short naps for nearly 5 month old

[butterfly7478]

Hi

I've recently found this site and I'm really hoping somebody can help.  I started implementing EASY at about 7 weeks and my lo took to it really well, considering I was feeding on demand and feeding her to sleep, but she's still on roughly the same schedule.

Our days are something like this:

Anytime between 6-7: wakes and feeds in bed (quite often dozes - this is the naughty bit on my behalf)
7.30 - A - plays on mat, lots of play with mummy.
9.30 - S for about 30 mins
10.00 - E (she spends 10 mins tops eating!)
10.10 - A
12.00 - S again about 30 mins
12.30 - E
12.40 - A
2.30 - S 30 mins!
3.00 - E
3.10 - A
4.30 - S 30 mins!
5.00 - E (just started baby rice on Health visitor's recommendation but gets milk feed too)
5.30 - A
6.15 - E
6.30 - A - bath time
7.00 - S

After a poor month of being up 4/5 times in the night, she now seems to be settling back into her old routine of sleep at 7, wakes about 4 for feed and then back to sleep until about 6.30 am.

As you can see her naps are sooo short so she has to have more.  I can't get her to go back down again.  I've tried today giving her 15 mins downtime before naps and she's only slept for 20 mins each time!

I'd love to stretch her feeding cycle, she's bf but as we've been doing EASY for so long I think she's used to feeding as soon as she wakes!!!

She's definately teething and has been for a month so this could be it, but she's never been a good napper.  Can anyone offer me some advice or is there another bw book I should read now she's a bit older (I've read secrets of the bw). 

Thank you in advance for anyone who can help.

Anna
xxx     

[deckchariot]

Welcome to the boards!!!  You'll find lots of helpful support here!!

I'm wondering if her A times are a tad too long.  30 min naps often indicate OT.  At 5 mos, most bubs are doing 2 - 2.25 hrs of A time, and it looks like she's closer to 2.5.  Also, that first A time of the day is often the shortest (so that one may be even less than 2 hrs).  Also, if she's had a short nap, her next A time should be shortened, because she won't be as well rested to handle the longer  A time.  Here's a link that might be helpful:  http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=128419.0

So I would start by cutting back on her A time and for at least 3 days and see if that helps.

A 2nd BW book that I personally found really helpful was The BW Solves All Your Problems - though I wouldn't use that without having the first one handy as it really is the foundational book.

hth
michelle

[jana224]

Hi there -- I have the same issue, five month old daughter who sleeps 12 hours a night, but only naps most days for 30 minutes at a time (sometimes longer, but not much).  In the BW Solves Your Problems book, Tracy says that if your LO is taking short naps, BUT is content and happy throughout the day and sleeping well at night, then you don't really have a nap problem.  Instead, you have a baby who doesn't require a lot of daytime sleep.  My daughter is content and happy throughout the day and never irritable, even though she sleeps relatively very little in the day (no more than 2 hours total, across 2 and sometimes 3 naps).  At night, sometimes she wakes up at 5am for a quick feeding and then back to bed, and other times she sleeps straight through until 7-7:30am.  So how is your daughter's temperament through the day?
Jana

[butterfly7478]

Thank you for your replies, I really appreciate your help.  Our   mornings are a bit of a mess because I enjoy our cuddles too much whilst feeding her in bed and let her snooze, so I try to gauge her signs for her first nap.  However, I've started to get up properly in the mornings with her to try and see if that helps.  I tried putting her down earlier for her second nap but she just lay there for about 30 mins before going off.  Her A times are about 2 hrs on the whole, i try to make sure they're not any longer than that (I may have written my easy down wrong but if she wakes at 10 I try and get her back to sleep by 12 and so on).

i think she does need more sleep, she got up after her third nap and was sooooooo grouchy I had to put her down again after 10 mins.  it took 20 mins to get her to go back to sleep (which was pretty miserable because she was crying loads) and she only slept for about 15 mins but she was much better after that.

I think I'm trying too much at one time and I'm just all over the place.   I've got the EAS I want some Y!!!!

Anna
xxx

[deckchariot]

{{{{{hugs}}}}}}  Does she always wake right at the 30 min mark?  If so, you may want to try w2s.  If it's a bit more random, I would still focus on  A times.  If you try to keep the first one at 2 hrs, I'd cut that back to 1 hr 45 min and try that for at least 3 days.  If the nap is still short, shorten the next  A time - I'd say feed, maybe 30 min more of  A time, then into the wind down for nap.  If she's crabby with the short naps, then she's probably in an OT cycle, and the best way out of that is radically shortened A times.

Great point though from Jana - some bubs just like short naps, and do fine with that.  But if she's not happy, then let's see if we can get her some more naps.  Hang in there!!

[butterfly7478]

Thanks again for the advice.

On Friday she had a 1 1/2 hr nap!!!! Thought I may have cracked it (did w2s) but they've been short again ever since.  Also there was no crying when she woke, the only reason I realised she was awake was because I heard her banging her light show thing on the side of the cot!!  She was soooooo happy.  I did notice that she still had her dummy in when I did w2s (and when I checked her after about an hour - paranoid mummy!) so I'm wondering whether it's she can't get herself back off without her dummy (although she can manage this at night?!?!).

I've noticed now that she's fine all day on less sleep until after her third nap (at about 3.30pm) when she is so grouchy.  she's normally a content little baby but I can't do anything with her after this nap, except maybe go for a walk.


the weekends are always a bit different with having Daddy around so I'm going to try and shorten her A times again tomorrow.

Really want to crack this!

Anna

[deckchariot]

yay for a great nap!!!!  It's worth celebrating even if it's not been repeated!  Have you kept doing w2s and just haven't been able to extend with it or is that the only time you did it?  I did w2s for 2 weeks - and only got it to work maybe 1/2 the time but that was enough to help her figure it out on her own.  You may be on to something with the paci - when she wakes early from her nap and is unhappy - do you think it's because she lost the paci?  hmmm...you may want to ditch the paci if that's the case.  Or keep trying shorter A times and/or w2s.