7.5 mo still having short naps :(

[ccaawc]

Mrsfab,

the nite went ok, but with EW at 4ish. I tried to settle her with pd but she was so mad. I finally gave in n pick her up, and she cling on to me and response to anyone who try to take her from me with a loud cry. I feed her at 6 and she went back to sleep at 7. Easy is off again but I can't help it.

Agree with u about the hit n miss of naps. I put her down a 2.5hr A this morning n it's 45min nap again. I'm not sure if it really is 2.5 A though cause she might have woken a bit earlier but stayed quiet.  At best, I got them right for 3 days and then they are all missed for 2 months.

I find that dd can usually do a 9.5hrs nite, then start NW (if she goes back down n the nite continues) or EW (if she decides she doesn't want to sleep and stay up for hrs until morning). I wonder if I could shift her day forward so this 9 hrs overlap more with the adults' sleeping time. Or I'll ruin her body clock and 1 NW becomes 8.

[Tracyxx]

Tracy... Your LO looks adorable in that pic. My LO is 8 months and looks about the same size... What does he weigh, out of interest? As for the short naps, have you tried playing about with A times, or is 3.5hr when he shows his sleepy cues?

Hi Mrsfabmoretti,

kieran is a big boy and always has been, he was estimated to be 11-12lbs at birth so I had to be induced early and he was still 10.7lbs. I havn't had him weighed for a while because he has always been off the charts for height & weight so they stopped monitoring him at 5 months as they said he definately wasn't going to waste away (lol) but at 5 months he was 20lbs & 76cms and I don't think he has changed that much since then so I would say he's around 21-22lbs now.

Well a few replies to my posts yesterday all recommended that i should should increase my "A" time as the average for 7.5 months is 2.75-3hrs so today i increased to 2.30hrs and our naps got even worse which i though was impossible, but we had 20min naps all day!!  

So now im stumped what to try next, do i stick with 2.30hrs for a few days or do i try 2.45hrs which seems more age appropriate? What are you all on now?

Tracyx

[Chui]

Hi ladies. sorry I haven't been updating for sometime. I had some rough weeks with NWs /EW etc. For two days in a row recently I had NW EVERY HOUR. NO kidding. I feel so sorry for my little one. When I took him to DF him, he even cried..( which he has never before )... I think he just wanted to sleep and sleep as he was so tired..

Anyway, to update.. I actually thought my LO needed to increase his A time dramatically to get a decent nap. He was at a stage of needing 3.75 A time for me to get 2 hrs + nap. Yes, although I did get that really good nap with the 1st A  time , obviously his second nap needed to be capped in the evening to preserve BT. I did manage to get a good night with that 1st day... However, it went down hill the next day and the very next with those NWs every hour.

This is not to say that all the advice I got was wrong . I think what my LO needed was the A time increase after his 1st nap.

So, I did as Tassie adviced after rereading my BWSAYP book again. I put my LO down the minute he fussed at 9:10am with a 7am wake up. ( after all those rought NWS he slept and I had to wake him up so I manged to start my day at 7am) He slept 1.5hrs. The next A time he could handle 3hrs ++ ( again I think I put him down too late so he was cranky and arching etc) but he managed to sleep 40mins,, but I extended it )....... I had a brilliant night... he had 2x NW - but this was because he rolled over and couldn't roll back. Once I rolled him back he went straight to sleep no fuss.


Following day... he woke up late I didn't wake him up at 7am ( my fault for not starting the day right ).. but our day 1st nap at 9 ish... 40mins... 2nd nap 1.5 hrs( I patted him for 20mins when he was coming at 40mins ) after 3+ A time. Fantastic night again... woke up 5ish because he rolled over again...!! rolled back - back to sleep no fuss. I woke him at 7am.

Today .. so far 1st nap 45mins... at 910am then he handled 3hr 25mins A time..for 2nd A time. I'm waiting to see what nap he does. ** Success - he woke up at 40mins I patted him again roughly 20mins and he went back to sleep** I'm hoping for a good night again!

But in conclusion, I actually reread (thanks to Tassie!) Tracy's book, and did what she said and I got better nights altogether.. I'm hoping this is the right way to go... !! (  * My first A time previously was 3.75... the next day I just bang straight went for when he fussed which was 2 hr 10mins after wake up.. )

I guess if your LO is really having bad nights, its no harm trying.. And even after 45mins of first nap Lo could handle 3+ hours no problems , no fussing etc.

[Chui]

Oh I forgot to add whilst I was reading Tracy did mention in her book page 243 - BWSAYP most babies now ake a 45min nap in the mornig and a longer one in the afternoon. some will go from two 1.5 hr nap to one 3hr nap.

So maybe my LO is the 1st case scenario.. that's why I relaxed on the first nap! but I always try to get that 2nd nap longer.

[mrsfabmoretti]

Hi again,

How is everyone getting on?

Tracy (not that I am an expert, you know my story!).. all the advice on here seems to recommend increasing A time 15 mins every 2-3 days, as it can take their body clocks a while to adjust. Hang in there!

Chui, I'm fascinated by your post. So the shorter A times have been helping? I am terrified of trying the shorter morning A time, as if he wakes early, then I'll have to try for three naps in one day again! Eeek.

Well, LO is still all over the place, but can usually get one longer nap. Which, incidentally, is usually in the afternoon. Can't remember the last time we got a really long AM nap. My mum has had him the last three days (whilst I work part time) and has been putting him down after about 4hrs, getting roughly an hour AM nap and an hour PM nap. Today, LO had 2hrs for both his AM and PM nap!!! 4 hrs for first A time, and 3 hrs for the second A time. Bet this was just a one off, though.

Oh, and did I mention that LO is now starting his day at 5.30am??? Not sure if it really counts as EW, as he is pulling an 11hr night.

[Chui]

Hi everyone!

Mrsfab - haha, I was a little terrified to go down that route too but since I was having so many NWs I thought it couldn't get any worse. We are still doing about the same routine and I haven't put LO for 1st nap after 9:30 am. Somehow he is grouchy by then. Yesterday, he was going to nap >1 hr 1st nap but I think that was because he was up and happy at 6:30am. I didn't know whether to let him or not... but I woke him up at 1 hr and he was not happy about that ! But lasted a good 3.5 hrs A time after. He was going to do 2hrs for his 2nd nap but I woke him up at 1.75 hrs cos I thought better wake him up just in case he didn't want to go to bed at about 7pm.
We are still having this rolling around in bed ( from tummy to his back and he can't roll back to his tummy ) so cries out... I left him for a bit since he wasn't crying for me ..and after 1-2 mins he went back to sleep... but woke up again in his next sleep cycle!! argh... so well I went to roll him back and he went back to sleep. This is happening a few times in the night! quite fustrating!

It's great to hear the naps are getting there for your LO!! well done! and great nights too! ( well except that it's 5:30 to wake up! ) seems like 11 hrs straight sleep is alright for him? I know if Elijah wakes up grouchy he hasn't had enough sleep and I try to extend a bit more.. even half hour if I can! if he wakes up happy and cooing then I know he's had enough sleep for the night.

How are you getting on Tracyxx?

[mrsfabmoretti]

Oh, LO is up and raring to go at half five. Can hear him playing in his cot!

About the rolling over, Chui... We had this problem when LO just started rolling and kept getting stuck. I was sometimes up ten times a night to rescue him! Someone on here suggested a 'Safe t Sleep' sleep positioner. Bit pricey at forty pounds, but worth every penny, in my opinion. Stopped LO from rolling over, and I just stopped using it when he learned how to get back over. Great news about your naps. You seem to have cracked it!

LO cut this third tooth today, bless him.

[Chui]

Ouch.. poor boy!! Hope the teething comes and goes quickly for him.

Thanks for the suggestion about the safe T sleep thing.. I had a look online.. looks good.. I am so tempted to run out to the shops and buy it NOW!  Yeah, it's a bit pricey .. but the things you'd do to get a good night's sleep eh?

[Tracyxx]

Hi Girls,

Well after reading a lot of old posts i realised i was chopping & changing things to quickly without giving them a chance to work so i decided to slow things right down and deal with only 1 nap at a time starting with the morning nap and only increase our "A" time every 3/4 days to see what happened so i started on thursday and here is what happened, keeping in mind our longest naps are usually 30mins:

Thursday "A" time 2.30hrs - 1st Nap 30mins - 2nd Nap 45mins
Friday     "A" time 2.30hrs - 1st Nap 60mins - 2nd Nap 30mins
Saturday "A" time 2.30hrs - 1st Nap 65mins - 2nd Nap 40mins

So we had managed to increase our 1st nap to from 30 to 60mins but it didnt seem to want to go any higher so today i upped our "A" time to 2.45hrs and:

Sunday   "A" time 2.45hrs - !st Nap 35mins - 2nd Nap 30mins  

Yes we are back to 30min naps ??, so should i stick it out at 2.45hrs and hope it increases past the 60mins or go back down to 2.30hrs and be happy with 60mins and just try for a longer 2nd nap. Or i have heard that some babies have a shorter 1st "A" so maybe i should try 2.30hrs in the morning then 2.45/3hrs in the afternoon?

What do you think?

Tracyx

[Chui]

Hi Tracy! Wow looks like you are progressing well on the first nap!
 
Unfortunately I am not an expert!

Okay, this is just me... but I would be happy with that 1hour nap in the AM for now and try to get the long PM nap so he doesn't get grouchy and OT by bedtime. But this is me so see what your mummy instincts tell you since every LO is different. Guess the other thing is , is he grouchy after the first AM nap and how long can he last after that first nap?? And how are your nights?

My LO now at 7 months and into the 4th week is also doing about 2 hrs 45 mins - 3 hrs in the morning now. ( I realise it depends on how well he slept in the night too ) so if he wakes up happy, he can go longer, if not he gets grouchy faster.
But my AM nap is usually always about 40mins-45 mins. However the A time after that he can last about 3.5 hrs. and more. Then he will sleep for a long PM nap. ( 1.5hrs - at times he wakes up in between  but with a little patting he goes back easily )
I get not too bad nights with this naps . yesterday he slept through although he did cryl a few times like one minute then settled himself. He gives me about 12 hr nights with this sort of nap routine so I guess I am quite happy for now.


Mrsfab--- I did run out to the shops to buy that Safe T sleep hahaha!!! talk about being a crazy woman. It worked well! I am well pleased and like you worth every cent! I didn't have to get up to turn him over last night and he was a champion to settle himself easily after waking up and trying to crawl/turnover last night. yay!! long may it last!

[mrsfabmoretti]

The Safe t Sleep is an absolute lifesaver! Wish I had found it earlier but still worth every penny. I suspect I might be getting it back out once he starts crawling!

Tracy... Not that I am an expert either, but I'd agree that one hour in the morning is good. The BW herself (in BWSAYP) says that some babies might just be having one hour naps by this age. I suppose it depends on how long LO is sleeping in the night, too, as if you LO is having a long night (12hrs) then s/he might only need 2x one hour naps. Average sleep for this age is 14 hours.

Well my LO is back to sleeping through the night- usually from 6.30pm until 7am. But short naps have now made a return, with him only having 2 naps, about 35-45 mins long. We had just got him to have 2x 1hr naps, but this was when he was waking up for the day at 5.30am.

I am wondering if I should keep trying to tweak, but perhaps accept that such a long night is going to produce shorter naps through the day. Suppose you can't have it all! Will still keep trying to play with A times, but perhaps not get so worked up when I still get short naps.