5.5 Month Old Routine - Help PLEASE!!

[lauraims]

So she lasted 2 hours 20 mins this morning. Went to sleep fairly easy. Started melting down at the 2 hour mark but kept her mind off it. She's woken up babbling to herself after 40mins !!! Ahhh why oh why!!!! I really doubt she's beable to stay awake much longer than 2.30!!

[lauraims]

And went back to sleep after 10 mins. I wonder why she keeps completely waking ?? Could it just be a stage ? She didn't do it for around 6 weeks after we sleep trained her to self soothe. So weird !

[newkidontheblock]

At least she is going back down, so that's a good thing:)

[lauraims]

Yeah it's a good thing. Yesterday she had 1.5 morning nap then 2.15 wake time then screamed when I put her down to nap 45 mins. Woke crying then went back to sleep for 10 then woke crying again. Would you say that's OT or UT?? Then I got her to do another 45 min nap after a WT of 2.5 and that got us to 4.30 then bed at 6.30 and no screaming wake ups not long after going down. So I really think at the moment 3 naps are best for her. 1.5 in the morning and two 45 mins in the arvo. That's still 3 hours of day sleep which is ok although I think she'd do better with a bit more !! I'm going to APOP her second nap today and see if I can get it longer. From all the research I've done it seems until they're over 6 months old that naps are still on the shorter side and more frequent. Also I bet once our girls start crawling they will wear themselves out and sleep longer !!! My friends who have kids noticed that the naps became longer around the time they started to crawl so fingers crossed !!!

[newkidontheblock]

I remember just before we went to 2 naps, we also did long morning nap followed by 2 short naps. We decided to simply accept the 40 minute second nap and move on from there. And strangely enough, the catnap became a lot easier to get. Moving to 2 naps also means you only have to stress about 2 naps :p

Nap resistance usually means UT. Give it another 10 minutes and try again. By 2.5 you means 2 1/2 hours right? So then that is the right time. Maybe if you try for PD just 5 minutes before hand instead of 15, she might go easier? I wonder if her times are actually longer than that since after a 45 minute nap, she then did 2.5 and slept off but after a 1.5 hour morning nap, you got resistance. Something to consider....

[lauraims]

Hmmm never thought of that. She resisted the late arvo bps again today!!!! She did a 2.15 morning nap after being awake for 2 hours. She was getting so whingey and rubbing her eyes hard at the 1.45min mark !!! Then after that nap she had 2.15 WT to sleep 45 mins which took us to only 3 then tried a catnap at 4.30 (new she's be UT so she screamed!!) so raced to bath her at 5 and into bed at 5.30 so 2.30 WT but she couldn't settle and screMed and screamed which she never usually does for bed time. So OT?? She was visibly knackered as when I fed her before bed her eyes were closing. She's just so confusing !!!! I really don't think her WT could be longer... Hmmmm i just don't really know what to do now to be honest!! The long morning nap stuffs up her afternoon as it's only 1 catnap to get her through. Would you just get her up at 1.5hr mark for morning nap and stick with the two 45 min naps in the arvo ?

[newkidontheblock]

How was your night? A 2hr+ nap after just 2.15 A sounds like she was very tired to begin with. And after a 2 hr+ nap, you might have needed to add a bit of time to the next A as she was probably super fresh. Honestly, UT changes so quickly to OT. I would cap the morning nap at 2 hours

[lauraims]

Ummm night wasn't too bad 6.30pm-3.45am then straight back down till 6.30am. She just woke at 2am before. Had a big big feed. I know day sleep effects night sleep right? They can also be getting too much day sleep. Would you say 3 hours day sleep would be enough for a 5.5month old? I might try tomorrow keeping all her ATs at 2.30 and be consistant like that for a bit and see what happens. She'll soon get used to it. I know something's not quite right at the moment it's just so hard to work it out !!!

That 2.15 hour nap she woke completely every 40/45 mins or so but went back to sleep. Can't figure out if that means UT or OT? Ahh just so confusing 

[newkidontheblock]

Just keep doing what you are doing for a few days and of course, keep observing. Don't make a judgement call just yet. It will take a while for things to fall into place as there is already so much over tiredness from before. I can't really say what how much day sleep would work for her. You would have to experiment with that. I definitely think at least 3 hours..maybe even 3.5. Once you get the A time right, you will have to see what length of naps she is giving you. A 12 hour night is fantastic:) Happy for you

[lauraims]

Ok thank you so much for your help !! I'm going to stick with 2.5 hr WTs and hope she gets used to it. DH looked after her this morning and he left it too late to get her into bed so she was awake 3 hours !!!!! Bit nervous on how tonight is going to go. 2.5 WT before first nap and slept 30 min, talked to herself for 20 then back to sleep for 45 or so. Ahh I just don't know!! Xx