Growth Spurt Screwing up Naps

[karireyn]

First off I am a HUGE BW believer-my sisters have been using the EASY method for 10 years now and it has worked wonders between their 5 kids, all with very different personalities. I'm a first time mom and have been doing the EASY system since my LO came home from the hospital and he took to it beautifully. He was eating every 3 hours and sleeping 2 out of the three hours from day one. His sleep at night has been great as well, right on schedule with what Tracy talks about. He's 7 weeks old today and two-ish weeks ago he dropped his 1-2 am feed and it getting up between 4-5 (he usually goes to bed between 7:30-8) going back down and getting up for the day between 7:30-8. So sleeping at night isn't his problem-it's naps and it's only been in the last couple days.

Starting on Monday he was waking up around 45 minutes into his nap, usually when he does this I can put his binki back in or ssh/pat a bit and he'll fall right back asleep. On this day he was falling asleep but then would be up again 10-15 minutes later. It took me all day to figure out he was going through a growth spurt-duh. I felt like such an awful mom. So the next day, Tuesday I made sure to feed him when he started giving the hunger cues, around 2-2 1/2 hours to help my supply (I'm BF) and to help keep him full for the night. But his naps were still AWFUL.

Let me preface, I'm pretty sure I have a baby that's a little angel and a little textbook. I've always had a consistent wind down schedule-we go in turn on the fan, turn on the white noise, close the blind, then I swaddle him, we sit for a few minutes and I put him down. Up until this point I would put him down and he would kind of wiggle back and forth-almost as if he was getting comfy-make a few fussy noises and then fall asleep. It took little to no prodding on my part. That's no longer the case. I watch him like hawk and act on his first yawn, do the exact same wind down as I've always done, but now he's fighting me during the sitting part. He'll arch his back/cry/turn his head from side to side. Then when he finally settles down I'll put him in his crib-still awake-and he'll sit there with his eyes open for up to an hour. He doesn't cry, but he'll just sit there-my DH calls it the toothpick stare. He'll finally fall asleep and then wake up 45 minutes later.

So after reading BWSOYP what feels like a thousand times the last couple days I tweaked things a bit, after doing the wind down ritual and putting him in his bed I've been keeping my hand on his chest and my other hand hovering over his eyes to help him not become overstimulated. Sometimes it works great and he'll be on his way to dream land in less than 5 minutes other times, like tonight, I'm in there for a half hour and he's still wide awake. At this point I have no idea what to do.

He's not acting hungry at the 2-2 1/2 hour mark so I think he's finally through the growth spurt but I don't know how to get my good sleeper back. It almost seems like he's regressing to 45 minutes naps and difficulty falling asleep. Please help-both my husband and I are at a complete loss.

I'm not sure if I should do the wake-to-sleep for the 45 minute nap problem and continue with the hand over the eyes/hand on the chest for the going to sleep problem until he catches on again. But again-it's only his naps he's still sleeping great at night. Any ideas/thoughts would be so appreciated! I want my angel baby back 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Hi there, and welcome to the forums  Congratulations on your LO too.

It's very common for LOs to suddenly start doing 45 minute naps at this age.  They tend to become much more aware during that 6-8 week growth spurt and are unable to transition themselves past one sleep cycle, which is the 45 minutes you're seeing.  It's a developmental thing and in some ways you have to wait for him to learn how to get past it.  However, there are a couple of things you can do to help:

1)  Once he's asleep you can sneak back into him at the 40 minute mark and sshh pat him through the transition.  If you keep doing this it'll help him get through it and over time he'll learn to do it himself.

2) LOs often have a little A time leap with growth spurts so it could be that his routine also needs a shake up.  Could you post a typical day in EAS format please and I'll take a look?

Finally, you really are doing amazingly well to have any sort of routine, let alone an independent sleeper at 7 weeks so please don't beat yourself up about missing growth spurts and short naps.  It took me ages to recognise my daughter's growth spurts and at 7 weeks neither of my children were in a reliable routine, even though I did BW from birth with my second one (he was an angel baby too, but low sleep needs, which I was months away from figuring out at 7 weeks!). You're all still learning - and it sounds like you're doing really well!   

Ooh, just thought of something else  - where is he sleeping and how dark is it? After the 6-8 week growth spurt we stopped getting away with naps in the sitting room and had to move them to a dark room with white noise to cut out the external stimulation.  The white noise is also to save your voice on the sshhhing! We still use it now actually, for my son. That could be worth a go too.

[karireyn]

Thank you so much for your tips-I'll start doing them today. To answer you questions, he has taken naps and slept at night in his crib in his room from Day 1. Unfortunately it does get a lot of sunlight during the morning because it faces East, but I close the blinds each time. We've considered getting black out curtains-my problem is that I don't want him to be dependent on it being completely dark for him to sleep so I'm not sure how to go about that. We also do white noise, and have from Day 1. We only do it when he's sleeping thought and turning it on is part of our wind down ritual.

A normal day looks something like this:

8:00 Wake up and Eat
8:30 Activity
8:45 Sleep
11:00 Eat
11:30 Activity
12:00 Sleep
2:00 Eat
2:30 Activity
3:00 Sleep
5:00 Eat
5:30 Activity
6:00 Sleep
7:00 Eat
7:30 Activity-Bath
8:00 Bed Time
10:30-11 Dream Feed

I'm thinking that maybe I should extend his waking time-it's been pretty much the same amount of time since he's been born. I just assumed that as he got older he would start staying up longer on his own-maybe I'm wrong on that? Should I  be trying to keep him awake longer-I know Tracy talks about doing it in increments of 10-15 minutes, but I worry if I do that and I've already seen his first yawn then I'm just going to make him overtired and have an even harder time getting him back to sleep. What do you suggest? It makes total sense to me that he should be up longer-he's obviously much farther along developmentally than a newborn-I'm just not sure how to go about it.

Also, another question. In the BWSOYP Tracy says that after the wind-down ritual, and the sitting that you should put your baby in bed and trust that he knows how to put himself to self, as long as he's not crying. My LO almost never cries-unless he's REALLY overtired/overstimulated-so am I doing AP when I stay and cover his eyes/keep a hand on his chest? Should I just put him down and trust that he knows how to put himself to sleep and not worry if he stays awake for a while before he does?

Thanks again for your help!

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I probably wouldn't intervene if your LO  isn't crying before going to sleep,  tbh. The sshh / pat  is really to help them relax into sleep if they're struggling - the nap time routine is what should be giving the cues that it's sleep time.  Though having said that, at 7 weeks they're still learning all that, so you may well find your LO is getting to the point where they need help most nap times just cos they haven't learnt it yet.  I know your LO used to drift off by himself, but before 6 weeks I think they're not really putting themselves to sleep cos they're not aware enough yet of what that means and they're still sleepy from birth, hormones etc. So really,  he's learning it for the first time now, and it can take some time to do that, and some LOs just need a bit of time in the cot to relax down to sleep. If he's happy I'd leave him be 

Wrt blackout I had the same plan with my son  (that he wouldn't get to be dependent on total darkness to sleep), but it turned out that was what he needed. I think I tried it once cos he'd started waking early in the morning and he slept longer with the blackout, so that was that, he was dependent on it before I'd even offered it cos it was just what he needed. It was the same for naps.  Having said that, he probably would have gotten used to sleeping in a lighter room, but it would have taken longer and I wanted to sleep in the meantime!  So it's up to you  - it could be something to try  but if you'd rather not, I'm sure he'd get there without - it might just take longer, especially for the 45 minute naps to stop.

Routine wise - are all his naps 45 minutes? I wasn't sure what his wake times were from the routine posted above? If so, it looks like some A times are a little short, and others a little long but it's hard to tell. Would you mind reposting with nap lengths or wake up times included please? Also, A time starts when yor LO wakes up,  includes E time, and ends when his eyes close for his next sleep.  I thought that might be worth clarifying as that confuses some people when reading the book.

With extending A times sometimes LOs need a bit of direction from mummy and daddy to stay up longer, as they get used to certain A / sleep times and need a nudge to change, but we can look at that when we look at your day with wake up times included

[karireyn]

It makes total sense about him kind of just going to sleep on his own less than 6 weeks old-they are so tired all the time at that point that sleeping isn't to hard. We did decided to do a curtain over the window for his bedtime-especially since its summer and it stays light so much longer now that we felt this would help him understand that its bedtime.

Okay so after your reply I wrote down everything as far his eating/activity/naps today so forgive me if it's way to much info but I wanted to give you a complete rundown of what our day looked like. Today actually went a lot better than the past few days which has me hopeful "fingers crossed" that things are heading back to what they had been before. Okay here's our super detailed routine today. I went through and bolded the Wake Up times so they are easier to spot-

7:00-Wake Up
7:05-Diaper Change
7:10-7:30-Eating
7:30-First Small Yawn-still quite awake
7:35-Diaper change/get dressed for the day
7:40-Sit with mom in rocking chair
7:40-Yawn #2/start wind down/yawn #3
7:45-Sit (during the sitting he was struggling/arching his back/whining/etc.)
7:50-Finally settled down and I put him in bed
7:50-8:15 hand over eye/on chest
8:15-asleep
8:50-went in to slightly wake him up-didn't go so well-had to ssh/pat for 30 minutes
9:20-asleep
10:00-Wake Up
10:00-Diaper Change
10:05-10:35-Eating
10:40-Sitting with Mom and Dad
10:40-First Yawn
10:45-Second Yawn-start wind down
10:50-Sit
10:55-In the crib
11:15-Asleep
11:40-Wake Up-went in and put his binki back in-he never went back to sleep but also never cried
12:55-1:20-Eating
1:20-Yawn/Wind Down
1:25-Sit
1:30-In the Crib/Asleep
1:45-Woke up briefly when we put him in his car seat
1:50-Asleep
4:00-Wake Up
4-4:15-Eat
4:15-4:50-Awake walking around houses with mom and dad
4:50-Diaper Change
4:55-First Yawn-wind down ritual
5:00-Asleep in car seat
6:00-Awake
6-6:10-Eat
6:10-6:50 Hang out with Mom/Dad and Friends at Dinner
7:00-Asleep in car seat on the way home
7:45-Wake Up
7:45-8:15-Eat
8:15-8:45-Diaper Change/Hairbrush/Lotion/PJ's/Family Prayer/Rocking with Mom
8:40-No Yawn but starts to make unhappy whimpering noise-start wind down
8:45-Sit
8:50-In Crib
8:50-9-Slightly fussy so ssh/pat until he settle down
9-Mom leaves the room
9:30-Went to check on him and he was asleep
10:45-Dream Feed

That's our day today. Again today went really well. The only thing that makes me worried is that he woke up at 11:40-stayed in his crib-awake but not crying-until it was time for him to eat again at 1. He went down fairly early for the next nap and slept for a while so I feel like he made up for the time awake-but that really long awake times makes me thing he wasn't up long enough during his previous awake time maybe we need to make his awake time longer all around. What are your thoughts? Again I'm sorry for the super detailed list but I've decided to do it for the next few days to see if I see any patterns. I kept a detailed list for 3 weeks when he was first born but haven't done so since then.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Thank you for the wake up times etc. He actually does look pretty textbook on his A times and I'm super impressed with your day in general. Ours was nothing like that at 7 weeks! I agree that he did seem to sleep better with slightly more A time - when he actually went to sleep it was generally after 1hr 15 A which as I say, is textbook for his age.  I think you could try extending by 10 minutes though, to see if it helps. Start with the first A and leave the rest the same. I'd aim to have him in his cot by 1hr 10 A time and hopefully he'll be asleep within 15 minutes.

What do you think?

[karireyn]

I like the idea of extending his first A time-it makes sense after a good nights rest he would be able to stay awake a little longer. My question is-that usually at the 45 minute mark is when he starts doing his first yawn. I try and keep his first Activity time pretty low key in the morning-mostly because I'm still tired and am trying to wake up  - should I maybe try and up the activity level as well as the time? Could that be contributing to his UT?

Today's awake times were pretty wonky because we had church. We did 1 hour 30 minutes from times eyes open to asleep for his first morning awake time and his nap actually went pretty well-he was woken up a couple times by loud noises but we stuck his binki in and he went right back to sleep.

Now that he's getting older I'm beginning to recognize his "I'm bored with whatever I'm doing" noises. Up until this point he's slept pretty much the whole day so i haven't really had to deal with that. But now I'm noticing him do a sort of "uhh uhh" type of whiny cry when he's in the swing/or under the play mat/or playing with me. It usually comes 20ish minutes before he should be getting tired so I'm pretty sure he's telling me he's bored. It may be annoying but those rough growth spurt days may actually have been a blessing in disguise-they got me to start writing down his days again which helped me recognize these bored signs. One more step towards understanding what he's trying to tell me.
 
I'll keep playing around with the Awake times for the rest of the day but I think we'll definately keep the slightly longer awake time for his first Activity.

Thanks so much for your help! He really is such a fantastic baby (he scored 8 Textbooks and 10 Angels on the BW test) even with the few hiccups we've had I can't complain. Now if only I could get him to drop the 4 am feed  But that will come in time-right?   

[LovelyLilyandJack]

You could try upping his activity level a bit, but I'd keep the last 20 minutes low key if you're extending A times, and actually I'd probably only try one thing at once, otherwise if he doesn't nap well you won't know if he's OT or OS. Maybe try upping his A a bit,  and if you still think he needs a bit more after 3 - 5 days, up his activity as well?