you guessed it - 45 min naps...

[kobe77728]

Just spent the past 24 hours trying to get through this post! I've never seen anyone so similar to my lo.

I pretty much could have written this.
And I also have a dd1. And a video monitor and sometimes have to tell myself that without that I'd think she was sleeping peacefully where as I can see she has her eyes wide open!

Are naps are really similar to yours including the odd awake/ resettling that you see for say 45 minutes sometimes. And I also feel racked with guilt just leaving her there even though she is content.
and I feel I feed too frequently often but otherwise don't know how to deal with the short naps.

The only real differences is my lo will go down quite quickly for her naps. And also I have actually never tried resettling after a short nap as either I have my dd1 to occupy too or I dread doing it as I spent many a day doin that with dd1 and although it often worked it wa a lot of hard wok and heart ache and im not sure I can put myself through it again. Plus I have the difference that dd1 was always grumpy if she didn't nap properly whereas dd2 handles it much better and is mostly perfectly happy. Also, like you put somewhere, you can't shush pat a non crying happy baby!

Anyway, I'll be of no help to you, lol, but will love to read your updates and progress. I can't believe how in depth you hav been able to go, I've not even got as far as posting a routine! It is so helpful to me so thank you.

I am now trying to push out the morning nap a bit and today we had some success. We hadn't had one of those funny self settling naps (on and off) for ages but had one today so maybe that's why. Will see what tomorrow brings.

Oh, my other only differnce is I now have a set bedtime, or rather feed time (6:15) and stick to this regardless. It often takes a whole to settle lo to bed at night so she's usually asleep somewhere between 6:45 and 7:30. I'll usually wake her at 8 if she's still asleep as I was advised they often need a 13 hour night.

Any ideas if the last A time should be the same as others or longer as yours is? I struggle with knowing when to have her last nap by.

Thanks,
Kristy xx

[MamaLiz]

Thanks Papaya and hello Kristy!

I'm so glad this helped someone else - I do go overboard, but I have an app called baby connect on my phone that really does the work for me - it runs timers, tracks everything and also graphs everything as well and color codes things on a timeline so you can see both totals, intervals and averages as well as look at all the days side by side with colored chunks if you can imagine showing the different things you track - I usually only do feed and sleep but there are at least 15 different things it has set to track (diapers, pumping, activities, bottles, etc) and when you look at the timeline view, it is really helpful to put things into perspective as well as find patterns - its how I was able to figure out dd1s A times and natural rhythms the first time around - I'm also a first born and terrible with needing things to be just so and beating myself up with all sorts of mom guilt so having a routine is imperative to me to feel like I can meet (both) my LOs needs. Anyhow - I can't recommend that app enough.

Today was better yet again  - she is self settling and taking less time to do it - I think the 1h25-1h30 might have been pushing it just a touch and pulled back to more like 1h20 - she settled quite quickly - within minutes (!!!) for each nap today and settled herself well compared to the last couple weeks as well - we did have a longer resettling, but more in and out with less eyes open - could have even been light sleep on one of the naps as Sara mentioned before, whereas in the past it def wasn't.

Looking back over the day today (I'll spare the obnoxious amount of details), we had 4 naps - 3 were 1h20-1h40 and one was 30m (CN) - the last nap before the CN was pretty broken tbh, and I'm not sure I'd "really" count it all as sleep time, but she kept trying to go back to sleep - yawning and eyes closed, head rolling and whatnot - I could tell she wanted to so I kept leaving her to it, but from 40m on it was more on/off than good sleep I'd say - but again, without the video... 

Our BT continues to be in flux as I'm just working off of A times which are also in constant flux it seems as is her wake time - funny things is, when she was all over the place and having the short naps, she seemed to tolerate that longer A before bed better - tonight it was about 2h again (incl WD, feed and settling) and she was fussy at about 1h - I pushed my luck (thinking she had been doing 2-3h pretty often) and went for a bath with both dds, but she was pretty OS and tired I think by that point - DH had something to take care of before he could come help out with BT and when I tried to read stories to dd1 while nursing dd2 she was not having it - it was like she couldn't take anymore stimuli iykwim - even my softest, slowest BT story voice was too much and she was popping off and hollering every other line.  Once we were in her room in the dark with the white noise she nursed herself down peacefully and is still sleeping!

I can't figure the PM A times yet - I'm sure each LO is different, but I think the last (most unsettled) nap needs a tweak - not sure if it needs more A or less or if it was a fluke and she is still working on the adjusting... but I do think that the days of her tolerating 2-3h As before BT are on their way out. It's fine actually as hopefully we are getting into a groove now anyways. I'm guessing it depends on the CN too and the activities here - she seemed distinctly OS tonight - fussy feeds with the noise even before BT - I suppose a 30m CN doesn't buy as much A as a 45m... I guess my gut says that the As ought to get shorter (if anything) as the day goes on - that they may tire or get OS more quickly/easily, but I'm not sure that's the case. I'm going to stick with more or less the same and see if I can get to three pretty good and settled naps or if there is a tweak needed in the afternoon - the CN I plan to have to APOP as I can't wait 30m for her to settle so when I get it and it just happens and is in the crib I'll take it. I can say that pushing out the first AM A time has made a huge difference and for now I am holding with that all day - I don't think she needs a shorter A when she has a good night as Nuala said. I've been playing with the idea of just upping As 5m a week to never have to go through this again, but as I learned with dd1 if it's not this it's something else anyways right?

The long settling and resettling are maddening! The guilt and the waiting - I swear there were times when I was feeling even anxious waiting and hoping - like I couldn't get onto the next thing until she was sleeping.  I also noticed how much happier and at ease I felt today with both girls - I don't like that it affects me that much and I do remind myself often to enjoy it and that the difficulties will pass, but you know how it is... The settling has really improved each day bit by bit - I hope as I figure out the As and solidify what she needs for A time, S time and WD, I'll be able to get right to that edge where I am putting her down and she is off to sleep in minutes, at least most of the time.  With my leave up in one more week, it has been difficult to do this - not only because of the guilt and wanting to play and be with her and hold her all the time (even though it isn't possible anyways), but also b/c I am trying to tell myself it is/will be worth it when she goes to daycare - oh the anxiety it gives me to think of what that will do to our progress - I'm really going to enjoy this next week...

HTH and if anyone has any other ideas about all this TIA

[Papaya]

we had 4 naps - 3 were 1h20-1h40 and one was 30m (CN)

Brilliant! Sounds like real progress

My LO ideally had a pretty short A to bed after a catnap, especially if it was less than 45 mins. That's not even one sleep cycle so not terribly restorative - she probably was ready for bed a little over an hour later

[MamaLiz]

Well she's back at it.

Yesterday we had a pretty good first nap out in the carseat - she did stir and wake a couple times but as we were in the car, or she was in the stroller or shopping cart, she went back down each time so a broken 2.25 I'd say, then 2 40m and a 30m DESPITE having the same A time to putting her down of about 1h20. Today, okay first nap, though quite unsettled in the middle - about 35-40m of resettling with some drifting off just to stir and fuss again (this happened 3x), so I'd say about 1h20 of sleep out of a 2h "nap", then 40m, 30m, and 40m.  I thought after yesterday with the short naps maybe she needs a bit longer A, but that didn't work out and got me the shorter nap of 30m today... so...

What do you think - push out the first A more? Push out subsequent As more? hmmm

[MamaLiz]

Hello there! Any thoughts about pushing As a bit more?

Yesterday we had a beautiful first nap - just like the good old days settled easily, slept about 2h15, and if she was settling herself in the middle, I didn't know it as I have had to force myself to not constantly look at the video monitor, and she didn't make a peep! Yay!

From then on, same old 40m naps for the rest of the day.

On at least one of them, I watched her resettle fairly well and I thought she was asleep, but was hollering 5m later - she's done this a few times now - where I think she's settled or resettled but she hasn't - does this sound familiar or give anyone any insight as to what the issue might be (if there is one...)?

I also made an attempt at resettling with pressure, shhpat in crib and then shhpat on shoulder after seeing her trying to go back to sleep on her own unsuccessfully, but it seems that when I do this, even when I get her to resettle (which I did - she was just as ready to go down as she is when I put her down at the beginning of nap - I KNOW she was tired), I can't put her back down unless she is all the way sleeping and that only gets me until she realizes that she's been put down anyways it seems (and I'm only picking her up when the methods to settle in the crib don't work) - I think this may be a consistency issue as I can't often practice this with her with dd1 needing to not be waiting for mom and naps all day - I can't keep at it properly, and perhaps don't really want to

So, again, I am wondering if we need a bit more A and if the general wisdom would be to push out the first one again, or stick with that since it's been giving the best nap of the day and push out the later As?

[ZacsMumme]

What about leaving the first as as it gets you a good nap often and trying to then increase the next a touch if you get a good nap?