3mo old SCREAMS for 1/2hr before naps and only naps short!!!

[maxsmom]

my 3mo. EBF DS is on a 3 hour EASY which starts roughly at 6am and ends promptly at 6pm.  I cluster feed one time between 3 and 6 then put him down in his crib at 6pm and DF between 10-11 and he usually cruises through the night until 6am...the evening seems to be the only part that we have  going for us
the trouble starts with the naps and is 3 fold - first comes the screaming, inconsolable baby, second is the short 30-45 minute length of them which eventually messes up our feeding schedule and 3rd is the missing but i suspect needed catnap from 5-6pm.
i can just about set my clock by his fussiness which starts about 1 hour after eating (btw, I thought at 3mo he is supposed to be able to handle more awake time?).  in the case of both his morning naps, after easily 30min of rocking and shushing while he screams until he is red in the face, he will fall off for a catnap. with such little sleep under his belt in the morning,  by the afternoon nap he is a pretty unhappy little guy and i usually but him in his car seat and we go for a walk or errands at which point he will sleep and sleep and sleep.... until i wake him for the 3pm feed.
our schedule most days looks roughly like this (give or take 20min - which i then adjust for)
6-7 eat and activity
7:00-7:30 crying
7:30-8:15 asleep  nap #1
8:15-9:00 awake and pleasant eats at 9am and can usually go another 1/2 hour in good humor

9:30-10:00 crying until he falls asleep
10-1045 asleep nap #2
10:45 awake again!!!!!
here is were i really run into trouble because he can't wait until noon to eat so i end up feeding him around 11:30 and by
12pm he is grumpy and OT I think....so I put him in the car seat and off we go - he will sleep until 3pm easily
I wake him at 3 to eat, he eats again around 4:30 at which point he is also yawning and tired seeming but he will not sleep and he will not let me put him down...by 5:30 neither one of us can wait for him to go to bed so we start the bed time routine and he is in bed asleep by 6:00-6:20pm

Help!!!  what am i doing wrong here???  oh and I also need to add that all this is a new development in the last 2-3 weeks....previously we were 6a-7p with very little problem (accept i wish he would sleep that extra hour in the morning)

thanks for any insights -
Britt

[deckchariot]

Big hugs to you Britt!!!  From 3-4 mos is a pretty major transition time for your lo, so hang in there!  First, some of the nap issues are developmental.  Babies organize night sleep first (0-3 mos) and day sleep later (3-6 mos), so some of it will work out over time.  That said, there are a few things you can try.

Most 3 mos olds can handle 1 hr 20-1 hr 30, but some can go longer.  By 4 mos, many los can go 2 hrs.  Generally, a 45 min nap would indicate that your lo is ready for longer A time.  However, if he's crying for 30 min before hand, that may not be the case.    Have you tried starting your winddown routine  a bit earlier or later to see if that makes a difference?  If he's up at 6, maybe start his wind down around 7:15 (instead of 7) or even 7:30.  Is your wind down basically the rocking/shhing?  Is he swaddled?  That last 15 - 30 min of A time should be really low key - and he may be quite fussy - so just walking around the house, cuddling, etc.  then start the wind down.

With our dd, we would go into her room, diaper change, close the blinds, swaddle, sit in the chair and rock, then start shh/pat on our shoulder, and put her in the crib when she was still awake and continue the shh/pat til she was asleep.  If she woke early, we'd try more shh/pat to get her back to sleep (but I'd only try for 30 min), then I'd get her up , feed her if she seemed hungry, then basically a diaper change and right back to bed.

So if your ds's first nap is short, try shortening the rest of his A times - so it's basically just eat and back to bed.  That OT really can build over the course of the day (as you are discovering).  Then for the last nap of the day, if he's not napped well all day - just do what you can to get him to nap so you don't have a super OT baby for bedtime.  Preserving that night sleep will help you (and ds) make it through the next day!

Hang in there!  It will get better.  You may want to check out the EASY FAQ on transitioning to 3.5 or 4 hr EASY, as he may be in the early stages of heading that direction.

HTH
michelle

[maxsmom]

michelle/deckchariot -
thank you for your helpful response....and actually, i have some success to report...after reading many of the other threads i realized the only consistent wind down is the one we do at bedtime.  we don't really have a wind down for naps. today after about an hour of activity time we went into his room, put on his lullaby CD and rocked in the chair. we did this for about 30 min and then i put him in his crib.  i pulled a chair up next to the crib and sat there with my hand on his chest, shushing when he started to fuss....10-15min later he was OUT!!  this worked for both naps that i tried it on.  the other nap was in his car seat while we did errands.
it also occurred to me that he sleeps really well in his dark room at night and in his car seat when the awning is up and a blanket is covering, creating a dark space.  his room is south/east exposure and therefore very bright during the day so today i hung some heavy, long towels over the the windows (covering his lovely little window treatments ) creating a darker room.  the first nap was 1.20 min - the second was about 1 hour but that is soooooo much better.   if that continues to work it might be worth it to invest in some room darkening shades.
the crying today was really minimal. poor guy i think he was so overtired and his mommy had no clue how to help...oops.
i will keep you all posted on his progress.
thanks - Britt

[deckchariot]

Britt - you are amazing!!!  Great job on figuring out what your little guy needs!!!  Babies really love routine!  I''m so glad naps were better.  Having a good nap makes the rest of the sleep training much more bearable!  Keep up the good work, and let me know how you get on!

michelle

[maxsmom]

update- this morning he woke at 7am to eat, by 8am he started to fuss so we went into his room. lowered the shades, diaper change, read a book and rocked in the chair...all this went on for about 1/2 hour.  so at 8:30 i put him in his crib (btw we have stopped swaddling him as he was fighting it to much - he is able to suck on his hands pretty well) he got a little fussy but i stayed with him, shhhhhing and he looked at him mobile and sucked on his hand for another 30 minutes, had one last good quick cry and fell asleep at about 9am....only to wake again at 9:30!!!!!  so the good news is that the shrieking for 30 min prior was eliminated.  i think because of all the quiet play before sleep time....but why such a short nap?  should i have stretched the activity time until like 8:15 and then gone into his room for diaper change, book and rocking?
i fed him again at 9:45 by 10:30 he started to fuss. this actually didn't surprise me because he had such a short nap earlier.  unfortunately, stupidly...i tried to stretch his A time and by 1050am I had a screaming Mimi on my hands...poor guy....took 15 min to settle him and I did so with lots of rocking and a pacifier ( i know i cave in so easily don't i).  it is nearly 12pm and I hear him stirring up there which means he has only slept for 40min or so.  ugh!!!  i will let him be and see if he can get himself back to sleep, right? or should I go in and rock/sshh/ and jiggle him back to sleep?
i have read that it is not unusual at this age to have a short early morning nap. but then the mid-morning nap should be a nice long one....oh boy he is starting to get noisy up there better go take a peek and maybe give a jiggle.
i hope this rant is helpful to others and any thoughts you all may have would be appreciated....
thanks- Britt

[deckchariot]

Oh Britt, I know this is hard!  Don't be too hard on yourself for caving in with the paci!  A 30 min nap this morning would seem to indicate that he was overtired, and it looks like all told, he was up for 2 hrs prior to actually falling asleep, so that's probably too long.  Great job on the quiet play time in his room! I'm wondering if when you put him in his crib at 8:30, he wasn't tired enough to fall asleep, but then by 9, he was too tired.  I know with my dd at that age, her window was very small - and I missed it more often than not!  Honestly though, I wouldn't change that morning routine, I think it's just a matter of him getting used to putting himself to sleep (it took him a half hour, then he was too tired, couldn't do it), but your routine there looks good - keep at the wind down routine and the shh/pat.  You could try heading to his room 5 or 10 min later, but I wouldn't push it too much, especially with the 30 min winddown and the fact that he can take a bit to go to sleep.

That said, if the morning nap is bad, don't try to push his A time after that.  In fact, you'll probably need to shorten it.  So, if he was up from his am nap at 9:30, he's not going to make it to 11, probably not even 10:30.  Which means basically, feed him, and start your 30 min quiet play into the wind down.  You want to try to get him caught up so he doesn't get more and more OT as the day goes on.

It will get easier, I promise!!!