4 months old is tired but resists nap. what does it mean?

[ameliebob]

Ok so my daugther is a couple of days shy of having 4 months. she catnaps. her tired cues are very hard to miss : eye rubbing, then yawning, then crying when she's too overtired.
I always put her down awake after a yawn or two. If I do it before, she just cries instead of sleeping.

She used to go down without fussing. the routine is very simple : put down, plug the paci, turn on white noise and close curtains.

this week she seems to be tired but she resists her nap for 15-20 min. she also started to be very fussy after half an hour of being awake. what does it mean? i'm afraid of keeping her up longer as she looks soooo tired! is it the sleep regression coming for us? 

[ameliebob]

Here's what this week looks so far http://s33.postimg.org/yiq50vbov/image.jpg

[becj86]

Maybe try a change of scenery if she's yawning and PD a little later - she's probably in need of A times up around 2hr, so just give them a nudge and see if that helps with the naps. Having lots of UT naps can make her OT overall, so its important to push those A times so she gets a good solid nap.

[Lindsay27]

Hi hun! Just making sure I understand your chart, the blue sections are her sleep and the written numbers are oz per feed?  If so, I'm thinking she may need a wee bump in A time, it looks like you are maybe doing 1.5-1.45hr and she may actually need to be close to or at a 2hr A time to get a good nap.  What do you think?

[ameliebob]

Yeah we will give it a try to see if it helps. In a couple of days she should adjust, right? We did 2 hours of awake time this afternoon and she refused her last nap. Which gave me an overtired baby at BT and took her half an hour to fall asleep, woke up crying after 45 min  she was exhausted. It was a total of 4 hours before BT and she's not used to it.

[ameliebob]

Yup!! It helped A LOT moving to two hours. She won't fight naps as much but she is already tired when I put her down (like I have to put the paci 15-20 min before the nap otherwise she cries) so maybe she's a bit overtired by the two hour mark... BUT she then takes 30 min naps...! Only the morning one hot longer (45 min to 1:15/1:30)

[becj86]

Try being there beside her at 25min mark and just hold a hand on her to help her extend the nap - only takes a day or two usually and she'll extend on her own.