Hello everyone,
My LO (now 13 weeks) has been napping for only 45 minutes at a time for at least 5 weeks - she started by having short naps in the morning and then all naps became 45 mins without me noticing until I suddenly realised she never slept more than 45 mins.
About
2 weeks ago she then starting waking every hour or so in the night and I realised that I needed to do something - had a few days feeling really desperate. I spent lots of time re-reading the BW books, having some help from a BW friend and using the fantastic posts on this site, so I thought I'd post what worked for me, in case it's any help to anyone else
. I can now extend every nap .. and my lovely happy smiley baby is back.
What I did:
1.I had got into some AP and was rocking LO to sleep for every nap (I even knew I was stopping her self settling as she couldn't suck her thumb when I was doing this), so first thing was to getting her to self settle in her cot (I moved her from her little carry cot to her big cot at the same time as starting this) using a version of shush/pat (she hates patting.. at this point I shushed and put a hand firmly on her chest). My LO seems to learn quickly and within 1.5 days was settling herself for most naps and night without anyhelp from me - if she's OT because I missed her cues/can't believe she wanted to sleep again so soon - I now just shush and hold down her legs - always in her cot
2. Then I started to work on the naps - I didn't have much success for the first few days I tried W2S and holding joints, shush pat and got a bit down about it so decided that I'd work on naps for the first nap of the day and the second one if I could face it, but for the third nap and cat nap I'd just take her out in the buggy/car seat for some sanity!!!
3. I decided to experiment with what might work ... my LO hates being restricted, so I stopped putting my hand on her chest, she's always hated patting, so I don't do that... then suddenly I found what worked:
- going in at 35 mins as Tracey suggests... putting my hand on her thighs and holding her through the jolts
- if she looks like she's waking up, I shush until she closes her eyes properly again (a few seconds now...)
- I stay holding her for about 30 mins until she's through the light sleep and back into deep sleep... I then get about 30 mins more Y time... I'm hoping that I'll be able to phase out this as she gets used to sleeping for 1hr 30 mins
My key advice would be to make sure you keep your sanity and don't try and extend every nap at the beginning......and to experiment with what works for your LO using all the great suggestions on the site.
.... anyway... now need to see if I can reduce my involvement and see if she can do it all by herself!!!
HTH......
