confused between undertired or overtired

[mariarico]

hello!

My LO has been on 30-45 min naps for a few weeks. I'm confused if she is under or over tired.

she is 3.5 months and her A time is about 1hr 30min (includes self soothing time)...still working on the right A time.

but sometimes she naps 30 min and is happy and sometimes 45 min and happy.  Once in a while she will wake up cranky.

i leave her to self soothe back to sleep but after 20min she starts to wail.

what to do?

[crazymama2]

I dont have an answer for you but I would love to hear what the more experienced moms have to say. IMO, 1.5 A for 3.5 mos old sounds very good and i dont think she's OT at all! How does she fall asleep? Does she fuss a lot or just conks right out? If it's the later, you know she's not OT. Plus, I feel like if they are undertired, the LOs will just lay there for a bit bc may be her optimal wake up time is 1 hr 35 m or 1 h 40 min, not that huge of a difference to just lie quietly in the crib - i mean to such young ones that's an activity of its own! And I also don't think that if a baby is undertired, she's have earlier WU, that sounds more like OT baby or something else. But again, I would love to hear what others have to say!

[*Ali*]

I would try another 10-15 mins on her first A. 1hr 45 is about average for a 3.5mo and by 4mo she will probably need closer to 2hrs. If she is UT at that first nap and does a 40 min nap then 1.5hrs is probably too much for her next A time after a short nap of around an hour or less she will probably need about 20-30 mins knocking off her next A time. Otherwise she can fall into an UT/OT cycle and end up OT by the end of the day.
Are you able to resettle her with shh pat at all? Have you tried wake to sleep?

[mariarico]

Ali-- she cries worse if i go in the room, and with pu/pd she ends up staying awake and sometimes laughs

with wake to sleep, she sleeps for an extra 10 min then shes awake

this morning it took her 45 min to fall alseep  (1hr 25min + 45 min of soothing).