9 week old refusing to nap since 3 weeks old

[Berkley24]

I have a 9 week old DD and since she was 3 weeks old she has refused to nap. For the first two weeks, our EASY plan was smooth sailing and went really well.

I have tried to keep an EASY plan but it just hasn't worked because we are always missing S and Y. She loves to be moving, so she sleeps well in the vehicle on road trips and in the stroller, but will not nap at home. Now that she is getting older it is easier to read her tired signs so just before we are putting her down in her crib to nap. If she does happen to have a nap it's for no longer than 1/2 hour and then she's up. She sleeps well at night and goes to sleep between 8-10 at night. She won't any earlier. She wakes for 1-2 feeds and is up at 6:30. Once 6:30 rolls around she won't go back into her crib, because she wants out of her swaddle at this point to kick her legs around and let some gas out. I feel she hasn't had enough sleep so I put her in bed with me till about 8-9:30am and the cycle starts all over again, with mom getting no break.

Routine at night is always the same, we have tried the routine before naps, but she won't take it.
- bum change
- swaddle (with arms out)
- rock with soother
- put down with soother, take soother away once it's spit out or pull out once she's asleep

Her room is dark with black out shades, we have a fan for white noise.

I need some suggestions to get her to have regular and solid naps with good sleep in her crib so we can get back onto an EASY plan.

Thanks!!

[jennandsophie]

Sounds like she's overtired and because of that is fighting sleep.  How long is she up before you wind down for the first nap?  At 9 weeks, her A time is quite short before needing a nap.  My DS was at about and 1hr to 1hr 15 mins including feed time.  You'll likely want to start winding her down right after her AM feed. Also, is there a reason she is swaddled with arms out?  Usually when they are that young they really need to have the arms in to calm themselves down. 

[Berkley24]

Her A time is usually 1hr15 - 1hr30 including feed time. We swaddle with arms out bc she hates it when they are in and fusses like crazy!

Would you suggest getting up at 6:30 with her for E and A time instead of trying to get her to sleep longer but keep the A time much quieter and shorter?

Would you swaddle her for naps to and do a similar night time routine?

[jennandsophie]

6:30am is not an unreasonable time to wake up.  What time does she go to bed?  If she's going to bed around 7pm, then she's getting a good amount of night sleep.  Both my kids (unfortunately) tend to wake up around that time so I think it's pretty normal.

Since she is getting older now and moving beyond the newborn stage, I would try to get her on a regular eat, activity, sleep pattern when she wakes, so it would look something like this:

Wake: 6:30am
E: 6:40am
A: 7am
S: 8am (hopefully 1 1/2 hrs but she may be a short napper as many babies this age are)
E: 9:30am
A: 9:45am
S: 11:00am
this pattern will continue through the day until bedtime

Don't be concerned about APOPing her to get her to sleep at this age.  She's just learning to sleep and you have lots of time to train her to nap in her crib in the months ahead. It's just really important to get her the sleep she needs so she doesn't get overtired. My DS slept mostly in the sling for about a month because he would only do 30 or 40 min naps in the bassinet. When he was a newborn, I always just tried to do at least one bassinet nap a day and then tried to extend it by rocking him back to sleep or holding him.  At about 3 months I started really crib training him and trying techniques like wake to sleep and holding him through the transition jolts.  

In regards to swaddling, I would definitely keep trying to do the arms in because she'll probably fuss herself awake even if she falls asleep.  She just doesn't have control over her arms yet.  Sometimes when they fuss as they are being swaddled, they aren't actually objecting to having their arms down, they are trying to calm themselves.  See if she will calm down after a few minutes after she is swaddled as you are holding her.

I would definitely do a similar but obviously shorter wind down routine for naps so it cues her that it's sleep time.  Keep the activity just before nap time very low key.  Babies are way too stimulated sometimes to fall asleep especially if she has lots of dangling toys, activity in the house and visitors over.

Good luck!

[Berkley24]

Thank you! I now know what it's like to have a break during the day. We have been swaddling her with arms in and it has totally worked! We aren't having to pop the soother back in as it just falls out now when she's asleep. She is now in bed sleeping between 7 and 8 pm.

The only thing is now, she is only sleeping for 40 mins on average. We try to extend it for another 20 but that's when we're dealing with the soother. Sometimes I can get her down twice in a 3hr period.

We think we're getting her to bed on time before she's OT or not tired enough, but maybe we're still missing it??? Any advice on how to extend her naps? If this is normal for this age at what point to they ususally get longer? I know by 4 months of age we should be striving for 2 hour naps, it feels like we're a long way from that.

Typical day since last Thursday has looked like this:

Wake: 8:00
E: 8:30
A:
S: 9:20 - 10:20
E: 11:30
A:
S: 1:40-2:30
E: 3:20
A:
S: 4:00 - 5:00 (being generous)
E: 6:30
A: Bath
S: 7:30
E: 12am
E: 4:30
Wake: 8:15

[jennandsophie]

Great news Felicia.  Swaddling is amazing.  Wouldn't have been able to get either of my LOs to sleep without it.  Unfortunately the 40 or 45 min naps are completely normal at this age.  Usually, they say LOs learn how to sleep longer around 4 months and beyond.  Both my DD and DS started to nap more consistently around that time.  They just don't know how to transition yet between sleep stages.

What I did until they started doing it on their own is as soon as I heard DS stir at around the 38 min mark, I would quickly pick him back up and soothe him back to sleep with the paci.  DS loved to sleep in my arms (he has reflux) so he'd always fall back asleep.  When he was back into a deep sleep, I would put him down again.  Tbh, it was a lot of work because I would usually stay with him during nap times to be there when he woke or I would have to be really precise in getting up there and timing it just right.  Eventually, he just started being able to fall back asleep on his own. It's like he just woke up and figured it out one day.  

I think I am reading your routine times wrong or maybe there is a S line missing between the first and second naps.  You said typical A time is about 1hr 15 mins to 1hr 30 mins.  That is average for this age.  If she is falling asleep easily and doing good naps with that amount of A time, then keep at it until you notice that she's not tired enough to fall asleep right away.  Then try to increase it a little about 5 or 10 mins with low key activity and see what happens.  Be sure to only do it slowly or she can get OT.

In regards to bedtime, sounds like your nights are very good.  Two night feeds is very normal.  You could try doing the dreamfeed around 10/11pm and see if that will help you cut out the 12/1am waking.  This is much easier by bottle than breast.  I didn't do the DF with DS because I'm too lazy to pump out the milk and I found he would wake totally when it's done by breast and then have a hard time getting back to sleep.  

Sounds like you are doing really well.  Keep at it.  Babies change constantly so just when they trick us into thinking we have it figured out, they go and change everything on us!

[Berkley24]

Thanks Jennifer. DD is now 14 weeks old...since my last post we now have her on a consistent 3hr easy routine, but still consistent with the 40 minute naps. I re-read BW and as of this past Friday afternoon we have been really working hard at trying to extend her naps. She goes to bed easily after wind down it typically takes 5-10 minutes for her to go to sleep. When she first stirs we are doing shh pat, but quite often she wakes right up and then fusses so we do pu/pd as well. She will go in and out of sleep from the 40 min period to the 1hr 1/2 period. These past three days I have worked so hard at helping her get back to sleep and I just can't seem to get her back in to a deep enough sleep to stay asleep. She still does the evening routine really well and sleeps well at night waking once and sometimes twice, but we either shh pay or do pu/pd her back to sleep the first time.

This is what our schedule looks like on average now:
7:00 wake/feed
A - 8:15/8:20
S - 8:20 - 9:00 (extend to 10am)
E - 10:00
A - 11:15/11:20
S - 11:20 - 12:00 (extend to 1pm)
E - 1:00
A - 2:15/2:20
S - 2:20 - 3:00 (extend to 4pm)
E - 4:00
A - 5:15/5:20
S - 5:20-6:00
A - Bath at 7
E - 7:30
S - 7:40 down for the night
Wake around 3-4 am for feed.

She has been happier throughout the day with us extending the naps. So it makes me feel that she does need the extra sleep. The cat nap at night I find it hard to actually keep her up for the hour and a bit, she is her fussiest at this point.

Any extra advice on how to extend the nap would be great!

Thanks:)

[Berkley24]

One more thing, if she does fall asleep during th extension times even if there was only 10 min left I was waking her to stay on schedule as it says in BW. Been doing this consistently for 3 days now. Also waking her at 7am to keep with schedule.

[jennandsophie]

Sounds like things are going really well.  If the shh/pat and pu/pd are working for you so far, I would just keep at it.  The only other thing you might want to try is wake to sleep, but I never had a lot of success with it.  I always tried to extend naps at that age.  It helped to get DS used to sleeping longer lengths and an extended nap is more restorative than a catnap so she'll wake happier.  The routine looks good.  You could try to stretch the A time just slightly, by 5 or 10 mins.  In theory this will help them sleep longer because they are more tired.  However, I found before 4 months they wake at 40 mins because it's developmental.  At some point in the next few months, they just figure it out on their own.

In terms of waking her from a nap, I usually just let the kids sleep up to about 30 mins beyond the feed time especially if she hasn't had much sleep that day and you feel she needs it.

My DD was always very tired after that last catnap of the day.  She would usually only stay awake about an hour and 15 mins or so before needing to go to bed.  You can consider putting her to bed slightly earlier, maybe at 7pm.  You don't want her to be OT by bedtime.

Good luck!

[ShayasMom]

Felicia, I'm pretty sure your DD is a twin of my DS (8 weeks). We had the same problem with the arms out swaddle because of all the fussing so he refused napping, but then swaddled arms in and actually napped at home! Yay for Y time! I also am extending his naps at the 40min mark...

Just a message to let you know that you are definitely not alone with these issues Glad to know that it has continued to work out for you!