7week old difficulty in connecting sleep cycles...

[SaraMamma]

Hi everyone,

my DD is 7 weeks today and we've been implementing EASY since day 1 (as it worked very well with my DS, not 2years and 8 months old).

DD was quite the sleeper to begin with, always had to wake her for her feeds and would hardly stay awake 10 minutes sometimes.
She's still quite good to be honest, waking up only once at night (dream feed at 22:30 and then she wakes between 3 and 4 am).
However, over the past 2 weeks she's started to wake up at the end of the first sleep cycle for all day naps...

She starts by fussing a bit, sometimes with an odd cry, which I assume is her mantra or way to complain about being already awake.
Then she starts with the "calling cry" (cries leaving pauses to see if we answer the call... we don't).
Then sometimes she's good enough to fall back asleep but many more times she'll just start crying in a distressed way...

At that point my husband or I go in and start trying to settle her by sushing and patting, but she only seems to get annoyed at that. I try for a few minutes but if still in distress I give her the pacifier (which I hate.. not sure whether that's the right thing to do), which calms her down, and then start again to sush her but, despite looking quite tired (semi-closed eyes etc), she can't quite go back to sleep... or it'll look like she did but 10 minutes later she starts crying again, dropping the pacifier, and the cycle begins again.

What should I do? Any advice? Am I doing something wrong?

She follows a 3 hour routine with 3 x 1.5 hour naps and a 40 min cat nap (when she gets it) around 5.

It doesn't seem to me that she needs shorter naps because she looks like she'd like to go back to sleep... even if, how would I then take her to the next feed time if she gets up 1 hour before?!
I know I am lucky as she sleeps well during the night (no trouble with sleep cycles there... knock on wood!), but I'm not quite sure how to deal with these shorter naps!

Thank you to anyone who can help.

[Katet]

Mostly it's developmental. I wonder if you are going in too late & she's woken up too much. I'd be going in pretty much at the mantra cry & help her then, when you leave it longer her body wakes up too much & the crying puts more cortisol into their system which "hypes" them up & will prevent falling back to sleep rather than help.
Basically to sleep you need to be relaxed & crying don't really make a baby relaxed & also it's hard to "learn" a skill when you aren't relaxed, so IMHO I'd be going in as quickly as possible at the end of that first sleep cycle & helping her go back off before she wakes too much. I've never done it, but you could also try wake to sleep (I'm not sure at what point you do it for a nap) before the end of the sleep cycle.

[SaraMamma]

Thank you Katet,

The wake to sleep works only if they have been sleeping for a few hours (you should wake them up 1 hour before their awakening time) and they start waking up always at the same time. I know because I've tried it with my DS and it did work well.

I've tried to go in pretty much as she starts crying, but as soon as I start shushing and patting her the cry escalates unless I give her the pacifier.

I hate the bloody pacifier, but I'm happy to use it as long as it does not affect her night sleep in the long run (as she never uses it at night and goes through sleep cycles with no problems at all).

Plus, I feel that even with the pacifier for the nap she never goes back to that deep sleep, and sometimes she starts crying again after 10-15 minutes anyway... 

I'm seriously starting to feel it, I don't know what to do to help her and I'm feeling really down!