6 week old baby still nightmare to nap

[caprizzosa]

My lo is 6 weeks old today.
He feeds well, I took him to Health Visitor today and he weights a whooping 5.2KG.
At night time he sleeps very well; he wakes up usually twice to feed and goes to sleep straight away.

Now nap times are a nightmare. I have to say I still find it very difficult to find his cues. I have finally received my book and slowly I am reading it and I have understood that you have to watch for the first yawn. I do this the problem is that I usually see this about 30 -40 minutes after feeding...so I change his nappy, put him in his sleeping bag (I know what you say about swaddle but he gets into a state when I do it and it is always worse. he also likes to put his hand in his mouth or near his face (the health visitors says he has found his hands already...but not sure what this means) close the curtains ans sing to him before I put him down. He either starts crying before I even put him down, or he starts crying as soon as I put him down. If he gets into a state a pick him up and calm him down before trying again, if not I try to calm hi down in his crib. It is getting easier to get him to sleep now (before we used to have to feed him after 45 minutes....) He takes approximately 25 minutes to fall asleep but I still stay with him because you never know with him. Now the problem is that he will wake up again after 40 -50 minutes and he does not wake up happy. I then try not to rush to him but he quickly starts crying and then it is almost impossible to settle him again.
I think I may be putting him too early or too late for his nap? How do I know which one it is? It is so difficult to get him right. However if he goes in he baby Carrier e falls asleep straight away.
That is what I had to do tonite.
He fed around 4.15 and by 5.00pm he was getting into sleep, a few jolts later and by 5.20 he was definitely calm and looked asleep. but at 6pm he started moaning and a slight cry. I left him a bit and then went back to sh/pat and he settle for another 10 minutes but then he woke up and started crying more and more. So I though he might be hungry? so I fed him and then he cried and cried and cried.....until1 hour later I gave up and put him in his baby carrier.

How do I do to read his cues? and how do I break this 45 minute nap? What do I do when he wakes up grumpy? I would not mind it if he was relaxed and happy but he isn't.

Please help!!

Natalia

[becky1969]

I think LO is OT (overtired).  At 6 weeks, your baby can barely handle 60 minutes of awake time.  Awake time is from the moment they wake up until the second they fall asleep.  So you have to feed, diaper, wind down, pat/shush, all within an hour! I suspect since you're saying 30-40 minutes AFTER eating that you may be waiting too long to put him down for nap.

I'd go by the clock a bit for a little while.  If we're aiming for 60 minutes of A time, then we start our wind down procedures (changing diaper, rocking or singing, etc.) 10 minutes before, or 50 minutes after they woke up.  Let's make sure you have a nice predictable wind down routine.  That's one of the most valuable things you can do at this tender age!

Keep working on the shush/pat.  It's totally predictable that he won't get it at first! And in fact, it may take a good month or more for him to be able to fall asleep completely on his own without your help.  BUT, if we can time nap better you should see him sleep a good 1.5-2 hours without any additional help from you!

Give that a try for a couple of days and report back, and we'll work on it some more!


If he wakes early from a nap, you can try to shush/pat him back to sleep for 15-20 minutes.  If that doesn't work, then you feed and put back down for another nap 15 minutes later or so.