20-30 min Naps - how and when to intervene?

[MJMom]

Yuliya - that is awesome that she goes from the DF until the morning.

I would keep the morning nap longer.  The quality REM sleep is similar to that of night sleep, but maybe try not extending any other nap.  Your rule of thumb is if she is happy waking up from a nap, then let her.

I had something similar with the cranky/fussy thing after the bath.  One of the things that I did that helped immensely was feed her before the bath, do the massage/bath/night ritual and then feed her after that about 10 minutes before the bath.  It is definitely easier to teach your LO that the bath is part of the night ritual.  now no matter what time I give my LO her bath, she wants to go to bed within about 20 minutes of her bath.  So, if we leave the house early for a date or something, I don't give her a bath any more other wise she would go right to sleep!  It is very handy! 
If you give her more A time after the bath, that is fine, but keep it in the confines of your night ritual.  So, if you read her stories, just read a few extra ones, so maybe instead of 1 book, it's 3.  Or if you sing her songs, instead of one song, it's 4.  I would avoid letting her get on the floor and playing with her toys other wise you may work her up again. 

If her good days were appx 15 -15.5 hrs a day, that is what you want to continue to shoot for in the routine.  If she starts getting 6-7 hrs of day time sleep, it's going to come out of the night sleep, if you're putting her down at 6 and she sleeps until 7, then that is going to come out of the day time sleep.  Make sense?  If she's getting an earlier bed time and nap extensions, something is going to give, and it sounds like the night time sleep.

The PU/PD is a sleep tool.  There is some great info on it on the PU/PD boards.  For our LO though, it was too stimulating until she was about 5 mos, so we continued our version of sh/pt.  (she didn't like the pt part so we did a sh/rub)  At 5 mos though, PU/PD worked really well.  Just pay attention to how she takes to it.

HTH

[Yuliya]

Hello Alissa,

Last night was the best night we had since she was born! Like you advised I put her to sleep later (at 7pm) and also let her have the catnap (45 mins) before bath. It was amazing I put her to sleep at 7 pm and she slept till 5 am. I did 2 DFs though at 10pm and 11:30pm because by the end of the day I didn't have much milk. Anyhow when she woke up at 5 am I just feed her a little bit and put back to bed and she slept till 7:15 (I woke her up). I know it's a little bit too early to celebrate but I am so encouraged, she can do that so there's a light at the end of the tunnel !
I really hope she will start sleeping like that from now on.

Oh, another thing, before putting her to sleep at night i asked my husband to turn on the humidifier in her room for about 15 mins. I think it helped too since here in Calgary, Canada it is wery dry.

Tonight before going to bed she fussed and again refused to eat. When I put her into the crib at 7pm she tossed for about 40 mins not crying just tossing, I decided to feed her and she fell asleep at the breast . I feel bad because i think i partially caved in. Anyways tomorrow I will try to do everything right.

thank you so much for the help and support.
yuliya

[Aly Mac]

Hi Yuliya.  so glad you had a good night.  will be doing a little happy dance for you, hoping that it happens again. I knew Alissa would have some great advice for you.  Just a matter of trying a few things until you find what's right for you and your bub.

take care and i hope Whisper has another good night.
xx

[Yuliya]

Dear Aly and Alissa,

First of all let me thank you so much for support, help, patience and finding time to help me and Whisper. I like many members of this website was so many times on the verge of giving up but thanks to you and all people who are willing to help people with their problem they don't know.

Last night was good too, my DD slept from 8pm till 4:15 am. I again fed her a little bit and put back to sleep and she slept till 7:30am. We all slept in .

Whisper will be 3 month on Nov.19. Do you think I should keep on increasing her awake time by 10-15 mins every 2 weeks so by 4 months we didn't have problems switching to 4-hour routine?

thanks so much again,
Yuliya

[Aly Mac]

So glad the night went well Yuliya!!!  Yah for Whisper (such a pretty name  ).

I don't think you can push it out on a fortnightly basis per se.  I wish it worked like that, but I would watch the cues.  You might find that by watching, you get an extra 5 or 10mins here or there. Of course if you start getting probs again, you can try this.

Alissa, what do you think?? (thanks for helping here  )

[MJMom]

So glad that you had two good nights in a row!! That is fantastic!!

I don't know that I would increase the A times for her until she is older, like 6 mos or so.  At this age, increasing her A times for her can cause OT.  Just keep paying attention to her cues and she will naturally move them out.  I noticed already that some of your times between feeds are any where between 3hrs 10 min, and 3 hrs 30 min.  That is excellent.  Keep paying attention to her sleep/hungry cues and offering guidance and she should make the natural progression to 4-hr EASY!

[MJMom]

Hi Yuliya!

How is it going?

[Vieira]

Hello,

I had a few questions in hopes of someone being able to help.  I have a three month old lo and he has always been a short napper.  I've been struggling with it for quite some time.  People have been telling me that some kids just don't take long naps.  This would be find if Carter didn't wake up crying and grumpy because he usually has an hour to an hour and a half before he has to eat again.  He is swaddled and usually can be put straight into the crib for a nap.  I have read other posts and was wondering if he was over stimulated.  Yesterday I tried to take him upto his room about a half hour before nap time to play quietly in his crib and then walk around with him.  He went down without a problem but of course was up about forty minutes I turned him on his side to shh pat him back to sleep which took about 30 minutes and then had to wake him 20 minutes later to eat.  The next time I followed the same wind down and then anticipated his wake, to see why he was wakeing up.  There were no jolts, no wet diaper, he slowly opened his eyes and started to cry.  I shh patted him back to sleep which took only 10 minutes and then had to wake him forty minutes to eat.  Should I keep up with this strategy, I'm just afraid I'm confusing him by putting him back to bed and then waking him 30-40 minutes later for his three hour feed.  Here is a rough outline of his schedule

Wake for 1st feed between 5 and 7am
Usually straight back to bed
Second feed at 10:00 am
A time from 10:30-11:30
S time from 11:30-12:00
Up again @ 12:00 high maintenance until next feed at 1
Third feed at 1:00
A time from 1:30-2:30
S time from 2:30-3:00
Up again at 3:00 high maintenance until next feed at 4:00pm
Fourth feed at 4:00
A time from 4:30-5:30
S time from 5:30-6:00
Up again at 6:00 high maintenance until next feed at 7:00pm
Fifth feed at 7:00
A time from 7:30-8:30
S time 8:30 -9:00
9:00 bath time and last bottle
Night sleep with next feed between 5:00-7:00 am

I think I have a spirited little boy, he is physically active and very alert, he would rather look all around than look at my face.  I take no offence to that.

Any suggestions would be great.

Carter's mom
Tina

[MJMom]

Vieira- I asked the Nap mod to create your own thread from the last time you posted.  I wanted you to have your own thread to make sure all of your questions were answered.  I'll be posting another response for you here:

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=109421.0

Thanks!

[Yuliya]

Hi Alissa, Aly.

Sorry for not replying to your message as of Nov.20. I had few issues with breastfeeding so I hung out in Breasfeeding part for a while. Whisper was doing good for some time with a tweaked routine however few days in a row she is again crying a lot to go to sleep at night and it again takes me couple of hours to put her to sleep.
Her routine changed a little bit since she can handle more awake time now (about 1.25-1.35h). Could you please look at her routine. May be you would have some suggestions.

7 is am wake up
7:05 A (diaper change)
7:20 E
7:50 A
8:25 S (1.5h)

10:00 A (diaper change)
10:15 E
10:40 A
11:30 S (1h50mins - 2h)

1:30 A (diaper change)
1:45 E
2:15 A
3:00 S (could be anywhere b/n 45 mins - 1h30mins)

4:30 A (diaper change)
4:45 E
5:15 A
5:50 S (catnap 30-45mins) however if 3 nap is short then if she sleeps longer i let her do.

6:30 A (bath)
7:10 E
7:30 S here the crying starts. could last anywhere between 30 mins - 2 hours

10:00 or 10:30 DF
3:00am E (she started waking up to feed again)

I tried to cut down on awake time but then she takes short naps during a day and the day is way too long or it takes her longer to fall asleep for naps so in total it is still about 1h 30 mins awake time. Also she started waking up at night too. Last night she woke up at 9pm screaming. It sounded like a pain cry but she didn't have gas so we just reswaddled her and I fed her and she fell asleep on the breast. I didn't dare to wake her up. Couple of nights ago she cried almost till 12:30 am sleeping on and off for 20-40 mins.

Like you have said they are changing so much at this age till 6 months so we don't know what to expect every night.

Thank you so much,
Yuliya

[MJMom]

It almost seems to me that her day naps got so good, that it is effecting her night sleep.  Looks like she is getting almost 5.5 hrs of day sleep.  If we're shooting for 11 hrs of night sleep, that would mean 16 - 16.5 hrs of sleep total.  I noticed that once it was 3.5 hr EASY, the other times were 3 hrs. 

You're coming into time for lots of change.  Over the next month, she is going to transition from her nice little 3 hr EASY to 4 hr EASY.  She also likely just recently went through a GS, and will likely hit another one in a couple of weeks.  And if I recall correctly her A times will increase as well.  The morning nap is often an extension of the night time sleep, so I would leave that A time alone, but the other A times, try to get a little bit longer.  Additionally, try to transition her gradually to a 3.5 hr EASY.  You're shooting for 4 hr EASY at about 4 months, so this is going to go gradual over the next several weeks. 
It may become a bit more like EASAY to get to 3.5 hrs.  I see we have a bit of that already. 

HTH!

[Yuliya]

I always had that big question in my mind about 3.5h routine: should it be 1h 30mins of S vs. 2h of A or should it be 1h45mins of S vs. 1h45mins of A? As you noticed she has once 3.5h (1h30mins A vs. 2h S)and the others 3h. Usually 3.5h is time after her morning nap as she is most rested and I try to give her a lot of stimulation. I was a little bit scared to let her sleep for 2 h for the 3-rd nap since it is closer to the night sleep or keep her awake for longer as it backfired couple of times and she ended up being awake for 1h40mins and just 45mins of sleep.
You know, I wasn't too sure if she was getting too much sleep during the day or not enough since I had extended her A time. I was in doubt if she is OT or UT by the end of the day. I wrote that her bed time is 7:30pm but it takes her a long time to settle. Do you think 5-1/2 h of day sleep is too much if I want her to sleep for 11 hours at night? I thought at this age they are supposed to have 16 - 18 hours of total sleep.

Any way today I tried to extend her 2-nd and 3-rd naps and she had:
1. 7:10am -8:30 am Awake time (1h 20mins)
    8:30 - 10:10am S (1h 40mins)

2. 10:10am - 11:50am A-time (1h 40mins)
    11:50am - 1:45pm S (1h 55mins)

3. 1:45pm -  3:18pm A-time (1h 38 mins)
    3:18pm - how much should I let her sleep then? (?)

I thought Whisper is still too young to be awake for longer stretch of time than length of her naps. Am I wrong? I mean if she is awake for 1h40mins then her nap should be at least 1h40mins or longer?
Her 3rd nap is always the trickiest since total length of her two previous naps is already 3h40mins and if I let her sleep for 1h40mins it would be already 5h20mins of total sleep plus she should take a catnap before bath. If I don't let her to catnap then it would be way too long before her bed time and she would be really OT, if I let her sleep then it would be more than 5h.30mins of day sleep. So I am confused how the EASY should go then if I want her to be in bed by 7:30pm and hopefully asleep before 8pm.

thanks.
yuliya

[MJMom]

Yuliya,

I'd love to give you a solid answer on how that looks, but I remember back then was a different day every day.  Just when it was the same for a few days, it would change up again. 

Biggest rule of thumb, as each baby is different.  If the great naps start causing night wakings, a decrease day sleep is needed.  Otherwise, let her sleep!

The four month mark and four hour easy brings on a lot more smoothness of the routine.  In the mean time, don't get worked up over the times, watch her cues, and enjoy her increased socialization, mobility and smiles!