catnap questions

[cecelia_at_home]

My 8 wk old is on a roughly 3 hour EASY, but I can't make the catnaps work. J is a pretty good napper and I often have to wake him at the 2 hour mark during the day usually for his afternoon naps. I tried doing the 2 catnaps for a few days, but I always had to wake him so he wouldn't sleep to long. The last couple of day's I've just combined them into a 1.5 hour nap. Do you think this will affect his night sleep? He usually wakes a couple of times for a feed, but he also wakes about 12 or 1 and just needs to be resettled. He also wakes around 4 or 5 and is unsettled (even if fed) and cries about every half hour until we get him up at 7ish.

Our EASY has been all over the place the last  couple of days due to in-laws visiting and injections.

[londonlady]

Hi,
I'm having similar problems with the cat nap but not received any replies to my post yet so will be watching yours with interest to see what people have to say.

Today I've experimented with her having an extra long lunch time nap, and she is now back down for an afternoon nap, which should see us through til 5.30pm (fingers crossed) which cuts out the need for a cat nap. Hopefully I'll get her through her bath and feed and back down for about 6.30-6.45pm for bedtime and just see what happens from there...

Good luck. xx

[cecelia_at_home]

had a long afternoon nap yesterday since we were at the docs and an early BT. went to sleep ok, but woke early for his df, i think that had more to do with him not eating enough of his dinner bottle. he's been a bit grumpy today, but i think that's to do with his jabs yesterday.
hope your night went ok. we were up and unsettled from about 5:30

[londonlady]

Well that day / night didn't work out so well, like you, I think I didn't get enough feeds into her during the day as the extra long lunchtime nap meant we pushed to a 4hourly feed instead of 3. That resulted in 2 wake ups overnight so I scrapped that plan and went back to 3hourly yesterday. I'm over the moon to say we had an almost text book day with fantastic naps and 1 quick feed overnight at about 3.30am and then she slept til 6.30am. We even got our evenings back as I managed to force a cat nap in the swing chair, and that gave her enough relief to get her through to bedtime. I didn't realise that with the cat nap you do whatever you can to get them to sleep, so can hold her, put her in the chair, drive her around etc - whatever it takes to get that nap in. I don't bother with the 2nd catnap / 8pm cluster feed but she took a great dream feed so was well tanked up for the night. 
Dare say that I won't be lucky enough for that to happen every day, but at least gives me hope that she can do a perfect day again at some point. 
Hope you're getting on ok.
xx

[cecelia_at_home]

Yesterday he had great naps, but i think that was due to his jabs. We're having a crazy day with family visiting so all routine is out the window. He woke up at 1 am and again at 3 and then was waking up every half hour from 5 until I gave up at 6:30 and got him up for the day. We'll try to get back on track tomorrow.
I hope you have a good night again tonight!

[cecelia_at_home]

We're attempting to move the EW from 5 am to 6 by having a later bath and BT. Since J is so sleepy in the afternoon/evening, we now give him a later bath (which he enjoys) and that really wakes him up. He still goes back to sleep after his BT bottle.
So for right now, he's getting a nap between 6ish-8 and then we just wake him up. We've stopped cluster feeding as well. I think we're transitioning from a 3 hr EASY to 3.5, but the feeds aren't consistant yet.

[londonlady]

Good luck with it...
We are one step forwards two steps back at the moment unfortunately.
Last night she had a great evening, went to sleep beautifully, but then had a completely crazy night, up at 2am, 3.30am and then up for the day at 6.15am. Usually she at least sleeps til 4am has a quick feed and goes back to sleep so think this might be the 6 week growth spurt that's throwing everything out. It better be, as I can't stand this much longer...!
 
Tonight she went off to sleep nicely but woke up and is still screaming now (10pm here.) My husband is taking his turn at trying to settle her, we can only bear about 20 mins of the crying before needing to swap over. Pat shh isn't working to calm her down at all. Ugh... I don't know where we're going wrong as she sleeps so brilliantly in the day, resettles herself if she fusses etc. I thought she was just massively overtired in the evenings as we were struggling with the cat nap, but even forcing a cat nap in the swing or on me doesn't seem to have resolved this evening crying on a consistent basis. This baby is hard work...

xxx

[cecelia_at_home]

I hope your night got better. Ours was horrible. J was waking about every hour and giving a cry. At least he would settle himself back to sleep, but I woke up every time he cried so I'm shattered today. I know what you mean about one step forward two steps back. Today (so far) has been better than the past few days. My in-laws visited over the weekend and we STILL haven't gotten back into any sort of routine. He didn't nap well yesterday, but right now he's been down for 1.5 hours (yipee!!).

[londonlady]

Glad you had a better day. Think I'm going to post on the general sleep issues board as our evenings are really starting to get me down and I'm at a loss as to what to do as she is so good in the day and overnight... ( I suppose I shouldn't complain about a few hours of hell in the evenings all things considered!!
Hope things keep improving for you.

xx