To extend or not to extend???

[Tida]

OK.  Thanks.  His last nap usually ends around 3:00 or 3:30 and sometimes he'll catnap somewhere between 5 & 6- sometimes not.  But I'll go ahead and post under general.  Thanks again!

[BabyBsMommy]

I really think you need to stick with trying to extend naps, really your lo is still at gestational age.  It took us over 2 months to straighten things out when we started EASY with our lo at 7 weeks (he's now 20 weeks).  The first month to get the 45 min naps, the second to teach him how to extend them.  It was very difficult, I'm not going to lie!  My back hurt, my arms hurt and I really wanted to give up, especialy when we went for 2 weeks with almost no improvement.  Now he has been doing it on his own for 2 weeks!
This is what we did (thanks for the tips from tbw moderators!):
I would go in at 35 min into his sleep (you may have to do this at 20 min for now until his sleep cycle moves back to 45 min).  I would put my hands on each of his shoulders to prepare for his first jolt that would come, surely as I was told at about 38 min (you'll have to observe when your lo's comes but you will see it is pretty much at the same time all of the time).  I would have to hold him from the 35 min mark until about an hour and 5 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes into his nap.  If he was still sleeping, we were golden but more than half of the times he would still wake and no pat/sshing or pu/pd-ing would work.  Sometimes we couldn't just hold his arms, we would have to lean a forearm across the length of his body or hold a hand above his eyes if they kept popping open or even pat and shh a little if he hadn't woken up completely but was still wriggling a lot.  For so long it seemed like it would never work and then it suddenly got better.  About 3-4 weeks in, I started to notice he was falling into a deep sleep sooner and sooner.  One day I missed the 35 mark and it was almost 45 min in when I realized it!  I went rushing in and watched as he stirred, made a few sounds and then put himself back to sleep.  For the next week or so I went in to watch, maybe put a hand on his chest but he was able to make it through most.  Now, for the past 2 weeks I just leave him and if he needs it he sleeps through!  Once in a while he wakes up early but he is happy when he does, other times he sleeps a little longer for his catnap.  He generally has a 1.5, 1.45 and 45 min nap each day.
Hope this helps!

[Mom2Katie]

I was about to quit after nearly two weeks of 30-minute naps, an increasingly cranky baby, aching back, and NO LIFE.... but you have given me hope!  My LO is consistently sleeping through the night, but the naps are getting worse.  She is definitely cranky after only 30 minutes of sleep.  Plus, she is not making it all the way through her next feed and activity without a meltdown or falling asleep, so EASY has been slowly going out the window.  After reading your post, I do think I should continue to try to extend the naps. 

Am I correct in thinking that even though she is consistently sleeping 10.5 hours at night, she should need at least a couple of hours of sleep during the day?  I think I read somewhere that infants this age need around 14-15 hours of sleep per 24 hours.

[BabyBsMommy]

I am pretty sure that at your lo's age, they still need two naps and likely a cat nap.  If she sleeps 10.5 hours at night (this is about what ours does, sleeping 7:30-6:30 or 7:00 with one or two half hour wake ups for feeds), she could go for 3.5-4.5 hours of naps which would be two 1.5-2 hour naps and a 30-45 min catnap.  Our routine, based on wake up at 7:00 is:
E7:00 (cereal at
S8:45-9:00ish
A10:15-10:30ish
E11:00
S12:15-12:30ish
A2:00-2:15ish
E3:00
S4:15
A5:00
Bath, etc. starting at 6:15
E6:45
In bed around 7:10 and asleep before 7:30.
Remember that EASY can also be EASYAE, as you can see with our routine!  As long as there is at least a 10 min or so break between E and S you are ok.  It took me a long time to realize that you just need to go with the flow!

Tida, I agree with Stacy that an earlier catnap might help things out.  We discovered that letting Brenden sleep much past 5 resulted in a really tough go of it getting him to sleep.  Unless he has missed a nap earlier or had a short afternoon nap for some reason, we usually don't let him sleep more than 45 min for his catnap, as well.  Also, we found Brenden suddenly started to resist the pat/ssh in bed.  At first, holding him to our shoulder and pat/shhing there until he started to settle and then putting him down awake worked.  Then it stopped so we moved onto putting him in bed and putting a hand on his chest and patting gently if necessary while softly shhing worked.  Now he just wants us to leave him alone and let him do it himself unless he is really wound up or overtired.  Glad to hear the naps are going better!

[Mom2Katie]

Stacy - my daughter's bedtime has been between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. and she wakes up at 6:30 a.m.   She rarely wakes during the night, and if she does, a pat usually puts her right back to sleep.  She used to make it to 8:00 p.m. when she was napping longer, but she's lately been so tired that she's been going down at 7:30.   When she goes down earlier, she usually wakes at about 6:00 a.m., but stays in her crib talking to herself until I go get her at 6:30.   She used to have A times of about 1.5 hours (after a .5 hour feed), but since her naps have been getting shorter, it's more like .75, if I'm lucky.  This has been getting progressively worse over the last week.

Also, since she's so tired after fighting her nap for an hour, she's been taking her second nap earlier, fighting that for an hour, and then taking her catnap much earlier than she used to (around 3:45 or 4 p.m. instead of 5:00ish).   Because of that, her last A time is really long, and she's pretty cranky by bedtime.   I haven't tried to extend her catnap, just her first two naps - if I'm unable to get her to extend the first two, should I try to extend her catnap as well?

[Mom2Katie]

Stacy - Today, my daughter took her first nap, slept a half hour like usual.  I soothed her back to sleep, but after a few minutes, her eyes popped back open and she was wide awake.  I hunched over her crib for forty-five minutes while she first played, kicked, talked, and then finally worked into a frustrated screaming fit.  After close to an hour, she fell back asleep.  By this time, it was only half an hour to her next feed.  She got a total of an hour's sleep.

Should I have just gotten her up the first time since she was so wide awake?  The problem is, I know after weeks of observation, that she can't take a half hour nap and then make it through her next feed and activity time without a meltdown or falling asleep.  So her next nap would be earlier, and then pretty soon we're back to four or five naps a day.   I'm exhausted and frustrated.  I feel like the worst mother in the world and I'm so afraid she's going to come to associate me with negative feelings.  I need some advice, please - what am I doing wrong?

[ziyangsmummy]

Hi chaps,
I've been on the same road as you guys and at one stage during the sleep training I talked myself into believing that 45 mins were ok for Jack who is a spirited 4 1/2month old, knowing that it really wasn't enough sleep for him.
  I am now on week 4 of teaching to sleep and extending naps and I have had successes with wake to sleep.  I had 3 days in a row with 2 hour naps and a catnap.  However this all turned to custard over the last couple of days as I had appointments that disrupted Jack's naps and two whole days kind of fell apart...he had a meltdown and so did I. Today  I ended up letting him cry his little heart out for 25 mins while I sat beside him with my hand on his chest and a pair of ear muffs on...not good.
Knowing that he had a crap day of sleep, I made his bedtime earlier tonight by 20 mins and he went down without a struggle.  Tomorrow I', going to have a low key day hanging around at home to get his naps back on track again.  As tracey says, we've got to be consistent to get results. 
So keep at it chaps, it really is worth it because the little monsters/cherubs are completely different characters when they get the right amount of sleep!!

PS:  it's not all roses here yet though Jack's night routine is still in shambles...but I'll get to that one eventually once I get these naps going independently.

Irene