can't get the morning nap working... SO FRUSTRATED!

[fireredjewel]

I’ll try to keep this short (ha).
My 5.5 DD is having trouble with her morning nap, along with a million other babies it seems! Ideally, she has 2X 1.5- 2hr naps, but for the past week  or so, has been waking up 50 mins-1hr into her morning nap, and needs a lot of help to get back to sleep. SO FRUSTRATED!
My question/s are…
1.   Is wake to sleep the way to go? Have tried, but with little success.
2.    Or does her A time need increasing? Have experimented with this – no change.
Strangely, she has less trouble with her afternoon nap, and I often hear her stir through the monitor, but she resettles herself most days.
Also, no props, she sleeps in a sleeping bag, room is dark-ish, there’s always a fan on, and there’s a fair bit of street noise. I usually read her a book & give cuddles, nice and low-key, then pull down the blinds, pop her in the sleeping bag, cuddles, then in the cot when she’s drifty. Goes straight to sleep. She wakes up chatty (rarely cries).
Thoughts?
Thanks!
FYI, this is her EASY...

E - 7am * difficulty with this… too eager to hang out with me, doesn’t eat much, can get max 4 mins on one side BF.
A – 7.05 (lately has consisted of giving her cereal in an effort to make her eat SOMETHING!!!)
S – 9.15/9.30 ish.
E – 11.00
A – 11.15
E – 1pm ish lunch (solids)
S – 2.00- 2.15 ish
E – 4.00/4.30
A – 4.15 * no catnap… she dropped this herself.
E- 5.30 ish dinner (solids)
S – 7.30 (ideally)

[Tweakster]

Hi there how are her nights?  Is she giving you 11 hours or more?  It seems to me she's likely looking for more A time and she's UT at her first nap.  Normally around late 5 mths to 6 mths they are up to 2 hr 30.  You can try to bump up her morning A a bit to see if she'll give you that 1.5 hours again.

[fireredjewel]

yep... 7.30-8pm bedtime, through to 7am, with a DF at 11 ish (she has reflux, so it can't be earlier than this or she'll return the food to me, how nice...)

hmmm will keep trying with the longer A time... there was some success today and yesterday with a 2.5 EXACTLY (i feel like such a maniac!) A time.

never thought i would be this obsessive about her sleep!

thanks for the advice. will see how the next few days pan out.

:-)

[Tweakster]

Hi there, let me know how it goes.  Sometimes with some LO's bumping the morning A time can mean the middle A time will shorten slightly until they get caught up - this happened to us when we were pushing to drop the CN.  So we pushed at the front end, he lost a tiny bit of A time in between naps until his body caught up.  Then we pushed out the middle A time.  So it depends on what works for your LO.

You are not a maniac, just a Babywhisperer ;-)

[fireredjewel]

glad to hear i'm not a maniac lol

well, it seemed that extending the A time helped... i started to get 2 hour naps! bliss!

then she got an ear infection. recovering now, poor little duck. I was holding her up for a few days during her daytime naps. strangely she only woke twice during the night, when she was sick.

then she got 2 weeks older - 6 mo... and it seems that she needs MORE A time, because she started waking up UT from her naps again (at 1 hr, not 1.5)! BAH! This afternoon I extended her A time by 15 mins and her nap is still going.... almost 2 hours later. fingers-crossed.
She rarely has issue with any tweaking (thank goodness) - stopped wrapping her, stopped the CN, without thinking, and she's fine. She hasn't had the CN for a couple of months now, although has only been on this EASY (with 2 hr naps) for about a month.

[Tweakster]

HI there, it sounds like you are reading her just fine :-)  We had a big jump in A time between 5 - 7 mths, then it kind of stabilized, then it went crazy again around 9 mths.  So they just work to their own schedule really.

It takes them a while to bounce back after illness.

Hang in there!