A time for 5 month old who only takes 20-40 min naps

[J+M]

I've just read Secrets of the Baby Whisperer and have also recently been reading these boards. I've found a lot of great information!

I been using a basic EASY routine since my baby was 1 month old.  I'm just now trying to really tweak it so that I can truly get all the benefits of EASY since I was not following it 100% (not knowing all the methods to use, just the basic E-A-S order of things) at night and nursed before bed (though she slept 9 hours a night since about 2 months old) and I did bounce her while doing shh/pat before naps.  Since reading evervthing I've been doing shh/pat without the bouncing and now she's off nursing before bedtime, doesn't need to be bounced to go to sleep, and she's going down for naps just fine.  She's even doing pretty well sleeping through the night still, though we're still working on getting her used to going to sleep without nursing immediately beforehand.

OK...so my question is, my baby still only sleeps 20-40 minutes for each nap.  I've read this can be due to overtiredness so I've done a couple things.  I've lowered my A time from 1 hour 45 min - 2 hours to 1 hour 15 min.  She's not rubbing her eyes at this point but she is making little cries that tell me she might be approaching tired.  She still naps the same.  I've also tried to not overwhelm her while playing and have been giving her one or 2 things at a time to explore while she's on her mat.  I have continued to take her and read to her about 5-15 minutes before she goes down for her nap as her "wind down" time.  But still, the same nap times.

What am I missing?  Is it just her age and there's nothing more I can change?  
Just trying to work on one thing at a time and extending her naps is a big thing I'd like to fix right now.

Thanks so much!

[Tweakster]

Hi there, I just went and am going through this with Finn.  I was thinking that his short naps were all OT but in fact they were UT causing OT which was the difference.  At 5 months they seem to take a big increase in A and by 6 months they are well over 2.5 hours.  I would think that she might be just getting a bit bored and tired at her old A times.  Can you give her a push...what temperament is she?  Even though Finn is Touchy he seems to be only Touchy with sleep so I can still get a good push on the A times.  Change up the scenery, do something active especially at the morning A.  You want to get the morning pushed out otherwise it is really hard to drop that CN which they need to do.  I only found that overstimulation was more of an issue between 3 -5 months and now they really crave the stimulation.

It's just a guess on my part, bumping this up for you so the mods can take a look.  Could you please post your EASY in EAS format so they can see the whole day, awake, naps, A times, and bedtime.

[J+M]

I'm still working out my EASY schedule and really giving it a lot of attention, and taking notes.  I'll post it after the day is done.

I think you are right.  Given her short naps, I tried a 3-hr day but she just wasn't tired when I was due to put her down.  It was our first time doing pu/pd rather then pat/shh and it took an hour of pu/pd before she went to sleep.  But the pay-off was immediate because she woke after 20 min (like usual) but this time she just rolled on her side, sucked on her fingers, and put herself back to sleep!    Then she woke up 45 min after that and did the same thing to put herself back to sleep again! 

So I think the combination of being UT along with teaching her how to sooth herself with pu/pd is the key for us.  She's on her 2nd nap of the day so I'm waiting to see if it happens again.

Thanks for posting!  Update to come...

[Tweakster]

Great we can help you tweak when you are ready.  You sound like you know what has to be done :-)