45 min nap agony...advice for A time??

[Otownmama]

My DD is 5 mos and we're struggling a lot with short naps. She is able to go 4 hrs without eating, but the short naps make the transition to 4 hr easy really impossible it seems. She just gets so completely OT and I don't know how to deal with her A times. It ends up becoming EASA...and then getting 4 hrs is just impossible. We have been on EASY for quite awhile now and she has had periods of great napping. Around 4 mos we started moving her off the swaddle and that was deadly for sleep generally. Fortunately, we've had good nights lately - no NW and even the EW is manageable now - but the naps are getting worse. Swaddled she'll go exactly 45 mins, unswaddled we're lucky to get 30. She is not swaddled at night and sleeps fine, but for naps she has a really hard time settling unswaddled and won't sleep on her tummy (which she does at night). I know lots of people have struggled with this and welcome any advice! She is EBF and her EASY looks something like this:

7 - wake and BF
715 - A
845 - start wind down
9 - S (she goes down really well with a paci and swaddle, a bit slower unswaddled)
945 - wake, try to settle her, but rarely get any more sleep in the first EASY
...and here is where it goes off the rails...
10 - gentle A until she gets fussy, then BF, often no longer than 3.25 hr EASY
1015 -A
1145 - usually pretty fussy by 1.5 hrs post BF, stretch it if possible, but usually start wind down early
12 - S (today was 30 mins, plus 40 mins of PUPD with no extra sleep)
1-115 - BF if it is clear she is not going to sleep more...
245 - start wind down
3-345 - S
415ish - BF
A until 630 unless she falls asleep in a car, swing or stroller
630 - bath, massage
650 - BF
715 - bed
1030 - DF

I usually end up feeding her closer to 3 hrs or 3.25 after battling to extend her nap. She is usually so mad at me, she is hungry  I am having virtually no luck extending naps with PUPD, especially if she is unswaddled. Today we had a 40 min battle and it was miserable for both of us! Is it better just to hold off the E? We've just made it to 2 hrs of A in the last week or so...and some mornings she can't even make it 2 hrs if she has been awake a bit in her crib playing before 7. I just find it really difficult to keep to EASY with the short naps.

Thanks for any help!

[Colin Macs Mom]

bumping up for you

[Otownmama]

Thanks for the bump. Had a brutal day today - very short naps, completely OT and I finally put her in a sling and walked for 45 mins to get her to sleep around 5 pm. She is now down for the night but I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this! She can easily do 2 hrs of A but getting to 4 hrs between feedings with only 30-45 min naps is so hard! Help?

[Tweakster]

Hi there, hang in!  I am going to take a look in the light of day...because I was in your boat and still am in ways.

But just wanted to ask why you stopped swaddling?  Was she getting out of it?  I still swaddle Finn's lower half for naps and it works a treat.  We use white noise too.
He's a Touchy so stimulation sensitive.  He's 6 months and I will use that swaddle until he doesn't fit it anymore lol.

[*Jo*]

Hi there Otownmama,

a few things:

i was going to suggest going back to swaddling, some babies really need it, we swaddled till 5 months old and that was only because he got out of the miracle blanket and thats darn near impossible.

I think if she is OT then doing all that you can to get her back on track is good, have you tried shortening her A time for a bit just until shes back to her normal sleep?

I know it is tough trying to get hte 4 hour routine to work when our LO's arent quite as conforming as we would like how long has this been going on for? i notice you mention she is really hungry, could she be going through a growth spurt?

[Jonahs Mom]

I would say you need to shorten her A times *after* her 45 minute naps. Maybe 1.5hrs. You'll most likely still get 45min naps for a bit, but at least she won't be OT.

Try and get her caught up on sleep first (a few days), then tackle the routine. Then you might want to extend her morning A time by a bit, 5-10 minutes. If she is waking up 30 minutes or less into her nap, she's most likely OT. If she wakes up at 45 minutes-ish, it's most likely that she needs more A time before hand.

Keep in mind too, that usually between 5-6mths, alot of babies drop the catnap. Not saying she is doing this, but just to be watching, aware, and trying to get her to catch up on that sleep so she can extend her A time to accomplish this.

Oh, and yes, hold off on the E time at all costs. I've put ds down after BF for the same reasons, but I am just sure not to do it daily.

[Tweakster]

Hi there, had a look and agree with pp it seems like she's a bit OT.
If she has been awake in crib then it has to count towards her A in the morning.  So you might have to reduce the A time and start wind down earlier.  I also think going back to swaddling for naps - night sleep and naps are different animals to these LO's...for whatever reason...I have heard a different part of the brain?  Don't know how true that is lol but it wouldn't surprise given all the nap traumas we have had and yet no issues at bedtime whatsoever.

Sometimes though 45 can mean UT and if she is UT at her first nap and it is a short nap, then her next A time needs to be reduced.  If not you will start to get OT naps the rest of the day.  Agree about the CN, we had such issues with that thing and still are...some days Finn gets it and others he doesn't...hopefully as his A approaches 3 hours we will be able to can it altogether! 

[Otownmama]

Thanks for the help here...still struggling but yesterday I had a small success with W2S for her second nap and extended it to 1hr10. As for the swaddle...I have gone off and back on the swaddle several times but right now it is causing a lot of problems. She can wriggle out of it and also when I put her down swaddled she arches her back and fights and tries to roll over. Just this week I decided it was time to stop swaddling completely and she is going down much better now. She settles better unswaddled now and is usually asleep in just a few minutes with her paci. But when I was in her room yesterday I watched how the jolts around 30 mins wake her - those arms just flail and then she's awake. I'm going to do W2S at every nap today and see if we can't extend them.

So, this morning she went down at about exactly 2 hrs - and hadn't really been awake in her crib before I fed her at 7 so I don't think she was OT. Definitely ready to sleep though, a bit fussy as we were getting her settled, but asleep in a few minutes. I'm going to hold off feeding till 3.5 hrs, but then if I shorten her second A and she still only sleeps 30 mins or whatever - how do I get to the second 3.5?? That's the problem I have sticking with EASY and especially getting to 4 hrs.

[Tweakster]

So looks like it's going to be a learning curve for her with the Moro and learning to sleep without the swaddle.  Finn went off the swaddle of his hands very early on so he adapted pretty well.  I just do his bottom half for naps because it looks cozy and I don't like to have to change him into sleepers lol.  So far he hasn't fought it for naps but I am sure we are going to get to that day real soon :-)

It is so hard to move to a 4 hour when their A times don't support it, when they are OT and when they do short naps.  What I found is that we had to sneak in extra naps when naps were short and push out feeds a bit or shorten feeds depending on my best guess of when he was going to be hungry.  The problem we had is that he would not have a nap if it was coming up to feed time...so we just had to be careful not to feed to sleep. 
eg.
E 7 a.m.
A
S 9 - 9:30 (if no extension)
A
E 10:30 or 10:45 (push as close to 4 hours but not feeding to sleep)
A (very short - consisting of wind down)
S 11 - 12:30 (in a perfect world hehe)
etc.

You really have to chop the next A and then hope that the next nap is better.  With a little Development on her side and learning how to cope with the startle reflex, it should start to get better.

If W2S is working that might be the golden ticket.  It never worked for us so I just shush/patted until I was blue in the face and HTTJ (hold through the jolts).  When he started to stir, I just applied pressure to his legs and arms and he would often drift back in to another sleep cycle.  I sat in his room for about 4 weeks I think lol.  Lots of stuff to think about in the dark (mostly 'why won't my baby just sleep??').

[*Jo*]

You are getting some fantastic advise from Wendy here, keep us posted

[~Lori~]

great advise!  I am watching this and taking notes, lol.  I have a 35 minute napper no matter what I do.  Put him back in the swaddle yesterday and got a nice 1.5hr nap yesterday, but back to 3  35 min naps today!!  Tried HTTJ once, wasn't able to extend, know I need to keep trying it.  Haven't done W2S...any suggestions on the best time in sleep to do this?  My little guy does 3 little jolts at 33 minutes (to the minute) and a big jolt at 35 min that wakes him up every nap