an almost 7 months baby with terrible naps!

[tulalit]

My DS is having terrible naps (40-45 minutes) in the last few days... i don't know what we've done wrong...

I just started working part time 3 days a week in the last 3 weeks. I work in the morning from 8-11.30AM.
His AM day would be:
A/E: 0730 (usually take 1 side and a bit)
Solid: 0830
S: 1000 (sometimes he won't sleep till 11AM)
A: 1045 or 1145...
BF him after I'm home which is approx at 1145.

Some days he can nap between 1-1.5 hours. These last few days, he's been napping 45 minutes max. I did W2S, didn't help. I did patting when he's awake after 45 minutes, also failed. Any other technique that I can do?

Also, he just reached another milestone. He likes to climb on his knee to his cot rail. He does this everytime he wake up from naps and NW. I don't have any problems with his NW at the moment since he was dehydrated few weeks ago. His NW is approx at 3AM and 6AMs. DF is at 11PM.

He's currently 6 months and 3wks. How long is his A time supposed to be?

I'm getting really frustated as he doesn't nap longer than 45 mnts these days....

Also, since he was dehydrated few weeks ago... I keep offer him to BF when he's awake and about to go to nap. Would this be the cause of short naps? If yes, he did sleep for more than 1 hr before tho...

HELP...

[~Sara~]

I would say that he needs more A time in order to feel tired enough to go down for a longer nap.  Have a look at the following link:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652

So tomorrow, try extending it about 10-15 minutes and see if he sleeps longer.  Yes, the climbing on his knee could be contributing, but let's try the A time extension for 2-3 days and see if that works.

You're going to also run into the quandary of where to squeeze in that catnap, or he might refuse to take the catnap at all.  We actually just dropped it ourselves after weeks of 2h45-2h50 A times.  We're now at 3h, and can successfully just have 2 naps.

To combat OT at bedtime if he doesn't catnap, you might have to put him down to sleep earlier--if he's a 12h sleeper normally, this should be okay.  If he's an 11h sleeper (like my kiddo is), then you could also go ahead and offer the catnap, but push bedtime back by an hour--we did a 13h day with an 11h night.

It could also be that he's turned into a snacker since he's BF more often.  If he's not dehydrated anymore, I would go back to one feed per EAS cycle.  That way, you know he's getting in a good feed and can last through until the next E time.

HTH!

[tulalit]

Thank you Sara...
His morning nap is still 45 minutes
his afternoon nap is around 1-1.5hours...
His A times is now between 2.5-3hours... however, he doesn't want to take the last catnap nor early sleep time.. He usually sleeps around 7.30-8.00PM... i did put him earlier to bed, he refused and slept at 8PM instead

however, I found that he slept well during the night now.. he doesn't do NW now except a very early wake up at 0600 (((
he sleeps around 0800pm then woke up about 2x before 11pm to bf then off to sleep till morning.. this happened 2 days in a row.. fingers cross for the third day...

should I give him a shorter A time in the morning?

[~Sara~]

No, I don't think he needs less A time with a 45 minute nap.  How much did you bump up his A time because he was doing 2.5-3h in your first post as well?  2.5-3 hours is still quite a range, so I can't really tell without seeing some exact times.  His first nap still seems UT to me, so whatever A time he normally does, bump that up by ~10-15 minutes and see what happens.

The waking up twice in the early night sounds OT to me, so somewhere along the line, his A times aren't working for him and he still needs longer naps.

[tulalit]

Hi Sara,

I'm starting to jolt down his EAS again..
1st of Jan 2010 (yeiii), EAS:
E/A: 0645
Solid: 0750
S: 0950 (he was in bed by 0915 - he screamed and did try pu/pd, not working as well. we put him on the floor and quietly play with him. I put him bed again 0940. He screamed again. I decided to do AP to calm him. I breastfed him for a while then put him to bed while awake).

It's now past 1115 and he's still asleep. Thank GOD!

In the last few days he's been screaming to take his naps and sort of wanting to bF. I made sure that he's full and changed his nappy before putting him to cot. I even BF him again before putting him to cot. He'll play and climb to his cot rail for awhile before his screaming starts...

The hardest one is when he's about to sleep at night... We've been shh/patting him while he self settles himself.

He was doing good until about 1-2weeks ago when he can climb himself... ;(

[~Sara~]

Do you think the BF has become a prop issue and now he refuses to go to sleep without it?  If so, I would pop on over to the Props board to get some help with that.

Does he start crying when you walk away?  Or do you think it's in response to his sleep window being missed?  Since you're right there, what are your impressions?

[tulalit]

I think BF is now a prop issue. I suspected this from yesterday when he just screamed and not wanting to self settled himself to sleep. I usually left him 5 minutes to settle before he was so mobile. WHen he's not settled, I rolled him over to his tummy then patt him to sleep. The last few days he refused to be rolled over.

He'll start to cry when he's bored and can't put himself to bed again in kneeling position to the cot rail. Also, another issue - we're staying in 1 bedroom unit. So his cot is next to our bed.

I'm posting my issue to the Props board.

This is very annoying since I thought I was on track but we're going back to the beginning again...

[~Sara~]

It could also be that he's using the patting as a prop, too.  Just a thought, if you'd been doing it until he was asleep.  Plus, it's not uncommon for older infants to find the shh/pat technique (or any component of it) bothersome.  So it could be that he's used to the patting to sleep, but now finding it disruptive, doesn't want to roll over to his tummy, but then doesn't know how else he could fall asleep on his own...which may have lead to him being comforted by BF.  Let's see if the advice you get on that thread helps with these naps