5 month old nap help

[picklepick]

Hi all, I'm a newbie, please be gentle.

Gracie is 24 weeks and up until last week her nap times were a doddle. We shushpatted her when she was younger and once she found her thumbs, she self settled from about 12 weeks. So I've always just put her in her cot at nap time and left her to it.

Night time sleeping is wonderful. She goes to bed at 6.30/7pm and until last week she slept through until 8am with a dream feed at 10. This week she's started waking at 6.30am so her routine has changed and her naps have gone to pot.

She's been having three naps a day of 45 mins each but I don't think they're long enough because she's really grumpy and whiny all the time. She's also finding it really difficult to get off to sleep, sometimes she's still awake an hour after I've put her in her cot. I don't know what to do to help her. She's not crying she's just fussing with frustration and rolling about, etc. So pu/pd won't work. I've tried sitting in the room with her and she just watches me and carries on fussing and rolling. I don't think my being there is helping because she's so used to being on her own at sleep times.

I've just this week started moving her to a 4 hour routine. We were already half way there with a 4 hour gap in the morning and 3 /3.5 hour gap between feeds after that.

Do I need to push on with the 4 hour routine and hope the naps sort themselves out? Help! I don't think I can listen to her fuss and shout any longer, I'm tearing my hair out!

So far today this is what's happened:

Awake 6.30am
E 7-7.30am
S 8am-10am (She fussed until about 8.30, then after half an hour of sleep I tried to wake her to sleep but it didn't work and she woke up fully. Went in to sit with her at 9.15 and gave up trying to get her back to sleep at 10am.
A 10 - 11am
E 11 - 11.30
S 11.30 - 13.00 (Slept until 12 when I tried waking to sleep again. didn't work so sat with her again, no joy, so gave in at 13.00)
A 13 - 14 (She's obviously tired. she's grumpy and whiny and yawny so I've put her down again. )

Hope all that makes sense.

[picklepick]

Update : as predicted she woke at 2.45 so I got her up.
She's had a bottle at 3 and she's playing now.

I do wonder if she's getting overstimulated in her awake time?

Edit: She was rubbing her eyes and grumbling by 3.45 so I put her back down to sleep. Went off at about 4.10pm and I expect she'll be awake again by 5. Clearly her naps aren't long enough with her yawning, and tired less than an hour later at 5 months?

A recap of so far today:

Awake 6.30am
E 7-7.30am
S 8am-10am (She fussed until about 8.30, then after half an hour of sleep I tried to wake her to sleep but it didn't work and she woke up fully. Went in to sit with her at 9.15 and gave up trying to get her back to sleep at 10am.
A 10 - 11am
E 11 - 11.30
S 11.30 - 13.00 (Slept until 12 when I tried waking to sleep again. didn't work so sat with her again, no joy, so gave in at 13.00)
A 13 - 14 (She's obviously tired. she's grumpy and whiny and yawny so I put her down again. )
S 14-14.45
E 15.00-15.20
A 15.20- 15.45 (Tried just having her sat on the floor with one or two toys, instead of her usual play mat to prevent overstimulation)
S 1545 - 17.50 (She was in her cot grumbling and fussing until about 16.10)

[amayzie]

Hi hon- A couple of things- 5 months is a bit of a CLASSIC time for a grumpy GRUMPY baby!! At that age my guy as gumpy every day! It was a combination of him being tired and also because he wanted to crawl but couldn't!

I think though that you might need to up the A time somewhat to push up those naps. At 5 months you are usually looking at 2-2.5 hours A time. have a look at this link and it will give you some thoughts on how to do it:

What are A times and how do they fit into the EASY routine?
Is my baby ready to increase his ‘A’ time? (incl. 'A' times for younger babies)

[picklepick]

Thank you for replying.
I have read that 5 months is grumpy time, so hopefully it will pass. She does really want to crawl, the frustration at that is very obvious at the mo.

I've tried to increase her A time but she gets overtired very easily and she just cries. Proper tears, not frustration.
Think her dad and I are going to have to do it at the weekend when we have each other for support and hopefully it will mean it will get sorted fairly quickly.
She's never really been good at awake times though, at two months she was only able to stay awake for 45 mins before overtiredness would kick in and we were in for 2 hours of crying. 
I will attempt to make them longer though. Thanks