5 month old -- 20 to 30 minute naps and EASY

[jana224]

Hi there
My 5 month old DD sleeps 12 hours straight at night, and naps about 3-4 times a day for 20-30 minutes.  She is happy and content throughout the day and never cries unless it's getting to be time to eat.  My question is two fold:
a) how do I follow a four hour EASY when she only sleeps for 30 minutes and isn't supposed to be awake for another 1.5 hours?  It screws up our eating/sleeping schedule because they start running into one another by the late afternoon....
b) should I be trying to extend or consolidate her naps? if so, how?

Her morning schedule looks like this:
7:30am - Wake up/BF
8:30am - Cereal
9:30am/10am - Nap for 30 minutes
11:30am - BF
*Then the afternoon starts to fall apart for time because she's ready to go back to bed by 12-12:30 and only sleeps for another 30 minutes...  By her next feeding at 2:30-3pm she's wanting to fall asleep while nursing. 
5:30pm - Cereal
7pm      - bath
7:15pm - BF
7:30pm - bed

Anyway - we aren't experiencing any real problems, could just be her easy-going temperament, because she is happy to be awake. She also goes down without any issue -- I just put her in crib with a little toy and she drifts off pretty easy on her own (both at naps and at bedtime).  And of course, she sleeps like a dream at night, no DF and lately no early morning nursing...  So should I even be trying to "fix" the schedule?

Any input would be great.
Thanks
Jana

[lilac83]

Hi Jana ~

I think trying to get some good naps in for your DD would be a good thing. Sleep is when they do a lot of their growing! Usually a 30 minute nap means the A time was too long. For starters I would try to get her down for her first nap around 9:00 and see if she will sleep longer. If she keeps short napping you'll just have to fit her feeds in around her naps as best you can. After a 30 minute nap her A time will have to be reduced too so she doesn't get OT. Be thankful your LO can be tired and happy at the same time, it makes life easier!

[jana224]

Thanks Robin.  After reading some of the boards here last night, I actually put her down at 9am this morning and she was asleep by 9:15am, only to be up 22 minutes later.  I let her lay in her crib for a while to see if she'd go back to sleep, but instead she laid there singing to herself for more than 30 minutes...  At which point, I start feeling badly that she's awake and I'm just leaving her in her room all by herself....
I'm going to try adding more wind-down time into our Activities and see what happens.
Jana

[lilac83]

Excellent idea about adding more wind down. The effects of any changes you make to your LO's schedule may not be seen for a few days. So, add in that extra wind down and continue laying her down at 9:00 for a few days and see if any progress is made. Do you have any success with extending her naps?

[jana224]

Her naps continue to be short if she has them in the 4 hour cycle of EASY... I know OT is a concern, but she always sleeps longer if I keep her up for 3-3.5 hours and usually doesn't have a hard time getting to sleep.  The problem with that, of course, is that if, for example, I feed her at 12pm and she goes to sleep at 3:30pm, then she's due to eat again at 4pm...  So she may sleep long and miss a meal, or she might wake early from hunger.  I don't know which is better!
Jana

[lilac83]

Once A times creep up bottle times do tend to get in the way of naps. At this point you just have to try to fit them around her nap schedule. So for instance, you said she ate at 12pm and then nap is due at 3:30pm, I would try to feed her around 3pm so that she'll take a good nap and won't wake hungry. You'll still have about 30 minutes before nap so she shouldn't be feeding to sleep.

If she sleeps longer after a long A time, that's fine. All LO's are different and if that's what works for her then that's great.

[jana224]

Well, an update on today.... she slept for 20 minutes this morning and awoke at 11am.  I kept her up until 1:45pm and then fed her and put her to bed right after at 2pm (she was not sleeping on the breast though, she was just drowsy).  She's going on two hours of sleep right now, so it worked.  I think you're right that I'll have to modify EASY a bit since her napping is a bit different than textbook... I'm prepared to let her nap 2-3 hours in the afternoons since her morning naps are so short and she sleeps so well at night.  But the latest I can let her nap is 4:30pm because her bedtime is 7:30pm at the latest, and she seems to need 3 hours of awake time before she's serious about committing to sleep.  Do you think 3 hours of awake time is too much?

[lilac83]

Judging by what you wrote I don't think that 3 hours is too much. She seems to be a LO who likes longer A times and that's fine. She's getting plenty of day sleep too, which is great. If she starts being difficult to get to sleep at night or starts waking right after being put to sleep, then you'll know the A time was too long and you can shorten it a bit. Good luck!