Someone who has killed the 45-minute nap monster PLEASE HELP ME!!

[Tamar A]

DS is 3 months 1 week old. He has been taking 45 minute naps for about a month now, and only 2 of them a day. This is not enough sleep because he is crabby ALL THE TIME except for his first A time of the day. I have tried extending his naps by every means known to man except CIO. I have tried not extending his naps and helping him have more (he wouldn't take more). I try w2s almost every nap, I was only successful once. I try shh-pat to extend, that only worked once, too, and after 30 minutes of shh-pat!
   This morning after he woke up after 40 minutes, (I did try w2s but it didn't work), I shh-patted him for 50 minutes. He would drop right off, stay out for 10 minutes, then wake and cry, go back to sleep within a minute or two, stay out for another 10 minutes, then wake and cry. Finally I gave up as it was time for his next feed. When I picked him up out of the crib, he immediately began crying and rubbing his eyes, yawning and nuzzling me. I was so angry I wanted to bite him, or just leave him on the nursery floor and leave the house. (I put him back in his crib and went to my bedroom and threw shoes at the wall for a few minutes.) Right now he's in his gym half-fussing half-playing, and I'm so irritated I don't really even want to play with him  . I need help because I hate feeling this way; I love my boy and want to enjoy him.
    Here is how the mornings have been going:
 6:45-7:15 wake, eat, dress, activity
 8:30-8:45 wind-down; diaper change, story, lights out, swaddle, lullabye and into crib.
    half an hour later, w2s which doesn't work (how much should he stir to make it work? maybe I'm afraid of waking him?)
 9:15-9:30 wakes up crying inspite of my being there with the pressure at the jolts.
       wake-up until 10:00; shh-pat, usually very unsuccessful.

I can't tell you the routine from there on out, because it's different every day because he's so tired!! And so am I....he wakes 3-4 times a night and I NEED him to take naps so I can get at least one a day! PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME!

[Diana1981]

This happen to me exactly the same way....
Ds was sleeping 45min naps, night wakings....I tried pu/pd, shh/pat, wakt to sleep, etc.....nothing really worked except for shh/pat a couple of times. I realized I needed a much more structure routine and really sticking to it. That worked for me and, of course, the fact that DS does not need much sleep. At 3 months he was fine with 3 45min naps.


Dont try extending A times too much, because it will probable make him more angry. Maybe he needs you near him in order to feel safe, needs to smell your scent. maybe his hungry. dont worry you`ll figure it out. good luck hun!

[Tamar A]

I know he's not doing it on purpose; the poor little mite is as tired as I am, and I know he needs my help to get enough sleep. That's why I need some help. I feel so horrible for being upset with him, it makes me feel just awful about myself as a mommy. Sometimes I get a little alarmed at how upset I am, but I think that's the sleep deprivation making itself known. I'd like to know, if anyone did w2s and it worked; at what point in the nap did you do it? And how much of a stir should i be looking for? An almost-wake-up, or just a twitch and a deep breath?

[Diana1981]

w2s only worked once for me sweetie! I tried after 30 min of sleeping but he woke up and started smiling at me....

[jswmom]

Hi.  First, BIG HUGS to you.  I have been there, I know how you feel.  It's tough sometimes because you want the routine to work and have high expectations, and when it doesn't work, I used to end up more frustrated than it's worth. 

Not sure if this will help you, but based on my experience with my DS, here is one thing to consider... I know that 45 min naps usually mean UT according to the babywhisperer books.  However, at that age, I found that 45 minute naps actually meant OT for my DS (guess he's a little different ).  He would cry and cry at the 45 minute mark.  If it were UT, he would have woken up a little happier.  Anyway, I looked back at my journal and at 3 months, my DS was staying awake only about 1.5 hours (which meant I had him in the crib at 1.25 hours and which gave him the 15 minutes he needed to babble/mantra and put himself to sleep by 1.5 hours).  I noticed that your first A time is almost 2 hours.  My DS is now 6 months and can't even do a full 2 hours during his first A time of the day.

Anyway, that's just something to think about.  As I said, most ppl will say 45 minutes means UT, but for my DS who woke up grumpy at 45 minutes, it actually meant OT.  Once I got that straightened out, we got longer naps and better nights.  However, as a side note, it did take about a week of going down for naps much, much earlier before we overcame all of the accumulated OT.

Good Luck!
Michelle

[deb]

Not sure if you've seen this - https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=649.0 . We had similar issues and MAN, was Josie an overtired baby! (Plus I was run ragged putting up with the crankiest baby on the planet. ) Tracy gave us a consult that helped a LOT. Getting Josie's reflux treated was another huge help; till then, we didn't realize that babies HAD reflux - the rest of the world just called it "spitting up" and told us we had to live with it.

Failing that, you can try giving more frequent naps for a while till you feel like you're caught up. Josie was taking 5-6 naps daily while they were short, which helped put off the "Witching Hour" from 3PM till more like 6PM - when DH was home to take her off my hands for a while.

[dsokos]

Many, many hugs to you!!  I know what you mean with being so frustrated.  My dd had a dreadful nap day yesterday....I had to leave her on the living room floor crying so I could go cry myself for 5 minutes.  In fact, she didn't nap at all for 5.5 hrs.  It was horrible for both of us.

I try to use w2s too.  For my lo, I do it at 32 minutes after she has fallen asleep. I think I have a 50% success rate.  I do it before she stirs and only until I see a flinch.  anything more and she wakes up.  p/s and pu/pd don't really work for my lo....too stimulating. Once she's up from a nap, I can't every get her back down.  And, once the short nap happens, the whole day is off and she's OT all day long, bringing on more short naps!  They say it gets better.
Best wishes and good luck!

[Tamar A]

Ok, so another question; I totally agree if they have short naps just jam lots of them in there until they're caught up; what if, after two short naps, nothing will put them back down, and I mean NOTHING, not the car, not the swing, the stroller, not even my swaddling him and dancing up and down the hallway for hours. Then of course bedtime is HELL because he's screaming and holering and nothing will quiet him. Suggestions?

[dsokos]

I don't know, but I am in that situation right now...she got so OT that she could not take her catnap....hubby out now with her in the car....I doubt she sleeps.  Luckily though, she is not screaming - yet.  She's just in the zone...I feed like a horrible Mom for not being able to help her / handle this    I just don't know what to do.  Two short naps put us WAY off our routine and b/c she was bf, she didn't get to go down in time for her next due nap. 

Can anyone out there help us? 

[Tamar A]

Oh, {{{{{hugs}}}}} dsokos, it's so hard, isn't it? That's exactly how I feel so much of the time, like a good Mommy would be able to help him get the sleep he needs, and probably wouldn't feel like screaming at the world when he wakes up AGAIN after 35 minutes of nap. If I figure out what's going on, I will certainly post here so you can tryit.
   One thing I have been doing that has worked 3 times so far (out of like 25 attempted naps, but still...that's something!), is winding down like 45 minutes before I think he'll need a nap. He only gets the gym or noisy toys right after eating; then I let him sit and look at pictures (he has a slideshow of animals and family on my computer), I put him in the sling while I dust or tidy up, or we go for a walk with the stroller hood up so he can't see too much at once. Apparently, if I'm VERY VERY VERY CAREFUL not to let him get too stimulated before a nap, he goes down more easily and then sometimes I can get w2s to work. (For my DS, the trick seems to be get him around the 37-minute mark.) There's a thread on the nap board, it's stickied, about OS and short naps that I found helpful and practical. Like I said, it's worked for 3 naps out of the past 4 or 5 days, but for us that's major progress, and encouraging enough that I can keep going with this madness.
         HANG IN THERE HONEY!! This is my first baby so I can't say from experience that it gets better, but it must, eventually!

[dsokos]

Thanks for the huge hug Tamara! Really need it today.  She did fall asleep for ~ 25 min in the car with DH.  Thank goodness. She's trying to go to bed now and fussing a little....we'll see.  She is so OT.  When they get like this it is horrible.  Just like you, I don't know what to do.  I feel like I am obsessing about her naps (my DH says so too) and am missing the fun of having her around. I can't get her to take extra naps as recommended either (she's 4.5 mo). 
I like the idea of a long wind down and will try tomorrow.  I try to keep the whole day low key since she doesn't nap long.  She generally goes down in ~20-25 minutes, but wakes up early.  I haven't been able to have w2s work in 2 days. I feel so terrible when she's so tired and I can't help her. 

How do you keep the feeds and naps on course?  My trouble is when she takes the short nap, it pretty much always then puts her next feed and nap both "due" in 2 hrs (we are on a 4hr EASY)!  I've been feeding her which means she doesn't go down for her next nap until~45-60 minutes after she should have.. perpetuating the cycle. Someone told me that when OT, w2s doesn't usually work.  It's becoming true here. 

You hang in there too!!     She is my first baby also and everyone tells me it gets better...I just want my baby to get the sleep she so desperately needs...and maybe I could catch up a little too.  The sleep deprivation makes everything so much worse.  I'll post anything that I find works too...

[sanrega]

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
My son is 17 weeks and he is also going through what you have just described. I'm finding very hard to cope with. He is as tired as I'm, whenever he naps I'm so happy to have a little break and try to give attention to my 13 years old who has been helping me a lot.
My worst time is waking up 3 to 7 times during the night.

[Tamar A]

I have DS on a 3 hour EASY (although the whole EASY thing is a joke at this point; but he eats every 3 hours is what I mean!), and if if looks like a nap will interfere with feeds, I start winding him down a little early. If it looks like he'll go to sleep, I let it happen; if he's resisting sleep, I feed him and do one very short activity, maybe a diaper change, maybe just a cuddle on the rocker before swaddling him, then I try again...not that it always works and I dont' know if its' the right answer; it's just what I'm trying at the moment.

Sanrega, we're still looking for the light at my house!! But like I said to Dsokos, we seem to be havinga  teensy bit of luck with a very long wind-down to prevent OT. Is your son a touchy or spirited one? Mine is and i think he's just always overstimulated. It is hard to cope with, especially when you're sleep deprived. Mine wakes up now 2-3 times anight for the past week, but before that we were looking at anything from 4-7 wakeups, and yeah, it's awful. I don't know what broke that; we just did. I'm trying a much longer winddown before bed, too.

[dsokos]

Still looking for the light here too!    The EASY part for us is only the feeds too, every 4 hours.  I'm going to try the long wind down today if she gets OT (probably when she gets OT).
It is awful for them and us to be so sleep deprived.  We will get there, one way or another.  We are good Moms because we are trying our best!  (((hugs))) 

[waterdragon]

Hi all
I've been posting on the general sleep forum because  our naps and NW and EW are all an issues.My girl is 18 weeks old and has sleep difficulties since very early.
Ive just read Debs post on the napping FAQ and it is very like our situation. We started out with 20 min wakenings  now she goes 45 mins then awake  but upset and tired .We have been using a swing to exent all naps (she needs about 2.5 hr twice a day and a cat nap in the pm).Im trying to reduce this now but with out it I would (and have  been )exactly like you.
Night she sleeps ok till 4 then after this feed never settles.Her A time is still only exactly 1 hr and she 4/12 months!!
I know Tamar A exactly how you feel , Ive been though imense frustration and been at my wits end on many occassion.Like you this is my first  so its hard to imagine that they will grow up or out of it.

Deb , if you read this  , my situation is almost a mirror image of your problem in 2002. When you extended the A  time did it ever result in meltdowns and complete inability to sleep .Did it take long to drop the 4 am feed? My Lo is a very poor feeder (take 24 oz in 24 hrs - 6 feeds 4 hrly).Mild reflux -pretty much resolved now. When you dropped the 4 am feed was habitual wakening a problem ?Im pretty much awake now every day from 4 am and exahusted .