9 1/2 week old won't sleep longer than 45 minutes

[kggrace]

My 9 1/2 week old will not sleep longer than 45 minutes. I have tried swaddling, not swaddling, shortening her activity time, lengthening it, letting her cry and resettle herself, and picking her up a rocking her back to sleep, but nothing seems to work. I did not have this problem with my first child and I am at a loss. I could use some advice. She was born pretty big- 9 lbs, 6 0z. She is up to 13 lbs now. She usually eats around 6 oz each feeding.  I feed her every 3 hours. Also, she is still waking up once a night, anywhere from 2-4 am for a feeding. I feel she definitely needs more sleep because she is cranky and when I have tried to play with her after 45 minutes sleep she is fussy! Here is her schedule:

6:30 E & A
between 7:30-8:00 S
   *When she wakes up early and none of the things mentioned above works, I put her in the swing and sometimes she will go to sleep and sometimes not.
9:30 E & A
between 10:30-11:00 S
12:30 E & A
between 1:30-2:00 S
3:30 E & A
between 4:30-5:00 S
    * I always put her in the swing for this nap because it seems to be her fussy time and she usually sleeps most of this time period.
6:30 E & A
7:30- bath and bedtime routine
7:45-8:00 Bed for the night
10:30 Dreamfeed
2-4 am *usually wakes for a feeding sometime during this time

[Papaya]

Hugs hun, it sounds like she's having trouble getting through the transition from one sleep cycle (usually around 45 mins) to the next - which is a really common problem for young babies. Teaching Sleep to Babies of 3-5 months (and the 45 min nap)

The A time for this age should be around 1hr20 - if she's going down much before that for her first nap, she may be UT and then it's very unlikely that you'll be able to extend the nap. Another thing to consider is stimulation level - could she be overstimulated (OS)?

How does she fall asleep initially? Do you put her in the cot awake, use pat/shh etc? If she's used to pat/shh, you could try going into her room shortly before she usually wakes, and gently patting her until she transitions into the next sleep cycle. You may have to keep patting for 15-20 mins for this to work - and it's really useful if LO is swaddled too. This link has some more suggestions for extending naps: How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods)

At BW we don't ever recommend leaving your baby to cry to sleep - UNLESS it's a mantra cry and LO is trying to resettle themselves. Not sure if this is what you meant? What’s a mantra cry?  A mantra cry can be a bit tricky to identify when LO is young, so if you're unsure, I would go in to her. Also at this age, I wouldn't leave LO to mantra for more than 5-10 mins before going in and seeing if you can help

Another thing to be careful of is that if the first nap is short and you can't resettle, you may need to reduce the next A slightly (by no more than 15 mins) to avoid an OT nap. 30 min naps are often signs of OT.

Also, she is still waking up once a night, anywhere from 2-4 am for a feeding.

This is completely normal - most LOs will still need a DF and a NF at this age.