4 mon. old 30 minute naps....ugh

[Aidans_mommy]

Hi there....I can't get my boy to take longer naps. He is on a 4 hour easy but the feeding is the only consistent part of the schedule. Heres a typical day.

3:30 am bottle
7:30 am bottle, activity
9:30 nap (this morning nap is usually long becuase I nap with him and can sooth him easily as soon as he wakes)
11:30 bottle, activity
1:00 nap
1:30 wake,  activity
3:30 bottle
3:45 nap
4:30 wake, activity
6:30 nap
7:00 wake
7:30 bottle
8:30 bed
10:30 dream feed

This schedule varies depending on wake up time. Sometimes he take 5 naps a day!
He seems fairly happy with this schedule, hes not cranky, but I would like him to sleep longer so I can get things done.

I have been trying the wake to sleep method, or often I'll pick him up and rock him back to sleep but he wakes 10 minutes later.
I also try to stretch wake time so he will be more tired but he gets really cranky. Also, wondering if the swaddling bugs him. He really puts up a fight to get out of it. And sometimes when he wakes I find him fighting with the swaddle. If I let an arm out he calms down and goes back to sleep. I have read many moms put LO to bed earlier. I think I have been trying to keep him up so he will sleep through the night, or be more tired in the day so he will nap longer
Sometimes he wakes up twice at night, 1:30 and 4:30 ecspecially if I don't dream feed.

Also...any way to get him to sleep through the night?
thanks
Erin

[KathrynK]

he's probably overtired I would guess. At this age keeping him up longer will more than likely have the opposite of the desired effect to be honest. He is still very young and Tracy used to say "sleep begets sleep".
Looking at your routine I would suggest some tweaking which might help. That first A time from 7.30 waking till 9.30 nap is quite long. At 4 months babies are just able to handle 2 hrs of A time. But for most babies the first A time of the day is the shortest. I would suggest shortening it maybe just by 15 mins or so, so he doesn't start the day overtired.
It's good that you can soothe him back to sleep but sounds like you have become a prop. When you nap with him he can go for longer but when you're not there he can't get himself back to sleep. What method do you use to get him back to sleep? Does he start each nap by falling asleep independently or does he need you there? If you want him to learn to fall back asleep by himself you may need to stop napping with him. There are lots of good methods of teaching independent sleep on these boards if you need them.
Also it looks like 1.30 to 3.45pm is too long an awake time. I would suggest aiming to start his nap at about 3.15. That will then bring his catnap forward to about 6pm. If he wakes at 6.30 I would start your bedtime routine straight away and have him back in bed at 7.30, so aiming for a 12 hr night.
If he won't nap earlier, then rather than have a catnap at 6.30 and push bedtime later, I would just make that bedtime for the time being.
hope this helps
Kathryn

[Aidans_mommy]

Thanks for your suggestions...will try them
Actualy today I didn't nap with him, he slept in his crib and although he woke a few times he did stay there for 2 hours. I use a soother to get him back to sleep, or I pick him up and rock him a bit. He falls asleep no problem...I can put him down with his eyes open, its staying asleep that is the problem. I did get him to take another1.5 hours this afternoon. He woke after 1/2 our, I tried to sooth him and when that didn't work I let him cry for about 2 minutes, then all of a sudden he went back to sleep.

[KathrynK]

that's a good sign that he put himself back to sleep after a couple of minutes. Many babies will wake after 45 mins, have a bit of a moan and then go back to sleep. Have you tried this before? I know when my dd grew out of short naps she would wake after 45 mins and if I left her would have a bit of a mantra cry for 5 minutes or so and then go back to sleep. Sometimes we tend to rush in a bit quick when they wake, whereas if we left them they would put themselves back to sleep. I would try leaving him next time he wakes to see again if he can put himself back to sleep. If he can, then the more often he does it, the quicker he will learn not to wake in the first place.

[becky1969]

Kathryn gives excellent advice!

The only thing I have to add is that short napping is very common at this age. They start having a different REM/non-REM pattern, and they have to learn all over again how to transition through the different sleep phases. A lot of times we have to re-teach them how to. What I ended up doing is holding my son through the jolts at the 30-45 minute mark. I spent a day watching him sleep (which didn't take long since his naps were all less than 45 minutes!  ), so I could see when he was starting to stir. Then, I would make sure to go up there BEFORE the stirring happened, and I would hold his little arms/legs down thru the jolts (he was still swaddled then too). Eventually what happened is he was able to transition himself! I was really worried I would become a prop by doing this, but I think it just helped him to learn to make that transition all by himself. I got this idea from this website, so I know it is BW friendly!   

A warning: the first few times you try this, you might not be successful and your LO may wake up all the way. My policy at that point was to do whatever I could to get him back to sleep, to keep overtiredness from becoming another issue we had to deal with. Since they nap so frequently at this age, it really doesn't take long to re-train them. By the 3rd day, my LO was starting to transition on his own, at by the end of a week I didn't even hear him stir at the 30 minute mark anymore.  You just have to be consistent, and be prepared to lose some "Y" time for a little while. I was in tears by the 3rd day, but miraculously, that's when he started improving, and things got better fast after that. It was so delicious to have back those 2 hours of "Y" time when it was all over! And after this learning phase, he briefly had 30 minute naps periodically, but in every instance it was simply a matter of extending A time to fix it. He had learned how to make those transitions, and never forgot how to after that.

Hope that helps!