nap time nightmare - how long before give up!

[shazzy]

Hi all,

My wee man (4mts) can only do 45 min naps.  i am trying to teach him to sleep longer not using wake to sleep (he stirs too much and sees me and that's it) by guiding him through the transition time.

This morning he slept for 45 mins.  He started to stir so I put my hand on him and shhh...but he woke ( as always) it then took me another 40 mins to get him back to sleep. Is it ok to do this - keep trying for so long?  he is so tired

[Meg's Mom]

If dc took long naps before, chances are she'll start taking them again.  You're going into a rough time developmentally speaking. Meaning:  From 0-3 months babies work on organizing their night sleep. From 3-6 they work on organizing their day sleep. What is happening is biological and is a normal blip.  Not that it makes you feel any better. 

A lot of moms have trouble with this period of time...usually naps regress to 30 or 40 mins no matter what you do. The good news is it will pass, and you'll get your good napper back. The bad news is it can take a month or more depending on your lo to bypass. Most moms see progress at around 5 months or so. But until then, you can have a few options:
1.   try to extend the short naps via wake to sleep or shh/pat
2.   just go with it and adjust EASY to fit the short naps
3.   very, very gradually extend A time - if your LO can handle it, but this is not always recommended as they get overtired so easily.
4.   wait until 4mos and extend A time when you move to 4hr EASY.
I can offer suggestions w/ any you choose if you like.  As i said, it does get better i promise.

Try doing W2Sleep like i did, not w/ presure....When i say awake to sleep, i mean go in 5-10min before they normal wake and disrupt the sleep cycle in hopes it will start again and you get a longer nap.

I have used 'wake to sleep" many times during our nap struggles:
-1st time when my LO was 4mo and started the 45min naps - I would set my timer and when she stirred I would slip in the paci and pray she went to sleep.  I did this for every nap for 2 weeks!  It worked about 50% of the time and if it didn't I used shh/pat to try to get her back to sleep.  Which also worked 50% of the time.  The other % I had a sore back and tired baby :? .

-2nd time I used was at age 7mo - she was waking at 4am (or something like that) out of habit.  I set my alarm for 3.45am for 3 days and it worked.

-3rd time was when we moved to the 1 nap and she took a 1hr 15min nap, same length as her previous am nap.  It worked immediately and I did it for 3 days (as described in the announcement - wake to sleep).

I hope this helps.