short napper?? or did I train her to be?? (3.5 mon old)

[eeleahc]

I need help with my 3.5 mon old. She can easily stay up 1:45-2hr for A, but she only sleeps 45-55 min naps. so it's impossible for me to get her close to 4hr schedule!! She falls asleep very easy (under 5 min wind down to lay down), falls asleep on her own with paci. Some nights she wakes 2am or 3am then 8am for the day, other times she's up 2am and 6am in which i give her a light feed and she goes back to sleep til 8am or later.

Current EASY:

8:15am awake
10:10 sleep
11:00 awake
1:00 sleep
1:50 awake
3:45 sleep
4:30 awake
6:15 sleep CN
6:45 awake (sometimes til 7pm, then bedtime is more like 8:50)
8:40 sleep for the night.
10:30/11 DF

She does wake crying but if I go in and try to get her back to sleep, her eyes are wide open, and if I acknowledge she's awake, I get all smiles (she's angel/textbook). I also have a 2.9 year old. so I don't have 20 min to try to get her back to sleep. Should I just keep trying to extend A time to 2.5 hours? or should i stay as is?

[jessmum46]

I would say there are two ways to go really, it is possible she is a lower sleep needs/higher A times kind of baby, in which case you could try extending her A time a touch and see if it helps.  The alternative though is that actually she is OT, not UT and just handles the A times well because of her personality.  2h I guess is on the higher end for 3.5 months and one of my LOs used to wake crying at 50 mins when he was tired.  I would suspect that particularly towards the end of the day as she is doing full A times on short naps (usually they can't handle a full A time after a short nap).  If extending the A time makes no difference I would be tempted to pull back a bit to more like 1h30-45 and see if that improves things x

[eeleahc]

thank you! sorry for the late reply!

She did two 45 min naps today :/ I tried putting her back to sleep with shush pat, and would lay her down, she fell asleep for 3 MORE MIN. then woke up! I think it's def possible that she handles long A time bc of her personality...

I will pull back a bit and see if I can get her napping longer. Ahh!!!

[jessmum46]

Keep us posted with how it's going x

[eeleahc]

AHH!!!

so yesterday I shortened her A time to 1:45, and she slept 65 min! Yay!! but then the rest of the day was 30-40 min naps :/ And today, I put her down for her first nap around that time, and 45 min. and this past nap, was 45 min AGAIN! Even if I try to get her back to sleep, she will doze off in my arms and the second I lay her down, she wakes up and fusses. (although when I put her down initially for any sleep, she falls a sleep fine on her own)

Should I cut back her A time closer to 1:30?? She will be 4 months July 15. Or go back to my 2 hour A time?!?!

I did read the 45 min wakeups post,I know she's not waking up for hunger, so a quick feed before a nap doesn't do anything. It's also hard for me to be in the room at exactly 45 min to try to pop her soother in cuz i'm chasing my 3 year old around!! Anything else I can do!?

[jessmum46]

Yay for a longer nap!  Could you post your EASY for yesterday?  I wouldn't make any changes based on what happens on one day though - often it's good to stick to an A time for 3-4 days then evaluate overall if something needs to be altered. 

FWIW I found it very hard to ever resettle my DD and if I did, it was only ever in my arms.  Putting her down again - no way!  I basically gave up trying most of the time Good news is once she hit one nap that got much better and she would go back off to sleep in her bed quite easily xx

[Lindsay27]

Just wanted to mention that 45 min naps can be routine related, but I also found with both my LOs they are largely developmental.  If your A times are age appropriate it could just be that she needs to learn how to transition sleep cycles, and that just takes time...for my DD that came at around 4.5 months, and DS it was more like 6 months.  I kept on top of her A times and eventually she just learned to do it herself.  The good news is that you know she can do it, but for a little while it might be hit or miss.  Definitely post your EASY though and we can tell if anything jumps out

[eeleahc]

Thanks so much for your reply!

I got 45 min naps from her all day yesterday EASY went like this:

7:45 awake
9:30 sleep
10:15 awake
12:10 sleep
12:55 awake
2:50 sleep
3:35 awake
5:30 sleep
6:15 awake
8:30 bedtime (later than I wanted, evening time got away on me, normally she is sleeping at the 1:50 min mark from last nap)

Yesterday I tried putting her back to sleep for her first 2 naps ,and no go. So i just gave up and went outside with my toddler. (one advantage to short naps haha). Why is it that when she goes down for the night, I don't get 45 min wake ups?! so she can link her cycles at night but not during the day???

Thanks for your input!

[Lindsay27]

It is just in our body rhythms that we can differentiate between day sleep and nights sleep.  I would maybe try to push her A times a tad.  With my DD I found the transition to 4hr EASY realllly awkward and often just a 5min A time push made a difference, I found I really had to watch the clock during this transition...kind of annoying lol.

[eeleahc]

she will be 4 months July 15, is over 2 hour A time ok for her?

Even when I put her down when she is tired and cranky, I still get 45 min. :/

[jessmum46]

Could be a paci prop....would you consider weaning it?

[eeleahc]

She did a 1.20 hour nap for me yesterday, and this morning she did 30 min nap :/ but then next nap was 2 hours!!! So maybe I just need to wait it out? She was one four hour routine yesterday and same with today. Night time has been not great past few nights, but wondering if its 4 mon regression??

[jessmum46]

It could be, I believe it can often start around the 15-16 week mark   Nice you got some long naps x