wakes after 45 mins: overtired, not tired... or something else??!!

[ShellyNathanTaylor]

First of all Happy New Year to everyone, I hope holidays were wonderful. 

I have a few questions that I hope someone may be able to help with. 

My DS is 3 1/2 months old.  For the past few weeks now we've really been struggling with his naps: with EVERY nap he wakes after 45 mins.  I increased his A time from 1hr 15 mins to 1hr 30-40 mins (we start the wind down at 1h 20 mins).  and this helped decrease the amount of time we spend putting him to sleep (used to take 10-30mins and he is now usually asleep 10 mins after starting the wind down). 

I've increased A time and decreased it and regardless he still wakes up after 45 mins. 

Once he wakes up I can shh/pat back to sleep.  He usually settles fairly easily but it can take anywhere from 5 mins to 30 mins.  If I get in his room before he wakes and start shh/pat right away its much easier. 

I've been doing this for about 2 weeks now with no progress, guaranteed that every nap he's going to wake up and I have to shh/pat back to sleep.  sometimes he starts with a mantra cry and I'm hoping he'll doze back of too sleep but no luck, he'll cry until it escalates, so now I start the shh/pat right away.  I'm worried that I'm not giving him the chance to put himself to sleep but on the other hand if I let it escalate its much harder to get him to sleep. 

Any suggestions on what I should do, could it be that he's not tired enough??  Do I carry on shh/patting when he wakes and hope that ONE DAY he'll figure it out???  Would the W2S work here in which I wake him before he stirs?? If so, how far do I wake him up?  Just until he stirs???

Thanks in advance.

Shelly

[KathrynK]

Hi Shelly
45 min naps are so common in babies. I would guess it is unrelated to his A time at this age (this tends to be more of an issue as they get older). It is great that you can shh/pat him back to sleep but I can see it is frustrating to have to do this for every single nap. Also as you say if he wakes it is hard to get him back off so the ideal thing would be to stop him waking to begin with. There are a couple of things you could try:
Does he stir after 40 mins and fling his arms around? My dd used to do this and I would sit by her cot after about 35 mins and wait for her to stir- I would then put some pressure on her arms and legs so she couldn't move and more often than not it would prevent her waking. This method of holding them through the "jolts" is quite common and can be very effective. I did this for about a week and then she started sleeping longer on her own- not every time, mind you!
You could definitely give W2S a try- I have never done this but I think it can be very effective, I know a lot of people here have had success. The aim is to make him stir to pull him out of his habitual sleep pattern, but not to wake him. Try it at 30 minutes and see.
The good news is that many babies do grow out of it- dd was 5 months.
Let us know how you get on x

[ShellyNathanTaylor]

Hi Kathrynk, I've sat through his wakings and he doesnt even jolt, he just starts stirring, sometimes just takes a deep breath and he's awake so I wouldnt even have a jolt to hold him through!!!

I'm just not sure if I should keep going with what I'm doing or if I should try the w2s yet!

[KathrynK]

Hi Shelly
If you know that what you are doing works for him, and you have the time/ patience to be consistent with it, then great and carry on. It might be worth giving W2S a try- like I said I have no experience, hopefully someone else can give you some tips. I'll ask Natasha as I know she has done it in the past
kathryn x

[ShellyNathanTaylor]

I was reading in the BW book re. naps, Tracey also talks about pu/pd as an option.  Does anyone have any ideas on which method I should use for this situation???

Shelly

[debo620]

hi shelly, just going to jump in.
pupd really is a last resort and since patt/ssh is working it just isn't worth it. your son is a bit young anyhow and pu/pd can be too stimulating and burn too many calories.
I would continue to do as you are doing----great that you can get him back to sleep to stay on routine.
w2sleep--there are tips in the FAQ section
I did as Kathryn did--my son was swaddled and I held him down with the length of my 1 arm and covered is eyes with my other hand, start a few min before he starts stirring---you'll have to watch a few naps to figure out the exact timing---maybe at like 35min.

[Gigismom]

just adding my 2 cents...as a mom of a former 45 min napper...

short sleep cycles are VERY common in young babies and developmentally appropriate.  tracy even writes in her book that some babies will only sleep 30-45 mins and wake rested.  is your son waking rested and happy or is he tired and cranky?

if he seems happy on the short naps, i would just go with it.  the sleep center in the brain matures at 6-8 months and this is 'magically' when most babies start sleeping longer at their naps because their sleep cycles become longer and more adult like.  (can you tell i was obsessed with short naps and did some research...LOL)

if he is waking very tired and grumpy, you may need to continue the pat/shh to help him get more sleep.

[debo620]

I agree with LindsayB, those 40min naps can be so maddening and they are easy to obsess about. 
my son for the most part woke happy from a 40min nap but by the end of the day was overtired
I opted to work on them and once he sort of got used to sleeping in longer stretches, he would often wake fully at 40min and then fall back asleep.

[*Natasha*]

Ok W2S is great and works for alor of poeple but please keep in it doesn't work for everyone. Ok i used it for my DD when she went from 3-2naps and she wouldn't sleep past 45mins for her PM nap. I started with going in after she had been asleep for 25mins all i would do is pull at her teddie she sleeps with and it would stir her and she opened her eyes for a second then went back to sleep. I would get out of her room pretty fast before she saw me and woke up. The next day i did it at 30mins but she woke up luckly i was able to resettle her with shh/patt very quickly. So i knew 25mins was the best time to do it and was successful on day 3. Day 4 i forgot to do it and was expecting her to wake but she kept sleeping and this fixed the problem.
So the key is to find a good time to go in and do it generally 25-30mins is the best time as they are starting to come out of the deepest part of their sleep cycle. Try it for about 5-7days i was lucky it worked for us after only 3days.

[*Natasha*]

This is what i posted when explaining my success in using W2S:

"Catherine was a great sleeper MOST of the time until she hit 5 months when she started to fight all her naps/bedtime and her naps started to get shorter and shorter until the 45 min monster appeared 
At the time she was doing 2x2hrs and 1x1hr(always fought this one) and Awake time of 2 hrs. After some reading on this site i found this was probably as she needed a longer awake time so we extended it by half an hour and droppped late afternoon cat nap. After a few days of doing this as well as using shh/patt to help her get back thought the 45mins she was doing 2x2hrs going down at 9.30 and 1.30. Then her PM nap started to get shorter again until we hit the 45min monster again (god i hate him) then she started to fight going down for it   She was also teething badly at the time so this wasn't helping either. So i posted a question about this and Michelle (Meg's Mum) was very helpful and suggested i try putting her down a bit later at around 2pm as awake time before PM nap is often 3hrs at this age. So we tried it and she was going down with no fuss again but still waking at 45-1hr. So i asked Michelle again whether to try Wake to Sleep and she said sure give it a go so i did and it worked  I only had to do it a few times as i forgot on about day 3 and it was to late to go in (i do it at the 25min mark) so i left her and she slept 1.20mins then yesterday slept 1.45mins.
So ladies it does work, i was lucky it worked so quickly but was prepared for it to take a week.
Anyway i now have a 7 month old that has 2x1.5-2hr naps and finally have some time to myself again". 

[cpfmom]

My son is 8 weeks and we are attempting to set up an EASY schedule.  He fights naps like I have never witnessed.  I had been putting him down asleep (after 20 minutes of carrying and patting) and then he would awaken 20 minutes later.  I then pat or rub his chest and do the sh-sh and possibly hold the pacifier in his mouth.  Usually he won't go back to sleep and will keep this up until the next feed.  At that point I have been getting him up and basically starting all over again.  He falls dead asleep at 6:00 PM and sleeps until 3:45 AM.  I feed him 2-3 times during that span.  I then let him have awake time at around 4:30 (he is wide awake).  I then watch for the first yawn and immediately get him into his swaddler with sometimes a new diaper.  I then tell him how much we love him and how happy he will be after a nap.  I then hold him and pat and walk for 20 minutes.  He then will only sleep 20 minutes, in my mind 20 minutes is not a nap, and the fact that I then spend forever trying to get him to go back to sleep seems stupid.  Am I doing this right?  I have a 4 year old who responded beautifully to Tracey's ways.  I also feel guilty about the 4 year old, he gets so little time with me because of the nap situation.  Also, once Cooper is overtired it is awful!!  He is fine one second then screaming in what seems like tremendous pain the next and is virtually inconsable.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I know that this takes time and yesterday he slept for one 40 minute nap and then a 2 hour nap (I had to put him back to sleep twice).  I was so heartened and then today it has been a disaster.  Thanks in advance!!!!
Taylor

[ShellyNathanTaylor]

thanks so much for the feedback ladies. 

He is still fussy after 45 mins so I do believe he needs a longer nap.  The past couple days I've noticed that hes been taking longer to settle, so, what I actually did last evening was wait and see when he yawned... turns out he now yawns at about 30mins... my how quickly they change.  So today I waited 25 mins to start winding down, he went down with little fuss, twice now I've sat with him for a couple minutes then put him in his crib almost wide awake, he fussed for a few minutes then fell asleep ON HIS OWN!!! I could not belive what I was seeing, his first nap was 2 1/2hrs long with no wake ups... keeping my fingers crossed as he just went down for the second nap of the day. 

It seems that I definatly should hold off on pu/pd for now as I can settle him with shh/pat, I may try w2s at 30 mins if the 45 minute "monster" (I love that term!) re appears.

Shelly