Please help!
My little girl has just turned 4 months old, and she has NEVER napped past 30 - 45 minutes unless someone is holding her. The problem is, she is not cranky when she wakes up. She may cry a little when she first wakes up, but then once I go in to settle her, she just starts smiling and laughing at me. I know she is still tired though because she yawns and rubs her eyes about 10 minutes after waking up, and she almost gets to sleep several times but then becomes fully alert again. I have tried everything I can think of to get her to go back to sleep in her crib, with no success. On a rare ocassion I can get her to go back to sleep, but it is very rare, and even then I have to sit by her crib with my hand on her.
When I first started to tackle her short nap problem, I tried to use the wake to sleep method, and go in and pat her gently when she started to stir. No luck. I tried for several days with absolutely no success. The PU/PD method doesn't apply, because she doesn't cry when I am in the room. I have tried just leaving her in her crib and leaving the room to see if she will go back to sleep, but she just laughs and plays. She will start to cry after a while, but just out of boredom, because as soon as I go back in the room and she sees me, she smiles again. Since she never did sleep longer than 40 minutes in her crib during the day, I thought perhaps she didn't know what I was trying to get her to do. So I would pick her up and hold her for the second part of her nap for a few days, and sure enough, she would go back to sleep. Once I as confident she knew she was supposed to be sleeping longer, I left her in her crib and tried to get her back to sleep. It worked maybe twice, but now I feel like I am back at the beginning.
She was sleeping well at night, only waking once anytime between 4 and 6 to eat, but now her night time sleep has started to get interrupted as well. She now wakes several times a night and needs help getting back to sleep. (Put her paci back in and put our hands on her) We are going to try to wean her off her paci at night time as we think that she may be beginning to use it as a prop at night, but not even her paci can get her to go back to sleep during the day.
She is currently on a 4 hour routine with about 1 hr 45 minute A time. She is in bed by 7:30 - 7:45 every night. I have tried giving her shorter A time, and longer A time, but it didn't seem to help at all. I have been trying to think about overstimulation, but I can't think of anything that would be overstimulating her. Maybe I just don't know what would be overstimulating her? She doesn't lay on the floor with toys over her, she lays under her mobile for no more than 10 minutes a day. Normally she sits in her bumbo chair alot and watches me around the house, or plays quietly on the floor looking at things. We go for walks almost everyday, but she normally looks around at the surroundings for a while and then starts to play with her toes. Sometimes she will fall asleep early for her nap in her stroller. And naps are no different on days that we go for walks than days when we stay at home.
Nap ritual normally consists of being put in her sleep bag, quiet time in her room, and then a lullaby while I hold her by her crib, and put in her in the crib as I sing the lullaby the second time. Sometimes she will go right out, other times she struggles a bit for about 5 minutes, but getting her to go down for her nap isn't normally a problem.
Please, if anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated. And sorry about the long post, but I was trying to include as much information as possible.
THANK YOU!
