Some hope for 40 minute nappers!

[lizzymac99]

 I posted on here about 2 months ago because I was trapped in a 2 hour cycle that would repeat all day where I was feeding my daughter everytime she woke up and she was only ever napping for 40 minutes.  Extending naps only worked if I put her on my shoulder still swaddled and rocked her in the chair like that.  Shhh/pat and everything else never worked.  So for the most part I just lived with the 4 to 5 forty minute naps per day.  By the time we ended the day she was a wreck and would usually cry her eyes out the whole time I was trying to get her to nap that last one of the day...

Well... things have changed and I wanted to update to give everyone else some hope out there!  Somewhere around the 5.5 month mark she started doing some 1.5 hour naps and I noticed eventually that she had done one long nap a day for a stretch of weeks.  Now she is 6 months old and most days doing either 2 long naps, or one really long one and then 2 shorter ones.  I think she is moving towards 2 long naps though because that is starting to happen more days than not now.  So what did I do to get here?  Well I realize that some of it might have been her maturing and came with age, but I first stopped feeding her as frequently and she now takes 4 bottles a day, no dreamfeed ever and still doesn't.  I also DRASTICALLY increased her A times and she is sitting at about 3 hours - even first thing in the morning because I discovered that any less than this she would still do a shorter a.m. nap.  The amazing thing is that she didn't give me many short OT naps before settling into a longer napping pattern.  She still stirs and even opens her eyes at the 40 minute mark but now turns her head and resettles into sleep again.

She is just over 6 months now and we have started solids a few weeks ago – although this was AFTER the long naps started so I know they had nothing to do with it.  We also successfully weaned her from the swaddle at night and it didn’t impact her sleep badly at all.  She was escaping from it at night so that is why we decided to ditch it.  I must admit that she is still swaddled for naps though because she doesn’t get out of them or roll and plus we have a video monitor so I can see her at all times.  I will tackle the swaddle for naps when I have to but for now it works for us 

I am still dealing with some EW which has been going on since 3 months ago but I feel like I have tried everything and that my DD is just one of those babies who only needs 10 to 10.5 hours of sleep at night.  She generally wakes around 5:30 or 5:45 now, (if anyone has any suggestions as to how to deal with it I am open to them!!) but I have tried everything from moving bedtime earlier to moving it later, to skipping her last catnap to adding it back in.

Our EASY looks like this now:
Awake 5:30 (between 5:30 and 6:00 am)
Eat (6 oz bottle breastmilk)– 6:30
Solids – 7:30
Sleep – 8:30 (This nap ranges from 1.5 to 2 hours long)
Awake 10:00
Eat (6 oz bottle breastmilk) – 10:30
Solids – 11:30
Sleep – 1:00 (This nap ranges from 1.5 to 2.5 hours long)
Awake 3:00 (ranges from 2:30 to 3:30)
Eat (6 oz bottle breastmilk )– 3:30pm
Sleep *** on some days there will be a catnap from about 4:30 to 5:10 but if she sleeps past 3:00 I usually skip it.
Bath & bottle (6 oz breastmilk) @ 6:30 pm
Bedtime @ 7:00 pm

[Smurfette]

Congrats on the nap success!

[~Sara~]

Congrats and well done!

[Riley&Avery'sMommy]

Thanks, I need to hear this right now because we're where you were!

[Riley&Avery'sMommy]

Lizzy
Can you take a look at this & see if it sounds familiar to what you went through?
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=215618.0

[lizzymac99]

Hi sorry for the late reply!  I haven’t been on for awhile... Your story is a bit different than ours but there are some similarities.  With my DD she never took to a pacifier so it never became a prop, but we did swaddle her since the very beginning.   With her she started doing the 40 minute naps very early on, like I would say it started around 6 weeks old so I was napping her 5 to 6 times a day for MONTHS!!  It nearly drove me mad as I was pumping while she slept so I never had any time to myself.  I really think looking back that the 2 things that kept us in the 40 minute nap cycle were the shorter A times (my daughter is now doing 3 to 3.5 hours at 6 months old so I think she just needs higher than average A times in order to have longer naps) and the frequent feedings.  Once I started feeding her independent of sleep times, for example feeding her only 4 or 5 times a day even if she napped more than that – I noticed a few random longer naps.  Just after 5 months of age she started doing ONE longer nap a day of at least 1.5 hours and this happened every single day.  After this I started to push her A times DRASTICALLY to push her towards two naps a day which we are now at every single day!  I have to ignore her tired signs sometimes and keep her occupied to get to these long A times but I think of it as for her own good because although she was waking up happy from 40 minute naps for months she had begun to be unable to handle them and was a mess by the end of the day.  Now she might get a little cranky before her naps as I hold her off to get a long enough A time BUT it helps her by giving her longer naps and then she is much happier for the rest of the day.  I essentially doubled her A times in a matter of a week, I chose to do this instead of gradually and it worked really well.  Just a couple of wonky days and then she started to consistently nap longer for all naps.

We tackled the night swaddle somewhere when all of this was happening because she had started busting out of it through the night anyway.  This switch was uneventful, but I am scared to try with naps now because the swaddle is still working for us.  We might try it for her first nap tomorrow because if that one is shorter then we will still have her afternoon nap to make up for it.  Oh yeah and another thing I do differently is that I do NOT cut her A times after a short nap anymore, in fact on the rare occasion that her nap was cut short due to someone accidentally waking her up (we are living with the in-laws right now so it’s sometimes much louder than she is accustomed to) her A times are actually longer than normal because I still try to keep a similar time for her next nap.  They are flexible within reason but generally she goes down for her first nap between 8:30 and 9:30 – and then her afternoon nap between 1:00 and 2:00.  Once in a blue moon now she will do a short nap – very rarely – but I find that she makes up for it with the second nap.
 
I don’t know if I answered your questions at all?  If not please ask me, I am more than happy to share what I did and hopefully help someone else out 

[shirat]

i am having the same issue. Should i keep her morning activity time the same and increase the other 2 activity times? i just don't want a total day of disaster ot naps. she sleeps 30 minutes in the morning and maybe an hour for second nap, but usually 40 minutes and third nap is 30-40 minutes as well. bedtime time taked her an hour every night and wakes up in the middle night a couple times- worst is the 5 am wakes- friday night she wouldnt go back to sleep until 7:30 . she is 6 months old and has been doing 2 hours activity time for a month and half so far. i am just not sure how to increase A time if she takes short naps so she needs to nap earlier??

[JBmommy]

Thanks for the supportive message!  We are stuck in the exact same situation (eating every 2.5 hours as soon as wake-up, 1.5-1.75 hour A times and then 45 minute naps).  I had just come to the conclusion that extending feeds was the first step so it is nice to have some confirmation from someone who had success!  Would you mind sharing more details of how you extended the feed times?  My lo is so used to waking and eating that he is angry when he doesn't get food right away. I can usually extend for a while (30 mins or so) but I can't imagine getting him down for a nap without a feed since his last nap.  Any suggestions?

[Hserry]

Need help too:) my lo is 4 mths old, sleeps well thro the night, but naps 4 times a day each 45 mins long. It doesn't seem to b bothering her tho. She eats every three hours. Do i move her to a four hour system? Suggestions?

[Smurfette]

Hserry-I would start a new thread/topic on the EASY board so you get more eyes on your question. Just as an aside though, 45 min naps are developmental as babies organize their night sleep before their daytime sleep. Tracy did recommend to move to a 4 hour EASY around 4 months so you may what to consider that. It tells you how in the BWSAYP book.