Some ?'s about 45-minute naps

[tara72]

over the last few days, I've been trying to read when I can about 45-minute naps, since my almost 9-week-old has been taking them a few times a day. she will often have a longer nap in the morning, but then she will often have 3 or 4 45-minute naps and maybe one hour nap. she is awake now for about 1 1/4 hours to 1 1/2 hour for E/A time. she generally sleeps fairly well at night (on a "normal" night, waking every 3-3.5 hours), although I don't see that 5-6 hour stretch every night.

so as I've been reading about the 45-minute nap, I'm getting more and more confused! my LO wakes from them happy. in fact, she wakes from her naps and looks around for several minutes before giving a "hey come get me please!" whine. did I read somewhere that if they wake content from a 45-minute nap that it is okay?

I also thought I read somewhere that the pick-up/put-down for infants younger than 3-months is too stimulating, yet a lot of people recommend doing that for 45-minute nappers. if we do pu/pd, do we put her down when she is just quiet from crying, or do we put her down when she is staring??

thank you in advance for any advice you can give. please let me know if you want to see a more-or-less basic routine (it's not a 3-hour EASY, more like 2-2.5, but oh how I wish it were 3!).

 --tara

[KathrynK]

hi Tara
firstly I wouldn't do pu/pd for a lo as young as yours as what you have read it right, it is too stimulating. Tracy recommends pat/shh for tinys instead.
I too had a chronic 45- minute napper. I tried nap- extending by sitting next to her from about 35 minutes into her nap; at around 40 minutes she would start to stir and I would place my arms across her to gently apply pressure to her arms & legs, as often with young babies it's the "jolts" of their flailing limbs that wakes them. Holding her still like this meant that often she didn't wake and was able to slip straight into another sleep cycle. I know for some babies doing this for a week or so means they "learn" to sleep through and are "cured"! For us, it worked about 70% of the time when I had the time to sit with her. When I left her to try on her own she would always wake after 45 minutes. She always woke happy and so most of the time I just went with the flow. It made EASY a bit bizarre, as sometimes it was kind of EASAS, I had to fit in an extra nap somewhere. It worked for us until about 5 months when she outgrew the 45 minute naps and started sleeping for 90 minutes. Somedays she would wake after 45 and have a chat to herself for 5 minutes, then go back off, so I would always leave her for a while after waking just to see.
Try extending her naps as above, and let us know how you get on xx (let me know if it's not clear enough & I will elaborate!)

[RegMum]

All the conflicting advice drove me crazy too..... My DD wakes up from her 45 min naps very unhappy, and I'm am (now) confident that her are due to being overtired (It took me a couple of weeks to figure this out, I guess I'm not that quick).  You say your LO wakes up happy, and also that you are on a 2-2.5E.  Is this because of the short nap, or because you can't keep your LO awake long enough to get to the recommended sleep time?  If it is because your A time is short, extending this might help your LO nap longer.  I find getting my DD back to sleep from a short nap is a losing battle, so I'm doing my best to try to ensure that she's just tired enough, but not too tired when i put her down.

[tara72]

thank you so much for your replies, ladies!! and can I say how adorable your avatars are?? 

kathrynk, I think I will try what you recommended. I've watched her for about the first 10 minutes after putting her to sleep at times (since she sometimes wakes up after 5-10 minutes), but not much longer. so I'll give that a shot. it sounds like something I want to try before some of the wake-to-sleep methods that I skimmed over yesterday. can I ask how you would go about doing EASAS? my LO would probably want to eat instead of those last two AS, since she often eats every 2 hours.

RegMum, it's too bad your LO wakes so unhappy! I can imagine that must be hard to deal with (as it's hard enough when mine cries a little as I try to put her back to sleep). we are typically on 2-2.5 hour EASY because of the short naps. she will be awake for 1 hr 15 mins - 1 hr 30 mins, and then sleep for 30-45 minutes. then she wakes up and I feed her so it typically stays EAS. so I think my focus is the naps, but I'm not sure if I should focus on eating as well because she eats only 3-4 ounces in a feeding (usually closer to 3) instead of 5. so would her waking eariler be because she is hungry?

thank you again for taking the time to reply, I know how busy we moms can be when we have so little precious Y time!

[KathrynK]

hi again
at time it can be frustrating because it almost felt like we had 2 routines going- one for eating and one for sleeping and only at certain points during the day did they coincide! I think at 10 weeks she had moved to 3.5 or 4 hourly feeding but was sleeping 45 mins and then awake 1.25- 1.5 hours so sometimes she had an A time with no feed, and then she fed immediately on waking from the next nap. Does that make sense? It took a bit of juggling. To be honest if you try extending the naps and it works, then keep it up, as it will make her routine simpler, but if she insists on napping for 45 mins and is happy, it's not the worst thing, kwim?
xx

[tylersmommy]

My older kiddo was a chronic 45 min napper. He always woke up happy, but I went bonkers trying to extend his naps nonetheless. It rarely worked. In retrospect, I should have just let it be. There's a developmental component here...babies learn to organize their night sleep first, then around 4-5 mo start working on their daytime sleep. Often, the 45 min naps fix themselves right around that age. That's what happened with my older kiddo. I stopped trying to extend them and about 2 wks later, they extended on their own. Go figure.

This time around, Mackenzie doesn't always wake up happy. I try to extend them when I can, but with a toddler running around I don't have all day to sit up there with her. I'm just going with the flow for now and hoping she outgrows it. We've had a few longer naps lately, so maybe there's hope!

[Lukesmom06]

My DS is almost 8 months old.  He has never been a good sleeper but used to sleep for 2 hours every morning.  We moved 1.5 months ago and he began not napping at all.  He does not sleep through the night (has 12 times, once in this house).  I have been able to get back on a morning and afternoon nap which he was up to 1 hour and then he suddenly started sleeping only 1/2 hour. The past few days he has slept 45 min and wakes up happy.  Should I try to extend the 45 min naps?

[RegMum]

Some new postings on the 45 min nap support thread https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=69789.660
indicate that 30min naps are due to overtiredness, and 45min naps are due to not being tired enough.  As indicated above, I was fairly confident that my DDs short naps were due to overtiredness, but since they weren't getting any better, I decided to try extending her awake time... It seems I went too far (she went from 45 min naps to 30min.... ) so far today- Since your DS is waking happy, you might want to try extending his awake time....