Suddenly taking 45min nap in afternoon @ 5.5months

[tanyanz]

Hi

My son is 5 1/2 months old, and until recently was on a pretty good routine (see below)

Wake between 6-7
Feed at 7am
Play from 7.30-9am
Bed at 9am
Sleep 9.15-10.45am (sometimes longer - but generally 1 1/2hrs)

Feed at 11am
Play from 11.30-1pm
Bed at 1pm
Sleep from 1.15-2.45pm

Feed at 3pm
Play from 3.30-5pm
Catnap from 5.15pm-6pm

Bath at 6pm
Feed at 6.20pm
Bed at 7pm
Asleep at 7.15pm

Dream feed at 10pm

50% of the time he would sleep through the night, others he would wake for a feed.  He is a bottle fed baby.

I recently went back to work (part time - 12hrs per week) - he is being looked after by Grandma at home.

In the past 4 days he has taken a good nap in the morning, but the afternoon nap has been cut to 45mins - and he has gotten overtired due to this short nap.  Today I tried putting him down a bit earlier, but that didn't seem to work.  Wondering if he should be staying up a bit later?  Maybe 2hrs 15mins from waking to putting down, he generally takes 5-15 mins to fall asleep in his cot. 

When he was almost 4 months he started doing the 45min nap as he was still on a 3hr EASY, keeping him up a bit longer seemed to make him more tired and thus he slept longer, could this be the same?

Have to admit I am not great at reading his tired signs, so I tend to go more on time, he does rub his eyes, so I do take that as a signal for sleep.

Would appreciate any advice as I would like to nip it in the bud, I am contemplating the W2S on the afternoon nap as I think it is starting to become a habit.  Unfortuately Grandma got him up after 45mins & didn't leave him to resettle, but have a plan to work with her on that.

Thanks

[KathrynK]

Hi there
At around 5 1/2 months many babies get harder to read in terms of sleepy cues so don't think it is that you can't read them.  Since dd was about that age I have had to go largely by the clock to know when she needs to have a nap.
At this age some babies are working towards dropping the catnap. Most babies drop it between 6 & 8 months. It sounds like your ds may be ready for 2.5 hours of awake time between naps, especially if it worked for you before. Bear in mind that once you extend his A time you get into that tricky period where the catnap is too late for bedtime but he can't last until normal bedtime without it. Most people (me included!) get through this period by ditching the catnap but going for a 6/ 6.30 bedtime instead. I found with dd that she still slept until her usual awake time of 6.30 during this period.
let us know what you think
kathryn x

[tanyanz]

Hi
Thanks for your thoughts, will try once we have gotten the overtiredness under control.  He was up 3 times last night - sure this is too do with short naps in the day.  It is a nasty cycle. He seems to be waking after 45mins in his morning nap now - although I only kept him up for 2hrs.  Feels a bit scary as you're not sure if longer awake times will then mean overtiredness. 
Anyway thanks for your advice.

[Aiden'sMom]

Hi Tanya

I sympathise with you as we are having the same issues of Aiden waking early, shorter naps and now night wakings as well.  Today I am very carefully watching him for sleep cues but keeping a strict eye on the time and once it nears 2 hours 10 minutes, start wind down (he only needs 5 minutes) and put him down about 5-0 minutes before the 2hour 30 mark.  I think he may be a bit overtired since he has dropped the catnap - he used to have 3 full naps (1-1.5 hours) and 1 catnap.  He is a big sleeper.............but not at the moment

Will let you know if I get any brainwaves on the topic and anything works

Good luck

Claire

[tanyanz]

Hi Claire

I can empathise - I am trying to get out of the cycle of overtiredness, has thrown our routine out the window a bit - its hard to stick to a routine if baby is overtired.  I think the key is getting the put down time just right, I tried keeping my ds up a wee bit longer yesterday but not a good idea, should have followed his tired signs and put him down earlier.  So this morning I over compensated, and put him down to soon, thus only a catnap was had!!  As I say to myself there is always tomorrow & we'll take it from the top.  It is a bit hard when you have to hand over the reins to someone else, but at least I can bit pretty straight with my mother in law.

Hope things improve for you soon, will let you know how things go over the next few days.

All the best
Tanya

[tanyanz]

Hi

The 45min nap curse seems to have hit all naps now!  This morning my son took 45mins to settle into his nap, nap for 45mins then wake up, not crying usually starts talking to himself and playing etc...
I similar pattern has happened over the past 2 days, but by the end of the day he will spend an hour crying before going down for the night.  He doesn't cry after naps just at the end of the day.  I think that by the end of the day he is overtired, but how do I get him to nap for longer?  I have been putting him down for a nap early under the belief that he is overtired and needs to catch up, this morning he woke at 6am, feed and change & back to bed by 7am.  He had slept ok overnight, only woke once that I know of.
Feeling very frustrated.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Thanks

[tanyanz]

Well there seems to have been some success, yesterday was a vast improvement.  He did the 45min nap thing in the morning, I left him to rest (he wasn't crying - just chatting away to himself), got him up about 4.5hrs after first feed, as he was starting to make a few grumpy noises, feed him, noticed during feed that he was rubbing his eyes almost continuously, so just popped him straight back into bed (no A time), he took 10mins to settle (always a good sign, tired enough to sleep but not too tired) & slept for 2.5hrs!!  Gave him his afternoon bottle and some activity (total awake time was 1hr 50mins) & then put him down for a catnap, he slept for 1.5hrs & slept through the night until 6am!
This morning has gone really well too, 2hr nap this morning, so it looks like he is catching up & we should be back on track very soon (touch wood).
My advice would be when bub gets overtired less A time is really the key & leaving them in bed, so they have the chance to rest and maybe sleep.

[tanyanz]

Hi

Well things have not really improved - in fact it feels worse!

The daily routine has gotten quite bent out of shape - DS is waking between 5-5.30 so consequently by the end of the day he goes down at 5.30ish?!! If I put him down later he wakes in the night & doesn't fall back to sleep easily.  We have one good nap a day (1.5hrs) & 2 45min naps.

I am trying to get him to go back to sleep in the mornings but he tends to start laughing once I come into the room (he is crying before this) and I suppose it isn't likely that he will fall back to sleep after 10.5-11.5hrs overnight, with a df. 

So this morning he woke at 5.10am.  I gave him his dummy, which soothed the crying but no sleep.  So I got him up at 6.05am, did the bottle feed & solids, went for a walk, did the wind-down at 7.40am, looking sleepy, eyelids drooping so put down at 7.50am.  Asleep at 8am & awake again at 8.50am, grizzled for a bit until I got him up at 9.20am (hoping he might resettle).  He has been really grumpy after this morning's short nap so have put him down again at 10.40am.  What do you do with the time when awake but not up for the day, do you count as awake time?

I am wondering if I should wait until he gets grumpy and then put him down, I have been trying to pre-empt the grumpiness, by putting him down when I think he looks sleepy not when he is really tired & grumpy.

Not sure what to do, the only thing that I am confident of is that he will only handle 1hr 50min of awake time if he has had a 45min nap.  Plus when things were going great, the morning awake time was never more than 2hrs. 

Wondering if I should bite the bullet and "re-introduce" EASY over the next week and stick with a routine "by the clock" to hopefully reset his body clock, although I am concerned that will only make things worse and shorten the naps & create night wakings?  Any suggestions?

I have tried lengthing his awake times which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.  I think I need to set a plan and stick to it for at least a week, as chopping and changing is just too confusing (for him & me) and I don't know what is working and what isn't.

So there is a lot going on at the moment, ds is now 7mths, has become very active (rolling & crawling) and we haven't had any teeth as yet.

Thanks
Tanya