Napping problems for 6 month old!!!

[taygensmom]

I have a 6 month old boy who is having a difficult time with naps. He consistently falls asleep easily on his own, but wakes up after 20 to 45 minutes and then is unable to get back to sleep. If I go in and try to ease him back to sleep he wakes more. If I do PU/PD he cries/whines until it is time to get him up. If I leave him he will whine/talk to himself but does not often start crying/screaming. However, he also does not go back to sleep, even if I leave him until his next feeding time. He then has a difficult time staying up for even 2 hours, since he did not get a quality nap. I have tried stretching out his activity time and putting him to bed later, which was disasterous. I have also tried putting him down as soon as he was getting tired, even if it was only 1.5 hrs to 1.75 hrs since he awoke; this didn't work either. So my questions are:
1. How can I extend his nap times
2. If he wakes early and I can't get hi back to sleep should I put him down very early for his next nap or try to stretch him to get to a more consistent routine?
Any help is appreciated!

[Zoey]

Hey there!

Can you post your routine on a typical day, exactly as you do it?  Are you using a paci?  Have you used pupd in the past to teach sleep, have you used pat/shh at all?  When you did add to his A time, how did you do that, how much time did you add and how long did you wait before changing it back?

Thanks!
Zoey

[taygensmom]

Typical routine was:
7:00 AM - Get up and solids/ BF
9:00 AM - Nap
11:30 AM -Solids/bottle
1:00 PM - Nap
3:00 PM - BF
5:00 PM - Catnap
6:30 PM - Solids/bottle
9:00 PM - Bed (I realize this is late but it was the only thing that initially worked to shift him from waking at 5:00 to waking at 6 or 6:30)
10:00 PM -DF

That was the routine we were using. I tried stretching him a little more (till 9:30 in the AM and 1:30 in the PM) for naps (stretched 10 to 15 minutes every few days) to see if that would help. I tried this for about 1 week, and it was definately not successful. Right now I have shifted everything a little earlier (Nap at 8:45 in the AM and 12:30 in the PM, bedtime at 8:00) to see if putting him down when he is not overtired will help, but he is still having difficulty.

He does not use a paci and goes down easily on his own (with his lovey). I tried pat/shh when he was younger, but now he just wakes up more with it. Right now if he is just whining/talking to himself I leave him. If he starts really crying I go in intermittently to calm him and them put him back down before he falls asleep in my arms.

We have worked very hard not to have him fall asleep with "props", and he initially falls aslepp beautifully, so my guess it is the timing of naps/nighttime sleep or how the sleep is distrbuted that is resulting in these frequent wakings. Any advice?

[Zoey]

Hey there. 

I see you are trying to nip the early wakings in the bud with a super late bedtime, but I think that's made him overtired and making napping difficult.  I say this from experience lol - I too thought I late bedtime was the way to fix the early waking, and while it may work - most often it breaks something else in the routine.

I can't see how long your catnap is - but assuming its the average catnap length of 30m, 530pm til 9pm and a really long time for him to be awake before bedtime - especially if he does less then 2h awake times the rest of the day, know what I mean?  In my opinion 8pm is even too late of a bedtime, and really.  At this age you want to offer an 11.5-12h night.  An overtired baby will wake early because they are unsettled.  The DF being so close to when he went to bed, also may be making things rough.

I just wanted to mention that sometimes its better to BF/bottle then offer solids, as Breastmilk or formula should be what baby fills up on, not solids until after 12m.  You may want to flip around the way you feed, to ensure that hunger isn't an issue - just a suggestion to take or leave naturally.  You do what works best for your baby.

When we add A time, doing it in 5m increments every 2-3days is sometimes best, stopping if baby seems to be getting overtired from the switch.  I sugget something like this to be your goal, after moving things slowly:

7am wake BF/bottle
8am Soilds
915am Nap 1.5h

11am BF/bottle
12pm Solids
1pm Nap 2h

3pm BF/bottle
4pm Solids
515pm Catnap 30m

630pm BF/bottle
Bath, top off if you do that, wind down
715/730pm Bedtime

DF 10-11pm

Of course this is a suggestion only, always watch your baby.  Moving all of your times slowly will be key. 

In the meantime - if you get a short nap, yes put him down earlier for his next nap to help lessen the overtiredness.  You can always attempt to extend a short nap, but in my opinion having it work past 3m is rare.  You might be better just getting him up and watching for cues to put him down again.  You know him, if you think he is going to go back to sleep, by all means try.  The key I think will be to offer as much sleep as you can - he needs to catch up on his sleep from a late bedtime, early wakings and now short naps.  I would pull the bedtime back as soon as you can. 

As he catches up and things smooth out, see how the A times are.  He may in fact need more A time after he isn't overtired.  Again, move slowly and watch him as you go.  Any changes you make in the routine... after you make them and are where you want to be, sometimes it can take a week or more to see the results of the changes you made.

I hope something here is helpful.  Congrats on propless sleep, that is fantastic!  Let me know how I can help.
Zoey

[taygensmom]

Thank you so much for the advice and for taking so much time to offer suggestions. I will try changing the bedtime; I had initially moved it later because I had read that children his age only need 9 1/2 hrs of "nighttime" sleep and the rest during the day, and I thought maybe this would help the early morning wakeups as well as the naps during the day. I was also trying to keep him up for an extended period after a short nap, because I was worried he might get in the habit of taking four or five 45 minute naps during the day instead of 2 long naps.  However, this was obviously making things worse instead of better.

I will try the earlier bedtime, putting him down as soon as he looks tired, and adjust his schedule accordingly. Thank you again and we will see how things go...

[Zoey]

You are very welcome.    I hope it helps, please keep me posted and ask if any questions come up!

Good Luck!
Zoey

[Jaden_s Parents]

Hi,

Our "almost" 6 mos old has the same problems (naps from 30 to 45 min), and we have been advised to do "Wake to Sleep."

It can work, especially if we do it right (the one time that we did he slept for 1 hour 50 min-a record) however when we did it wrong (which is most of the time), it did not work; I logged on just now, so that I can research it a bit more; our problem was that we were waiting for him to wake, and then trying to calm him down - I think the idea is that you pre-empt the wake up, so that the LO goes into the next sleep cycle.

Anyways, I don't want to advise you on how to do WTS since I am not sure exactly how to use it properly, but I would suggest asking/looking it up in the NAP boards.

Good luck,
Jaden's Dad

[Zoey]

Hi!

Wake to sleep can work great for the right situation.  I used it a few times when Owen was habitually waking.  It took some practice but it worked a bit.

Wake to sleep is for habitual waking and usually won't work if the waking is due to something like being over or under tired from the routine being off.  Usually fixing the problem in the routine will most often solve the issue.  If there is no problem in the routine, then it could be habitual and wake to sleep may work.

When I used it, I found less is more - go in 5-10m before they usually wake from the nap, just touch them enough to see movement, then I ducked out of sight for a minute to let him re-settle, then I left and said a little prayer to the sleep Gods lol.

Good Luck Jaden's Dad, I hope it works for you!
Zoey