FRUSTRATION WITH 45 MIN NAPS

[mom2liam]

Hi Stacy & Lauren

Thanks for your messages

This morning when I put LIam down for a nap he slept for 55 mins but then laid in his crib and made a kind of eeeeerrrrrrrr (I wish this thing had sound) for about 20mins so I didn;t go and get him, he must have been in his crib for 1 hour 20mins, it wasn;t a cry so I just left him until he did cry out??

We were in the city all day, so he napped in his stroller or car seat. His last nap was 6pm-6.30pm, and I put him down at 7.45pm, but it's now 8.15pm and I can hear that he is still awake.....I'll have to see how tonight goes has he had a late nap.....

Thanks once again
Wendy
XX

[becky1969]

Hi, I'm a new mom too and we struggled with naps at around the same stage as you, so I just thought I'd let you know what happened with us. First of all, my baby was about 15 lbs at 3 months, so he's a big guy. He was no longer hungry at 3 hours, so we were moving to a 4 hour EASY from 3 hour EASY. We also started a 10:30 dream feed, and that's when he started sleeping through the night (7 pm to 7 am). That's when the naps went to hell! After struggling for about 2 weeks, and lots of observation, I found that what I needed was more awake time! Looking at your LOs schedule, I'm wondering if maybe that's what you need too? My LO is 15 weeks right now, we wake up at 7 am,  and i don't put him down for his first nap until 9 am and he stays down for a full 2 hours. I couldn't believe it because I could have SWORE he was giving me sleepy signs at 1 hr 15 minutes! I don't know if that will help you, but it may be worth a try. You could just try pushing it out, a little bit at a time. But honestly, that first slot of the day I just went ahead and kept him up a full 2 hours right off and it worked! I was pretty surprised. But he was ready at 3 months to be awake. He's not ready to be awake a full 2 hours every slot of the day, but that morning slot he is after sleeping thru the whole night. I'm wondering if your night wakings is just that his poor sleep from bad naps is what's going on.

His other wake times are like 1 hr 45/50 and 1hr30/45 right now, though he's quickly pushing it. If I read your ticker right, your LO is over 4 months old, so I'm guessing he should be able to have similar awake time.

I so hope I'm not breaking etiquette here by saying these things! But I struggled SO HARD with the 45 minute naps and this is what worked for us. It just so happened that it coincided with changing to a 4 hour EASY and sleeping through the night, and it seems like it's kind of doing the same thing with you too. Anyway, just another thing to try!

[avery's momma]

we've had some of those days, and i have found that our lo does it when she is overtired from the day before (or earlier in the day).. she is 5 weeks, and this is our first (angel/touchy) so i am no expert, but i have found that trying to not overdo A time helps.. and i agree with letting her wind down on her own until she gets really worked up. i sometimes go back in to re-swaddle her, and often she will go back to bed on her own... (at least for a minute or two)
hope this helps..  good luck

[Katet]

Mom2Liam, I have only scanned your post, but even though you say his tired signs show he is ready to go down... that can be a "learned" thing, they get used to being in that length of A time. What I would suggest is you lengthen it a bit (10mins) by say taking him for a walk around the house/garden/ stories... something pretty low key. As he should be getting closer to an A time of 2 hours & if he is only doing 1.5hours, then "I" have to wonder if that 15-20mins shorter A time isn't enough to make him only need 45min naps, esp as he seems happy when he wakes... think about it if an adult has a 16 hour awake time, then if you were to go to bed 4 hours early you would probably not sleep as long & in a babies Awake time 10-20mins CAN make a huge difference either way.
I would try 10mins of low key cuddles to string him out for a few days, & build it to 20mins longer in a week if you can & see what happens.

BTW babies that have long enough awake time & do 45min naps USUALLY do one longer one in there (2-3 hours), if it is all 45min naps, then that is an indication of too long/short A time.

[becky1969]

I just wanted to add one more thing here - 10 minutes DID make a huge difference in our case! I wondered the same thing, and Stacy helped immensely. Just adding 10 more minutes of awake time made the naps much better. It started with him still having the jolts at 45 minutes, but being able to go back to sleep with me giving him his pacifier. But eventually he just self-soothed back to sleep at the 45 minute mark.

[mom2liam]

UPDATE

Today I woke Liam up at 7.10am, he was so sleepy, however I kept him up until 9am. I also placed a sheet over the window in addition to the existing balckout blind (as there were gaps down the side). He still slept for 45 mins. For the afternoon nap, he fell asleep in the car at 11.55pm (A time from 9.40am), I transfered him to his room and with approx. 2 wakenings I got him to stay in his crib until 1.20pm. He then had an additional 20mins in his swing, 35 mins later.....

The afternoon nap ended at 5.15pm, so by 7.00pm he was exhausted, this seems to be the most awkward time of day for me, if his nap finishes too early...

I will keep trying covering the window, and extended A times and see if I can get more than 45mins.

I really appreciate all your posts. trying to help my situation,
Regards
Wendy XX

[erinsparents]

Hi mom2liam,
I don't have any advice for you but I have a similar situation with my dd and I have sort of given up on extending naps too so I was wondering how it was going for you? Nothing has worked for me either and she gets 20-30 min at the most of sleep and at this point does not usually even cry so that PU/PD can be used! She just can't turn herself off. Shh pat was working for a while but now when I'm that close to her she just plays with my hair/face etc. which I immediately discourage. Anyhow, just wondering if it's working itself out if you're just stringing together short naps throughout the day?

Thanks,
Laura

[becky1969]

mom2liam: i just wanted to clarify. when i first started extended my LOs awake time, he would STILL wake at the 45 minute mark, but instead of being totally inconsolable and unable to go back to sleep, I was able to get him back to sleep with a shush/pat after a couple of minutes. Each nap and each day, he needed less and less intervention at the 45 minute interval until finally he wasn't jolting as hard at 45 minutes, or was just soothing himself back to sleep. I think that extending the awake time may help your LO extend the nap, but it probably won't help get rid of the 45 minute jolt altogether. I'm not sure anything does that! As far as I know, that's just what the little buggers do at this age. Again, I have no idea if this is against protocol for me to post here, but that was just my experience.

[Tida]

It was really helpful for me to read this post!  I've been wavering back and forth so much about whether or not I should be trying to extend my LO's naps.  We've been doing the EASY routine for two weeks today and now (with lots of help from God and Stacy) feel that we have the getting to sleep thing well in hand and he also has been doing well at night.  In the beginning I was consistently trying to extend his naps with PU/PD (which I've found is too stimulating for him).  I started to feel that maybe he didn't need such long naps and I should let him get up when he woke up.  At that point he would often nap for an  hour or an hour and 10min. (he is on 3 hour EASY).  Yesterday his first nap was 30min, but his second was 2hrs., then 30min again in the afternoon. Today they were all 30min., so now I feel confused again.  But in my heart I just don't feel good about trying to extend his naps.  But he was very cranky this evening!
I'm just kind of rambling because this issue is plagueing me- just wanted to thank everyone for sharing.  It helps to know that others consider letting it go for time and maturity to take care of.  Stacy, did you say that you now lean more toward feeling they should be extended?  I'm just trying to decide what to do.

[traceyt]

Hi there, i'm new here but i too have struggled with the 45 minute nap issue.  I have had some success so i'll pass on what worked for me - let me first say that all of the methods where you are actually in the room with baby did NOT work for me, as soon as Anna saw me she broke into a huge smile and wanted to play and there was no going back.

First of all, at about 3-4 months i started really watching for earlier bedtime cues and, no kidding, Anna (now 8mo) was ready for bed at about 5:30.  We would start her bath at 5:15 and she would be nursing and ready to go down by 5:30 or 5:45.  That shifted with some work on my part to start her bath at 5:30 and we did that for a long time.  she was sleeping by 6:00.  Then we moved bath to 5:45 and she was asleep by 6:15.  I know that this seems to have nothing to do with naps, but i really have found that an earlier bedtime keeps Anna well rested and then naps are easier.  

That said, when she consolidated her naps, Anna did develop a 45 minute nap problem.  I finally found the solution on this board- her A time was too short.  i extended it to 2 hours and 20 minutes and immediately she began sleeping for an hour in the morning and 1h 45 m in the aft, plus a quick catnap before supper.  However, just in the last week and a half she went back to 45 minute naps and i posted for the first time yesterday in frustration.  Stacy recommended extending A time again and it worked!!! she slept only 30 minutes in teh morning but i think external noise (7 year old bro!) woke her - this aft, with some quiet, she slept 2 hours.

When Anna was taking more naps, i would watch her cues but i find now i need to go more by the clock or else her A time won't be long enough.  Also, she tends to cry out at 30 m and 45 m mark but she goes back to sleep within a few minutes.  I don't leave her for serious crying - if she starts that i just go get her.

So, bottom line was that for us, a very early bedtime plus extending A time worked.  Oh, also, virtually all naps are in her crib, which does limit our ability to go out etc, especially when younger and having 2 hours or less of A time.  But i swear it was more than worth it to have a well rested baby!

One more thought - Anna was a lot slower to consolidate her naps (used to nap 4-5 times a day, slept virtually all the time for the first several months) than everyone seems to suggest. So if your lo is not doing what you expect, it may be that he's just a bit slower than others to develop rhythms, like mine.

Good luck, i completely understand your frustration - it can feel so demoralising to not be able to give your lo what s/he needs!

best wishes,
tracey

[Tida]

I also wanted to mention that we use a white noise machine and I feel it has been key in helping Jonathan stay asleep as long as he does.  We also feel less inhibited while he is sleeping.  We really like the one we have, but it only runs on batteries, so you can imagine how quickly we're going through them.  We have ordered one from One Step Ahead called the Sound Sleeper.  It comes with an AC adapter and also can run on batteries.  It is about the same size as the one we are currently using- small enough to travel with easily!

[erinsparents]

Thanks, this posting has been very helpful for me too!
Traceyt - I was wondering how old your lo was when you started to do a 2h20 min A time? Also, how much sleep in total was she getting during the night? My dd is 5 mos 1 wk and I find she does do better when I put her to bed when she's extremely tired not just the first yawn so I may try extending A times. But I was also wondering if her sleeping from 630pm-7am was 'too much' (as if there can ever be too much!  sleep during the night and therefore she was not tired enough during the day to nap (even though Very tired!)...so perhaps that's not true. I was only thinking of trying to get her to go 7-7 or 7:30-7 because I know that a late bedtime would really mess things up! Anyhow, thanks for the advice!

Laura

[traceyt]

erinsparents,

Anna was about 6.5 mo when i started the 2 h 20 m A time.  Before that i was really focussed on signals and tried to get her down by the second yawn, which at 5 m was probably around 1.5 h, then moved closer to 2 but not quite 2 h by 6 m.  At first she was napping more frequently when i put her down at her second yawn, and her naps were shorter.  At that point Anna was still sleeping at least 12.5 h a night.  In fact she was still sleeping that long at night until just this past stretch of about 1.5 weeks when she started getting up earlier and falling back into shorter naps - i think now that is too much for her.  But again, she has always seemed a little slower on the sleep path than most, needing more sleep than all the charts say.  When she was your lo's age she was definitely sleeping about 12.5 h a night and getting about 2.75 h of day sleep and she was just the happiest little baby in town!  That seems more like what a 3 or 4 mo should be getting if i remember correctly, so i sort of think she was about 2 months behind "normal" in terms of sleep needs.  It was at about 6 mo that i started having problems and looking for solutions so i probably could have extended to over 2 h by 6 mo and just didn't know it. 

t

[ginger72]

Hi everyone! I'm soooo relieved to read this post. I've pretty much got to my wits end in the last couple of days.

We have a 4.5 month old baby boy - lovely in every way except that he won't nap for any longer than 45 minutes. He wakes around 7am and is
ready for his first nap around 1.5 hours later. After the first nap he's in a pretty good mood still, but as the day goes on (awake 1.5 hrs each time, 45 min naps) he gets crankier and crankier. By 4pm he is so over-tired - he won't nap in his cot after this time and the last few hours before bedtime are really hard work for everyone.

It's 6pm here now and as I type this I'm rolling him back and forth in the pushchair with my foot! The last few hours before bed (and after the last nap) are the worst. He seems tired within about half an hour of getting up (at 4.30pm today) so getting through to bedtime is a tiring battle. If I'm lucky I can get him to take a 15 min cat nap but walking around with him in the sling, or walking around with the pushchair. By the time he goes to bed we're both exhausted and all I want is a huge glass of wine!

Two things I'm wondering from reading these posts are:

- should I be trying to extend A time? (although this is hard work with a tired, squirmy baby)
- should I be trying to push him back to sleep after 45 mins (although he seems wide awake - very smiley at first, but grizzly soon after).

Please keep the advice coming - it's great to know I'm not alone!

Michelle

[ginger72]

Hi Stacy,

He sleeps well at night - goes to bed at 7.30pm without much fuss, df at 11pm and then sleeps through until sometime between 5.30 and 7.15am - if it's before 6.45am I usually feed him (and treat it as a night feed - night light and no noise) and put him back to bed for a bit. He always goes back to sleep then if he needs to.

I will definitely try extending A again - I'd actually sort of given up doing that and had gone back to putting him down as soon as he seemed tired (whether it was after 1 hour or 1.45 hrs). It's just such hard work - he's OK for the first hour or so and after that it's a case of walking him around the room or pushing him in his chair to keep the grizzles at bay. I'm also going to give wake to sleep a go - as I understand it, I need to go in to him after approx. 30-35 mins, place a hand firmly on his legs until he stirs and then go out again (might even do this from the floor so he doesn't wake up and see me!) - is that right?

Thanks for your help....Michelle