Author Topic: Short napper strikes again!  (Read 1004 times)

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Offline lilylover

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Short napper strikes again!
« on: July 06, 2006, 01:47:17 am »
Hi all!  We have used the shush pat method to get our dd to take naps and for bedtime since she was nine weeks old.  She is now four months old and and will go to sleep by herself in her cot while she listens to her cd (sounds for silence) for most of her nap times.  I have been demand feeding her since she was born and she will usually eat around every 2-2.5hrs, however I know that she could last for at least 3hrs.  The problem I have though is that her naps are usually too short to allow me to extend her feed times.  She usually has an A time of 1-1hr 15mins and I seem to be able to read her tired signs really well as she will go down for her naps with very little fuss.  Am not sure where to begin..Do I start to extend her A times?  Do I start to extend her naps and how?  She usually sleeps around 1hr in the morning and around 40-45mins every two hours.  I have tried to shush pat her back to sleep but it doesn't work!  Should I start using pu/pd for naps?  How long can I continue before I should stop?  Sorry I have asked so much just a little overwhelmed by where to begin.

P.S Am going to start using pu/pd at night as we are having loads of trouble getting her to bed last week or so!

Thanks,
Sam

Offline becky1969

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Re: Short napper strikes again!
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2006, 05:32:12 am »
I'm sure a nap moderator can help you with this! But, we went through this same problem at 12 weeks. In our case, we needed to extend A times. At 4 months, your LO should probably be able to do more like 1hr45 for A times. Those 45 minute naps are just one sleep cycle, and most likely she's just not tired enough to go longer. At 4 months, most babies are also on a 4 hour EASY. At that age, eating every 2-2.5 hours kind of sounds like a snacker, but again I'm sure a moderator can help you with that.

I think in order to extend the naps you are probably going to have to extend A time first. When my LO first had the short naps at 12 weeks, I also thought I was reading his sleep cues really well! He always went down for naps without fussing. However, when I started to extend his A times, I found out that he really could go more like 1hr45! I was putting him down around the same time as you - 1hr15. At 3-4 months, they start fussing when they get bored or need a change of scenery. They are no longer as content to sit and do the same thing for very long. In our case, at least, I was confusing bored fussing (because we'd never had it before!) with being tired fussing. We started extending A times, and along with some nap extention techniques, his naps lengthened out to two 2 hour naps and 1 45 minute cat nap within a week!

Usually when you add A time, you try to go pretty slow. In my case however, once I let him stay up past the time I usually put him down (1hr15) he clearly was able to stay up longer, so I extended A times by 30 minutes over about 2 days. I think most of the time they recommend 5-10 minutes at a time. It depends on what your LO can handle. By 4 months, distraction works pretty good for extending A times. And if she really seems not able to do much, quiet time in their room can work better.

I'm no nap moderator though, so I'll be curious to see what they say! Your situation just sounded SO like ours, I thought I'd let you know what worked for us. Sounds like you have an angel or textbook baby, though, since she's still going down easily for those naps so my guess is she'll take to a new routine really well! You'll probably have to start stretching those feeds a bit too.  Do you know how much she takes each time?
Owen, 12/28/05 7 lb 2 oz

Enjoying the toddler years!

Offline lilylover

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Re: Short napper strikes again!
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2006, 09:02:20 am »
Hi!  Thanks for your replies and suggestions.  I have been extending my dd's A times over the last couple of days and am now up to 1hr20-25mins ( I am taking it slow as don't want to disrupt her too much) and so far so good.  Today she had one 1hr30min nap, one 1hr and two 45mins so we are getting there!  I haven't needed to use any strategies to get her to nap longer it seems as though it might just happen naturally by lengthening her A times.  I'll keep you posted on how I go, fingers crossed!

Thanks again,
Sam

Offline becky1969

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Re: Short napper strikes again!
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2006, 17:40:53 pm »
Congrats Sam! You MUST have an angel/textbook if just extending A times is already lengthening out those naps! That's WONDERFUL!!!

I want to warn you that after 3 months, we've had the short nap monster visit about every 4 weeks (I have a textbook baby, so he must have a really strict internal calendar!  ;D). Anyway, don't be surprised if this happens again. You'll know at that time you just need to extend A time!
Owen, 12/28/05 7 lb 2 oz

Enjoying the toddler years!