5 month old short naps and A time

[ENMS]

Hi!

I've been struggling with short naps since my DD was born and posted a couple of times on this board to get advice.  I'm confused these days because I seem to be having trouble with A times and she has started to take a longer nap once in a while (yay!!) but I don't understand how I can make this more consistent.

First, her morning A time has always been 15-30 minutes shorter that the rest of the day.  It's been 2 mornings in a row that after 2 hours of A time, she start making subtle signs of being tired (putting hands in face although usually her tired cue is really rubbing her eyes) and I put her down immediately, but she wakes up after 30 minutes, which I assume is OT (although she wakes up happy which confuses me  ).  Up until now she would be 1:30-1:45 max of A time for her first nap.

Also, she has started taking some longer naps (about 1/3 of the time) but always in the PM, around noon or 1PM.  But I don't see what is different on those days and I would like to extend the other naps but don't know how. I'm wondering if I should try W2S and if so, what time should I do it?  I do think I've got the A time about right (2:15 approx. for an almost 5 month old is that reasonable?).

Thanks

[becky1969]

If she's not *quite* 5 months old then 2h15 might be on the longish side.  We actually suggest 2 hours for when they turn 5 months old and 2h15 when they turn 6 months old.

However, that first nap sounds UT if you can believe it! From your description it sounds like when you do 2h15 A time in the afternoon you're getting a longer nap.  Is that correct? It could be that she no longer needs the shorter A time in the morning.  Chances are she's sleeping for longer stretches at night than she used to.  She's probably waking up more rested than she did at 3 months old, say, when she still had a feed or two in the night.

If you are getting a decent nap at 2h15 I think I'm inclined to suggest you give 2h15 a try in the AM too.  Knowing nothing else, a 30 min nap and waking happy sounds like UT to the "T".  Give 2h15 first thing a try for 3 days and let me know how that goes!

[ENMS]

Thanks for that advice! The weird thing is, she's been STTN since 6 weeks old but in the past month, she's been waking up much more often than before, maybe once every 3 nights or so. She does sleep approximately 10-11 hours however regardless and maybe she's resting more than before in those hours. I'm not sure why but I know that eating every 3 hours might be an issue so I'll try to extend that.

I'll keep trying over the next couple of days to play with the A time, I was just really confused because I thought 30 minutes was OT but I was putting her to bed barely when she showed a tiny tired cue because I was scared of getting her OT.  She's been on 2 hours during the day for a couple of weeks now, and last week I saw a slight increase to about 2h15 minutes.

Will keep you posted!!

[becky1969]

She should definitely be on a 4 hour EASY right now, so that means feeds are spaced every 4 hours.  That can definitely mess with things.

There is much debate as to whether a 30 min nap is OT or UT, so you aren't the only one confused!    for my son, 30 minutes was ALWAYS UT and a 45 min nap was OT.  The way I think about it is that if he's UT he can't even complete a full sleep cycle, whereas if he's OT he would wake at the first sleep transition because he'd jolt himself awake (OT causes more jolting).  But I know other moms swear for them 30 min is OT.    The moral of this story? There's no hard/fast rule here, you have to look at your child's behavior.  In your case waking happy sounds UT.