5 month old fighting morning nap and all naps 30-40 minutes

[fayg]

I have been trying to follow EASY since DS was 8 weeks old, but still struggling with naps. DS is 5 months old and is an excellent night sleeper, wakes once for a feed and goes back to sleep. Day time naps are all over the place. He has started to really fight morning nap. Im not sure if he is overtired or undertired. He just screams when I put him in cot but if I get him up he is only happy with me carrying him around. Other naps he usually goes down with little fuss so im thinking I am getting timings wrong but have tried extending and reducing awake times with no result. Also all his naps are 30-45 minutes but he wakes up happy from these naps. His awake time is about 2 hrs. Any advice please? We are still on a 3 hour easy because of short naps.

[J+M]

I'm in sorta the same boat...30 min naps (or so) and wakes up happy, goes down easily, but on a 3 hour EASY because of it. My son is also 5 months old (will be 6 months this week).

I'd love to hear what others think it could be, too. 

My gut says the EASY is off...but if we're in a constant state of UT or OT then how can I ever get the EASY correct?

Also, if they wake happy, then do we even try to extend the nap?  It seems like if he wakes happy I can't extend it.  And if I let him lay until he is unhappy and THEN try to do it I have a very low rate of success extending the nap, too.

I thought waking happy was UT but if his naps are so short, then do I shorten the A time due to the short nap or lengthen it because he's UT and waking calm and happy?  :/

Are your experiences the same?

[tea_gurl12]

Hi there,

I'm no expert but I did experience a similar situation with my DS.  At 5 months he was short napping most of his naps, always waking up at the 45 min mark.  It took him long to settle before naps and extending them never worked.

The advice I was given was to move him to a 3.5, then 4 hour, EASY routine.  I was hesitant as my LO was barely able to do a 2hr A time (I thought I had to 'decrease' his A time) but I started extending them by walking with him in a sling the moment he showed signs of being tired.  Sometimes I would be walking with him for 15 minutes or so but this way he wouldn't be OT (he would just sit in the sling) but still be awake longer than usual.  

By extending his A time and moving to a 3.5hr (then 4hr) EASY within a couple weeks, he started to pull 1.5-2hr naps!  I didn't realize that his short A times were making him UT because he did sleep, just not longer than 45min.  I also noticed that for the first nap of the day, his A time is usually a little shorter than the rest of the day.  

So perhaps you can try to start slowly extending his A time from 2 to 2.5 hours.  I found the links below to be very useful:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63161.0

Hope this helps!
 

[fayg]

thankyou both for your replys.

J+M: I used to try to extend naps but that just resulted in my happy waking baby becoming hysterical and me becoming stressed out and no result at then end. I used to try to extend naps far as long as 45mins with no effect. Now I just get DS up and then if in half an hour he still seems tired I try to lay him down again but this usually does not work either. I think our problem maybe UT at start of the day but OT by the end of the day due to short naps.

tea_gurl12: thankyou for your advice. I did try to extend wake time yesterday as DS had had a 1hr 15min morning nap so thought the next awake time would be a good chance to extend. DS was quite happy to extend A time but this still resulted in a 30min nap. I will keep trying this though as I know it will take a few days for DS to adjust. Due to this 30min nap this then resulted DS screaming for an hour after he woke as he was still tired but just refused to go back to sleep and then at 4 he was so exhausted I did get a 1.5 hour sleep. I am just totally confused if he is OT or UT!? I always follow his tired signs but not sure if I should start ignoring them and going by the clock for a few days to see if that helps??

[J+M]

I think you are totally both right!

Its funny, I just began thinking he is ready to extend his A time.  I've pushed it later a couple times by necessity, due to being out running errands, and it was close to 2.5hrA or later.  And the nap was the same but with success of getting his nap extended, (by effort on my part). Plus just the fact he was staying awake longer without showing signs of fussiness made we think twice about it, too.

I'll try and see how it goes and come back and post again!

I'm going to read the above links and start trying a longer A

[tea_gurl12]

I found for the first week or so of pushing A times that we were constantly fighting the OT/UT monster. After that first week of slowly pushing A times, however, I was able to better detect his signs of tiredness (yawning isn't a sign anymore as it usually means he's bored and needs a change of scenery, but rubbing his eyes/face is definitely his tired sign now!). 

Also, I find now that he's 6.5 months he's able to handle being OT a lot better, but there are days when he's super OT and the giggling/laughing never ends, until he crashes then the crying starts . 

But do keep us posted on how pushing the A times go!

[fayg]

Hi, Just thought I would reply with an update on my progress. Today I kept DS up for 2hrs 10mins before morning nap and we are now at 1hr 20mins and he is still asleep so I am hoping this is the answer and that today is not a one off. It was a struggle to keep him awake for that time though. He was getting grumpy after his usual 1hr 40min and I had to carry him round in the sling to extend his awake time to 2hr 10mins. Tea_Gurl did you find this and did it get better and easier to keep them awake and happy??

[tea_gurl12]

Sorry for the super late response (we were internet-less for a while because of renovations). 

It was a struggle for me to extend A times at the beginning for DS but it definitely got better each day.  How are A times now fayg?  I would have to be careful that he didn't fall asleep in his sling because it happened a couple of times because he was so tired .  But on the whole, extending his A times did get easier, until I had to extend them again   I guess the fun never stops!

[fayg]

hi, naps are still hit and miss. I am getting an occaisonal long nap now but still lots of 30mins ones. I am still working on correct A time. DS is dealing better with a longer A time now though. Im sure I will just figure this out and then he will be ready to change again. we have recently started a new problem though of early morning wakings at 5am. not sure if this is related but if we can extend pm nap then drop catnap then maybe ds will sleep better at night.

[tea_gurl12]

We have also been struggling with early wakes (630am) everyday, so I think it is habitual, and weird bedtime wakings. We have dropped the catnap but I am still trying to figure out the proper A time before bedtime bc Noah will always wake up 45 min into his BT and want to play.

I have tried putting him down at 6, 630, 7 and 730 but nothing seems to work. Part of me wonders if 630 is just his natural wake up time?? but 5am seems a little early to me! Does he wake up everyday at 5 or just some days?

[creations]

Hey there.
Great advice being given by tea gurl, just wanted to pop in to say that your LO's body clock will be having an effect on his body language.  When they are used to going for a nap at a certain time they get ready for it even if they are not tired enough for it.  Clock watching for a little while, with gentle A extension is exactly what you need to push the A up.  You've already discussed having a chilled time to extend the A, don't forget that all the stimulation during an A time will effect naps...yep it's hard when there are so many factors in play but you need enough stimulation so LO isn't bored (and yawning) but not so much they become tired too early.
The EW (early waking) at 5am could be down to the first A being too short.  Baby learns that a nap is coming quite soon after morning WU so in effect extends their own A by waking earlier.  Rather than looking to drop the CN I would extend the first A again.

tea gurl - in general BWers don't class 6.30 as EW (although it is later than many of us want!), I think you could safely say this is his natural wake up time.  Tracy suggested parents go to bed earlier themselves in cases like this with a wake up earlier than we'd really like. (I'd LOVE DS to sleep to 7am!)

hth

[fayg]

hi, DS has always woken at 5am for a feed then gone straight back to sleep til 6.30-7.00ish but the past 3 days he has woke at 5am awake and ready to play. I have still been feeding him at 5am and then putting him straight back in his cot but he has just been talking to himself awake and happy for half hr then crying to be gotten up. This morning though I let him cry it out for a little while as it was more whining rather than full blown crying and he did go back to sleep till 7am so now im thinking maybe I was responding to him too quickly. Thanks again for all your advice. These babies def no how to keep you on your toes dont they.

[creations]

Yes it sounds like you were responding too quickly, easily done though when they are clearly fully awake and playful and then start whining.

The whining you describe is a mantra cry, not a full blown cry, not an 'I need you cry', and there won't have been tears.  It's a self settling sound and shows he is trying to get himself back to sleep rather than asking for attention.  If a mantra goes on for too long and escalates into an 'I need you cry' that's when you need to step in, you might be able to sooth in the cot for an extended sleep or you might choose to get up for the day depending what time you've reached.