Hi,
I discovered this website a while ago & really find it very helpful.
At the moment my daughter who will be 16 weeks old on Sunday is taking short naps-20-40 minutes since last Friday (so almost a week.) Prior to that she was taking good naps , she may have woken up during them &once her dummy was replaced& she was re-swaddled she would go back to sleep, then she started taken naps this length unbroken especially the first two which ranged from 1 hr 15 to 2 hours and shorter ones in the evening. Now however they are all 25-40 minutes (usually about 40), with the first one occasionally being the longest at about 55 minutes.. She is no longer swaddled& has not been for a good few weeks(& as had a few weeks of good naps without the swaddle) now she uses her grobag and she sleeps from 8ish in the evening to 8ish the next morning without a stir and no need for her dummy.
She was on the 3 hour easy, feeding at 8, 11, 2, 5&7:10-7:30 bedtime at 8. Two days ago she started on the 3.5 hr easy and in terms of feeds she is going the 3.5 hrs no problem but due to the short naps she is very tired when it comes to her feed. She is not falling asleep while feeding (except once but generally doesn’t) but has been close to doing so. I didn’t post her routine as her routine, apart from feeds is very variable as she may be wrecked very soon after a feed and go to sleep then (I always separate it with a nappy change at least).
We were having a lot of trouble setting her but that seems to have gotten better.
I have tried a few things-making sure she went to sleep on the very first sign of tiredness (usually a yawn), another day I tried extending her activity time (Which I can only experiment with in the morning as by the time her other feeds come she has been awake a long time before and is very tired so I put her to bed on the first sign of tiredness after her feed.) I tried starting wind-down before doing her bedtime routine by doing a calming activity(just walking around house with her in sling - she did get very relaxed))&I tried making her bedtime routine less stimulating , as we were reading and singing to her, but now we just darken room, put her in grobag, listen to baby mozart for a while then I hold her for about 2 -10 minutes or until calm & put her to bed(this seems to have helped with settling but not the nap length.
She wakes up from her nap smiling and happy. I am wondering would you use shs/pat then even though she is calm. She/pat sued to make her more upset but now it seems to have no effect, she just stays wide awake and tries to look and smile at me.
I would not worry so much if she seemed content on short naps but by the evening she is very cranky and seems tired.
Sorry about the long email but I just want to make sure I have all the details..Any advice at all would be great.
