Short naps and very confused about awake time!

[ecwinters]

Hi
I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on short naps/A times please?

My DS has always been a short napper but once or twice a week would do a longer one!  Just after he was 3 months old he started refusing naps and screaming!  I increased his A time to 1 hour 50 minutes and this got me a few days of long morning naps!  Then, he reverted back to the 40 minute naps (his sleep cycle length).  I have pushed the A time slightly since but am always worried about him getting OT especially as the A time was more than suggested for his age. 

He is now just over 4 months old and his A time is about 2 hours.  We still have short naps - in fact sometimes even 35 minutes or 30 minutes!  We are also getting 3am/5am cot parties so I'm wondering if he just isn't tired enough (despite the short naps!). My plan was to stretch his A time gradually - starting at 2 hours and 10 minutes for a few days to see if there was any improvement.

So, I began this morning using his normal wind down timings.  He normally settles quickly - the time from going into the bedroom to going to sleep is about 10-15 minutes on a normal day.  If you take him into the bedroom too soon he kicks off, so I do a wind down outside the bedroom first.  He can self settle IF the timing is perfect (he's a touchy baby).  However, sometimes needs to be picked up and held a bit.  Today, we were in the bedroom by the 2 hour mark.  I put him in his cot and left him.  He sucked his thumb, looked around, played for a bit but didn't make his usual 'sleep noises'.  After about 10 minutes he got fed up and cried so I picked him up.  He cried for a bit but instead of falling asleep as I expect he TOTALLY lost it and screamed hysterically for 10 minutes!  Eventually (after 2 hours and 30 minutes) he fell asleep in my arms.  I put him down and he slept for...the usual 40 minutes!

I am now very confused.  I am not sure if he was overtired, or whether his A time has taken a big leap again and he is just not tired enough.   For the last couple of days he's struggled to self-settle (which means that I'm somehow not getting his window right) but has fallen asleep after about 2 hours, so I would have thought that 2 hours and 10 minutes wouldn't have been too much A time?  Should I try the same thing tomorrow and see if the same thing happens?  Any advice would be very appreciated. Thanks. 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Aah, my littlest one was a chronic short napper too. We also got the 3am nws... I'd probably give the slightly longer A times another go.  It can take a few days for them to kick in. In the meantime, what does his day generally look like?

WU:
E:
A: how long?
S: start and end time / length
E:
Etc. , til BT.

?

[ecwinters]

Thanks for replying.  I'm afraid there is no typical day as his sleep is all over the place.  I try to give him at least 1 nap per day in the sling and most of the time he will do over an hour.  But this doesn't always work!  So I sometimes get 3 naps, 3 naps and a really short nap, or even 4 naps!

I tried a repeat of the first nap today and he fell asleep better and after 2 hours and 10 minutes awake time, which was what I was aiming for.  But still did 40 minutes.  Then, I gave him exactly the same A time for his next sleep and he only did 30 minutes (in the sling!) which suggests he was OT?  I couldn't resettle him even though I tried for 15 minutes.  However the same thing yesterday resulted in a 1 hour and 10 minute sleep in the sling.  There seems to be no pattern to this at all!!

Here are 3 recent days.  I don't get him up until 6:30 am and I'll wake him by 7 if he hasn't woken up already. I've been trying to stretch his feeds out to around 3.5 hours as well but he's a snacker (he used to eat every 2 hours!) so it's slow progress.

Awake - 6:55
Eat - 7:15
Sleep - 9:00 - 9:40

Awake - 9:40
Eat - 10:15
Sleep: 11:30-12:55 (in sling)

Awake - 12:55
Eat - 13:30
Sleep: 15:00-15:30

Awake - 15:30
Eat - 16:30
Sleep: 17:40-17:50 (to make it through to bed time - I woke him up - this was done in the buggy)

Eat - 18:15
Sleep - 18:45
Terrible night! Woke 9:30, 11:10, 1:15, 3:15 and was playing around from about 6 am. 
Refused to be settled without food.

Day 2

Awake - 6:40 (but was awake before this playing)
Eat - 7:00
Sleep: 8:40-9:20

Awake - 9:20
Eat - 9:55
Sleep: 11:20-12:00 (in sling)

Awake - 12:00
Eat - 13:00
Sleep: 14:00-14:45 (in sling again to try once more to him him a proper nap - it didn't work!)

Awake - 14:45
Eat - 16:00
Sleep: 17:00-17:25 (woke him up - short sleep in buggy to get through to bed time)

Eat - 18:45
Was basically falling asleep on breast - very tired!
Asleep: 19:05
Work twice in the night at 22:30 and 3:30.

Day 3 - this was yesterday, when I started to try and stretch the first nap some more)

Awake - 6:30
Eat - 6:45
Sleep:9:00-9:40 (it took ages to get him down - was aiming for 8:40)

Awake - 9:40
Eat - 10:05
Sleep: 11:55-13:05 (in sling)

Awake - 13:05
Eat - 13:30
Sleep - 15:05-16:15 (in the buggy - we woke him up so bedtime would be at the right time.  He'd been swimming so was probably really tired.  He's only slept over a sleep cycle in the buggy twice!)

Awake - 16:15
Eat - 16:55 (small feed)
Eat - 18:00 (small feed)
Asleep - 18:30
Woke twice in the night at 23:00 and 2:30

Any ideas would be wonderful!  he's my first baby and I'm so confused!!!  Thanks.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Hmm... If he settled a bit better for that morning nap today then it's probably worth sticking with it for another day or two to see if he settles in to the new A time.  I'd keep that second A at 2hrs for now though til he gets used to the longer first A. 

What do you think?

[ecwinters]

Thanks!
Well this morning was weird as he was giving me really strong sleep cues at around 1:45 - BUT he'd been playing around in his cot for about an hour before I got him up.  In the end I couldn't push him to longer than 1 hour and 55 minutes.  However, he settled well and slept for 1 hour and 20 minutes!  This is a good sleep for him as it's 2 sleep cycles.

So, I guess he can do it if he's tired enough!  Which is good to know. 

I normally count A time from when I get him up, because it gets too confusing otherwise, but I suppose he might have been extra awake this morning and so using up more energy? 

I commented to a friend how pleased I was that DS had finally done a decent morning nap to which she replied 'long first sleeps can sometimes cause early morning waking as they start to see the morning nap as an extension of night time'.  Is this true do you know?  I would have thought that as DS is up for about 2 hours before going back down again he'd definitely know that it was morning?  Sorry for another question.

Thanks

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Sorry for the late reply - work has been hideous and I've not found time to get on here. That's great he did a good nap   Your friend is right about the long morning nap potentially causing EW, but only if the first A is too short.  If you're keeping that first A to a good length for his age then it's fine. Two hours A at 4 months is just right for most LOs