have most of his meals then and not in the day as i can't get a 7.00 or even 10.00am feed out of him. How to really change this i don't know but i'll see if my plan works!

Again thanks for your advice.
Josie K

[NewMommy724]

Josie K,

I'm glad you posted because I've been wondering how things were going. It sounds like you are doing really well in the daytime changes! That's great. I'm glad I could actually help someone on this site. It seems I'm always the one needing the help! Like you said, it's good to come here and see that other people have challenges, too. It makes me feel not quite as... well... insane!

I don't have much advice on the nighttime wakings. I'm still dealing with that myself although it has decreased and ds has no problem going back to sleep even if I put him back down awake. I'm so thankful for that. The one thing I would suggest is having your husband do the middle-of-the-night pu/pd (if he's willing and in agreement with the theory like mine is). Otherwise, your son associates you with nursing and might be less willing to settle back down. Can your dh do that for you? My dh and I set a time and say we won't feed him again for, say, six hours, and if ds wakes before then, dh does pu/pd. It's grueling, as you know, so he'll have to be dedicated.

Keep posting because I want to know how things go.

[NewMommy724]

Well, we finally had a successful day on Sunday. Two 2-hour naps! I was so excited. But now, he has gone back to 45-minute naps and sometimes even shorter. He gives me sleepy cues much earlier than two hours, but I've been trying to keep him awake that long since that's the length of time that was working well. However, it backfired on me Monday and he was overtired and took only a 30 minute nap. So yesterday I decided to go with his cues and put him down earlier - 45 minute nap. Today I went back to two hour A time - 45 minute nap.

I GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this really worth it?! All it's doing is driving me crazy. My days are pretty much ruined after he wakes up from that short morning nap because I'm so fed up with trying for longer ones. Plus, it throws off the whole rest of the day. WHY AM I EVEN BOTHERING WITH THIS?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!