Can 45-60 minute naps be OT?

[Philothea]

Hi ladies,

DD5 (my sixth) just turned 3 months and I'm still struggling to figure out her EASY. Over the past few weeks we seem to have lost our way rather, getting shorter naps and more night wakings. Some days are really messy. On a really good day, we're doing a 3.5hr EASY with two long naps and a catnap and she'll settle with only sh/pat for all sleeps, but we still get the dreaded OT, soon-after-going-to-bed night waking:

Monday 26th  (after a grizzly, OT day on the Sunday)

E   0740
A   (1:30)
S   0910-1120     patting to settle

E   1120
A   (1:40)
S   1300-1500

E   1500
A   (1:35)
S   1635-1715     pat/sh

A   1715
E
A   (2:05)
E
BT   1920?       pat/sh

Woke 2000. Fed her one side and resettled in cot with pat/sh.
NF   0200-0300

__________
But the next day...

Tuesday 27th

E   0700
A   (1:40)
S   0840-0940     down independently but woke at 1hr. Tried to extend with patting; she seemed to drift off but would wake whenever I stopped patting.

E   1025
A   osteopath appt.   (1:30?)
S   1155-1245       patting.

Then I needed a break so I lay down and we co-slept till 1430    (I'd forgotten Tracy said to cap naps at 2hrs)

A   1430
E
A   (1:30)
S   1600-1645    pat/sh

AEA   bath   (2:15)
E   ~1845
S   1900      with pat/sh

Woke 1945. Tried to treat it as a NF and put her down asleep but she woke 5min later. Patted back to sleep

NF   1130
NF   0230    --> into bed with me

________
1)   Knowing when to put her down at night is a struggle. Is 2hrs last A too long or are the OT wakings from problems earlier in the day? If too long, by a little or a lot? DD1 (admittedly, a spirited) needed a mere 45min A after her catnap at 4 months. It's hard to know whether Gemma settles well sometimes at BT because it's close to the right A time or whether she's plummeting to sleep from OT.
Am I right in thinking that we won't be able to figure out how long the last A time should be until the rest of her day is more stable?

2)   Should we be aiming for 3 long naps at this age rather than 2+CN?

3)   Can 45 minute or 1 hour naps be OT rather than UT? As that might explain why stretching out A times (such as that 1:40 first A on the Tuesday) seems to give us a shorter nap. And would suggest that to extend the catnap, we'd need to be doing a shorter A time rather than longer.

[deb]

The 3-month growth spurt is loaded with changes in terms of sleep and feeding needs, so sleep schedules will be wonky for a while. We worked on loading up more on daytime calories for a while when we went thru this, and added a dreamfeed to help forestall the NW's that left our DD already-tired when she woke for the day.

We also had to start being right there at the 45-minute mark when DD stirred between sleep cycles for a while, because when she realized her pacifier/dummy had fallen out at that stirring, she would get distressed and fully waken, so "replugging" her before she noticed it was gone for a few days let her settle back to sleep before she really woke up and helped her transition.

[Philothea]

Thanks for your reply, deb.

I guess I thought since we've been floundering for a while that we should be able to do something to help. But perhaps you're right and we need to bide  our time what with the growth spurt now in the mix.

Re: helping her transition - I have wondered whether W2S might help her but I'm too chicken to try while she still manages a long nap or two each day. I imagine picking her up to DF would also wake her and could backfire.  It was so much easier with DD1 being bottle fed!

[Philothea]

I had high hopes come bedtime today that we might avoid early night wakings and have stumbled on her ideal last A. But no such luck


A  0715
E   0800
A  (1:15-1:25)
S  0830/40ish in my arms at church

A   0915 woke getting into carseat
E  1040
A  (1:50)
S   1105-1310; pat/sh

E   1310
A ; (2:00)
S   1510-1710   pat

E   1710
A
BT   1825ish ! pat/sh

But woke 1910. E and patted back to sleep. Kept waking, took about an hour till she was properly out again

[Katet]

My DS1 did the waking soon after bedtime. A few people recommended not trying to put to bed, but Cluster feeding, ie feeds every 15 to 20  until 8 or 9pm and It did help him be more settled. He definitely had his unsettled period in the evenings, which is not uncommon.

[Philothea]

That's interesting about the recommendation to cluster feed. What age did you stop doing that? As I thought cluster feeding was only in the early weeks.

- - - Update - - -

Gemma is nearly 5 months now and we've both made progress and regressed. I managed to do some W2S and HTTJ despite 5 other kids in the house and she 's extending a lot of her naps now. Yay! But I *still* haven't figured out when she needs to go down at night and I often end up feeding or walking her to sleep. And I just co-sleep at night as she's waking every couple of hours and she wakes SO easily when I try to put her down asleep after a night feed.

DH and I are going to bite the bullet and stop co-sleeping once and for all tonight. I may be back for some EASY advice if PUPD doesn't straighten things out soon...

She's still only doing around 2hrs A so I might need to gently stretch that toward 2:15-2:30. And aim for two long naps + a CN

[deb]

Good luck! With my 2nd, we joked that her sleep schedule was different every single day for her first two years, so I know how frustrating it can be to try to sort out a routine that works (and is remotely consistent).

[Philothea]

Good luck! With my 2nd, we joked that her sleep schedule was different every single day for her first two years, so I know how frustrating it can be to try to sort out a routine that works (and is remotely consistent).

I hope that's not what we're in for. I keep telling myself that as she gets older, at least she'll be able to tolerate a slightly off routine without everything falling apart.

I thought we were onto something for the first two days; she was staying asleep for 4 hours at the beginning of her night and "only" had two night wakings the second night. But now her new routine is leaving her OT come bedtime so things haven't really improved. We were aiming for 2:15 A, 2:00 last A. In going over my notes, I've formulated a few tweaks to the plan and we'll see how we go. Now looking at:

A 2:25
S 1.5-2 hours

A 2:25 but 2:15 if not the ideal first nap length
S 1.5-2 hours

A <2 hours    (she's not managing a full-cycle CN currently)
S 45 minutes   (I had been capping it at 30min to shorten the day)

A 2:15
BT

[Philothea]

I couldn't resettle her when she woke 45min after BT so got her up and she was happy as Larry for an hour and a half, then went down well. She'd had 5hr day sleep and 2hr less A time. But is it also possible that it's what her last A should be?

[deb]

You might be going thru the 3-2 changeover any time now (that milestone varies wildly depending on the baby). If it's working for you, I'd just roll with it. We want them happy & healthy first & foremost, and what you described sounds fine.