5 mo old nap issues

[SukieCat]

DD is a week shy of 5 months old.  Up until recently, I was doing a decent job of following an EAS routine.  I had to rock her to sleep, but it wasn't that bad.  A few weeks ago at her 4 mo checkup, we found out she wasn't gaining weight well (I have a whole other post about this in the Breastfeeding forum).  In an effort to increase her calorie intake, I started nursing her as much as possible, which led to nursing her to sleep a lot.  Also during this time she transitioned out of a swaddle into regular sleep blankets.  She has become a nightmare to transfer from nursing to crib, and once she's in her crib she never makes it past 35 min for her naps.  She used to wake up at 35 min sometimes even when swaddled, but most days she'd manage at least one decently long nap.  Now she only gets long naps if I let her nurse the entire time she's sleeping.  It's exhausting.  BUT, the increased nursing did seem to help - she put on more weight in 2 weeks and went back up in the percentiles.  However, I'm not sure I can keep up this demanding nursing schedule, especially since I have a 3 yo to take care of as well.

I don't even really know where to start addressing her nap problems.  I could do EAEAS, but she takes a long time to nurse, and I'd still have to rock her to sleep, and like I mentioned, I have a 3 yo too.  I'd like to work on independent sleep, but I think that's going to involve a lot of crying.  I could try going back to EAS, but I'm afraid her weight will suffer.  Does anyone have any ideas for me?

I don't have a schedule to post, but I generally try for a 2 hr A time, unless she starts yawning before that.  A time gets progressively shorter as she gets more OT from not napping well.  She goes to bed between 7 and 8 and usually sleeps decently overnight, getting up once or twice and then up for the day around 7. 

What do you think I should do?   

[newkidontheblock]

Could you start by posting your routine, hun? - Just post a few days for us to see. It would give us a starting point at least. 2 hours is on the lower end for a 5 month old - most have moved to 2.5 or more. And less than 2 hours would be way too little A time also. Short naps are to be expected if her A time isn't age appropriate yk? As then she's refreshed with a short nap and ready to go. EAEAS is a good option and that's the path I took with my DD - she took forever to nurse also but the second nurse wasn't as long as it was more of a top-up. Besides the correct A time, a suitable sleeping environment (quiet, dark, cool), a good wind down routine and white noise help a lot.

[SukieCat]

Well today ended up being kind of weird because we took DD and our 3yo DS to the county fair this afternoon, but I'll post our day anyway.  We tried longer A times - morning was great, afternoon was not.  Here it is starting with BT the night before.

BT 8pm (took me 1.5 hr of nursing and rocking to get her to sleep)
E 2 - 2:30am
S
E 5 - 5:30am
S
WU/E 6:50am - 7:30
A
E 8:20 -- she was really tired, fell asleep but I made her get back up
A
E 9 (nursing to sleep)
S 9:25 - 10:45 ! longest nap she's had since we stopped swaddling
A (had to get to a dr appt right away)
E 11:30 - 12
A
E 1 - 1:20pm
S 1:25 - 1:45
   rocked back to sleep
   2 - 2:10
   rocked back to sleep but transfer fail to crib
   gave up rocking
A 2:35
E 2:40 - 3:15 -- dozing while eating
A
E 3:45 -- she was quite fussy so I gave her a bottle 3 oz pumped milk. she downed it, probably would have taken more
A -- this is when we went to the fair.  I wore her in a carrier but she resisted sleep until...
S - 6 - 6:15
A
E 7 - 7:40
BT 7:40pm

She was quite content to be worn at the fair despite the lack of sleep and food.  Morning nap was very encouraging, afternoon nap was more like what she's been doing every nap for the past two weeks.  I nursed her to sleep for most of her naps today.  What do you think?  Should we try 2.5 hr A times tomorrow?

[SukieCat]

Today was really messed up too.  No nap morning prompted me to swaddle her again, then she took a 3 hr nap.  Then in the evening she was refusing to nurse, which she normally NEVER does. I have no idea what that was about.  Here was our day:

BT 7:40pm
E 2:40 - 3:15am
S
WU/E 6:15
A
E 8:40am - fell asleep 3x, failed to transfer
A 9:35
more rocking, nursing, sleeping, failing to transfer
Swaddled!
E 10:30
S 10:45am - 1:45pm
E 1:45 - 2:15
A
E 3 - 3:25
A
E 4:15
S 4:30 - 5:10pm
E 5:15 - 5:35
A
E 7 -- lots of fussing
A
E 7:30 2 oz bottle, then tried to nurse again but she wouldn't
   8:15 another 2.5 oz bottle
BT 8:30 (rocked to sleep instead of nursing, not swaddled)

[newkidontheblock]

Any reason for weaning the swaddle? If it helps her sleep better, then why not continue? When we weaned DD, we found that she did short naps as her hands would wake her up during the transitions. We would pull a heavy sheet over her and tuck it in on both sides - voila, we got beautiful 2 hour + naps. Slowly we weaned this too.

Hun, I think the main issues are a) needing to find the perfect A time (2.5 might be right) b) weaning your props - rocking and nursing to sleep.
Starting EASY - all you need to know and more!

[SukieCat]

We weaned the swaddle because she seemed like she was fighting it and really struggling (and succeeding) to free her hands, and she started to roll back to belly (unswaddled), which I thought was a risk for continuing to swaddle.  She does alright overnight without a swaddle, so I thought she'd get used to napping that way too, but so far it hasn't happened.

I know our sleep props are bad, but she's very similar to my older DS and with him, PU/PD did not work at all whatsoever.  We ended up doing a modified CIO with him because we got to a point where he was just screaming in our arms and not sleeping, so we figured he might as well be screaming in his crib not sleeping and maybe he'd learn to self-soothe (which he did).  I feel like I'm not ready to go down that path yet with DD.  Plus with her weight gain issues, I'm afraid of taking away any feeds.  She's eating every 1.5-2 hrs right now. 

We went out of town a couple weeks ago and were in the car for about 4 hours, and instead of falling asleep when she got tired, she'd start crying, then screaming, and after quite a bit of that she might sleep for half an hour or so.  We'd have to stop after a couple hours so I could feed her and calm her down.  She's just not good at self-settling.  I ended up squishing myself between the two carseats to calm her. 

[newkidontheblock]

I know our sleep props are bad, but she's very similar to my older DS and with him, PU/PD did not work at all whatsoever.

Whatever method you choose (barring CIO which we do not support at all. It really breaks the bonds of trust between the LO and the caregiver) the key is consistency. If you decide to wean rocking and nursing to sleep, then simply be consistent and don't use those methods (unless the situation is very very bad) Have you read through the link I posted? Could you try implementing the 4 S routine and then PD and soothing her in the crib through touch/voice etc? You don't need to pick up...just to be there soothing her. If you have decided to sleep train, make a plan and stick to it. Be prepared for a few rough days but you'll will all be happier by the end of it