How Consistent Should I be?

[Vee119]

My LO is on a 3.5hr EASY (recently started) and so far things have been going okay. We are still working on the naps and I think the majority of issues are because I keep missing her sleep signals and we end up with an OT baby.  I was just wondering, when it comes to naps, should I be trying to get naps in at the same time everyday or should it be based on the previous nap? For example, for her morning nap, she sometimes sleeps as long as 2hrs (from 9 - 100) which means her second nap is about 2hrs later. However, on the days when things go wrong and she only sleeps for an hour, do I still push to get to 1pm or should I just aim to get her down after an A time of 2hrs?  Is the consistency that I'm aiming for in the A time or in the time of day? I find that the first nap is wonderful, but the second and third are hit or miss which impacts what time we end up doing BT.

Thanks!

[Papaya]

At this age I would be thinking of A times rather than nap times - you don't want to keep her up too long and end up with an OT LO, who will find it much harder to sleep! So if her A time is usually 2 hours, do no more than that after a short nap. If the nap is less than one hour, you may actually need to reduce the A time a little further - maybe 1hr45 - as she might struggle to do a full A time on a short nap. Hope that makes sense

Do you want to post your EASY, and we can see if we can help with the naps later in the day?

[Vee119]

Thanks:)

This was our day yesterday. We were a bit all over the place with the feeds because I think she is at the tale end of a gs, but I could have been wrong about that 

Wake up at 7:30

E: 7:35
A: 7:45 - 8:40 (I found that if I try to extend this she gets OT)
S: 8:40 - 10:10

E: 10:25
A: 10:35 - 12:20
S: 12:20 - 1:15

E: 1:45
A: 1:15 - 2:45
S: 2:45 - 3:15 then she self-soothed and went 3:30 - 4:30

E: 4:40
A: 4:30 - 6:50
E:6:50
A: 6:55 - 7:30
S: 7:30

DF at 10:15
fed at 2:15am and 4:20am (I should not have fed here but I thought she was having a gs feed)

Today was worse in terms of feeding. I think I realized maybe she wasn't having a growth spurt.  I still need to learn her hunger cry Wake up was at 7:30

E: 8:10 (since she fed at 4:20 I didn't think she'd be hungry at 7:30)
A: 7:30 - 8:50
S: 8:50 - 10:50 (she played alone in the crib until 11)

E: 11:40
A: 10:50 - 1:15
S: 1:15 - 2 (couldn't get her to resettle)

E: 3:00
A: 2 - 3:40
S: 3:40 - 4:20

E: 6:50
A: 4:20 - 7:30
S:7:30

Just did a DF at 10:30

[Papaya]

Your EAS is looking pretty good, to be honest. Great morning naps They always set you up well for the day, so even if you get a short nap or two after that it's not as bad as it might be, yk? How does she usually wake from the short naps - happy and ready to go, or still seeming tired?

A: 10:50 - 1:15
S: 1:15 - 2 (couldn't get her to resettle)

This is quite a long A, so it could have been an OT nap

I'd be careful of a long A to bed if the last nap is short, OT at bedtime can mean an unsettled night. Your LO seems to be managing well so far though! If you think she's getting OT towards the end of the day, I'd put her down to bed a bit early.

I would still offer a feed at WU, personally - she might not take much, but it's easier to keep on track with feeds for the rest of the day

[Vee119]

Thanks Papaya:)

She usually wakes up v. happy from the short naps. She just gets fussier as the day progresses and if I let her, she would probably take a bunch of short naps.  I'll keep watching A.

[Vee119]

I am at a loss!  For the past 3 days I've played around with A time to see if it would improve the naps.  No such luck.  Her naps continue to range from 1.5h to 40m.  For example, her second nap yesterday was 1.5h following an A time of 2h 15m.  But today she was so fussy after only 1h 45m and the resulting nap was 50m. Is that OT or UT?  She woke up very happy from the nap. 
The third nap yesterday was after an A time of 2h 12m and she only slept for 25min...is that UT?? How can it be UT?  So confused!!!

[Papaya]

50 mins could be UT - and the following 25 min nap OT because the second nap was short. 20-30 mins can also be discomfort, though

Have you hit the 4 month growth spurt yet?

[Vee119]

I have definitely hit the 4mo something!  I thought sh had her gs last week

Yesterdays naps were worse:(  I'm dreading the day when the morning nap goes out the window too!

[EllenS]

What temperament is your LO?  With my spirited/sensitive dd1, I found that the quality as well as quantity of her A time made a difference - a very stimulating A time with music or lots of people around would make her over stimulated, which would give her short naps and a fussy afternoon or wakeful night, even if the length of her A time "should" not have left her OT.

If you see what I mean?

Have you tried W2S or holding your hand on her during the sleep cycle transition to get a longer nap?  Sometimes if you can keep them from getting too twitchy at that first REM cycle, they will go back down and nap longer without really waking up.

[Vee119]

My LO is a textbook baby 

I haven't tried any of the things you suggested mostly because for each nap time, I am never sure how long she will sleep. I would hate to wake her during a nap when she could have slept for 1.5h! Also, when we started EASY, I did hold her until after the transition, now I don't...but I think she is making it past the transition okay.

Yesterday was a write off because I had tons of errands to run so I dragged her with me, but the day before worked like a charm. I think I'm good with the first A time needing to be short (Max 1h30m) - she slept for 2.5h, a little too long I know, but I did not want to wake her.  For her second nap, A time was 2h 30m and she had a good 1h30m nap.  Then we snuck in a 30m nap in the late afternoon (this was a problem because it was too close to bt so I need to figure that out).  I'm going to try the same thing today and see what happens

[Papaya]

she slept for 2.5h, a little too long I know, but I did not want to wake her.

I rarely woke at this age either - especially if half the time you're battling to get a nap longer than 45 mins! Sounds like that was a great day. The A time to bed after a 30 min catnap will be much shorter than after a full nap, so you should be ok to have it quite late

[Vee119]

Thanks for all your help!  I think our A times and naps are on a role for now. For the past 2 days (too soon) we've had 2, 2-hr naps and a catnap at the end of the day.  Of course now the night time sleep has fallen off the rails  but I think it should be an easy (I hope) fix.

[Papaya]

Of course now the night time sleep has fallen off the rails   but I think it should be an easy (I hope) fix.

This is sooo common at 4 months, so you're not alone. It seems you've just finally got the naps sorted, and the nights go haywire! Hopefully it'll be short-lived.

[Vee119]

Okay,

So we are into day 3 of bad nights and EW. Is it possible that the long naps are impacting night sleep?  She has been waking up 5times a night and looking back at my notes, it looks like it started when the naps fixed themselves.  Her nap times are typically: 
Nap #1 - 2.5h
Nap #2 - 2h
Nap #3 - 45m to 1h

Is that too much day time sleep?  Should I be capping naps at 2hs? 

[Papaya]

Can you post your EASY, hun? Are you still aiming for 12 hour nights? That would be quite a lot of sleep in 24 hours, if so.

Typical Amounts of Day and Night Sleep