3 mo 40 min naps have me foaming at the mouth!

[*Jo*]

Hi gals, I have tried everything my babywhispering brains knows how to do when it comes to 40mins naps... he does them every single naptime to the very minute!!!! I have tried longer A times, shorter A times, HTTJ and W2S.. nothing, he wont go back to sleep or stay asleep. I put the paci in and still nope. I pat for the 20mins and sometimes he lengthens his nap but most times nope he will wake up as soon as I stop patting which is infuriating and I feel a complete waste of my time when I dont really have 20mins to spare with two other children running around!!!

as for A times, he shows very little tired signs, if any... he seems to resent being put down in his bed. hes a tummy sleeper, ive tried all the other positions and he refuses to sleep AT ALL unless on tummy but still seems to not like that either, cries as soon as I put him down, turns his head back and forth kind of furrowing into the mattress sometiems... now all these things point to OT for me. so I tried shorter A times... he does the exact same thing. when I put him into the bed he begins to cry, i wait to see if its a mantra cry (so far he does not have one) he has only ever ONCE fallen asleep without being patted and that was about 5 weeks ago and the A time was 1 hour 20mins. Ive tried replicating it and never again... so anyway, I begin to pat... guess how long it takes him to fall asleep if i shorten his A time?? the full amount of A time he goes down at if I dont shorten it (1 hour 40mins) so even trying to get a shorter A time he refuses to fall asleep before the 1 hour 40min time.. yet at that A time he still short naps to 40mins!

after a short 40min nap, again he refuses to fall asleep shorter than 1 hour 30-40mins! Ive tried putting him down earlier, it only results in me patting.. thinking hes asleep and leaving only for him to wake up again and I go back in and resume patting etc until we hit that full A time mark and he finally goes to sleep. Never falls asleep without my assistance or the paci.

Im getting so pi$$ed off because I just simply dont have the patience for this when Im sorting out the other kids. also he doesnt APOP, he does not fall asleep in the car or stroller and only sometimes falls asleep in the Mei tai but I have to be constantly moving and he has to be waaaaaaaay OT for it to happen.

this has been going on for weeks, ive been trying to nut it out myself but Im hoping someone can see something I cant

by the end of the day sometimes hes so OT that it can take an hour and a half to get him to fall asleep (patting pretty much the ENTIRE TIME!) and we have about 5 NW's each night.

Im very very frustrated!

[cuckoochick]

Jo not really here with advice but in the exact same boat! Dd2 has extended her first A to 1hr 45mins but is still napping 45-50mins. If we're lucky we get 1 1.5hr nap a day and that is lucky!!! Like A, G is happy to be awake and I feel constantly like I'm trying to force her to sleep (she's still only napping in the sling but we're planning to change that soon!)

Listening in if you don't mind for any advice you're given. In the MOTN when I was up at close to tears I thought about pushing her to 2hrs A time!

[*Jo*]

Oh my gosh! I thought about pushing the A time to 2 hours today as well!! He was zonked by 5.30 today so was asleep at 6.15 after his bottle... Took 20 seconds to get him to sleep, let's see how the night goes but yes he's happy most of the day but starts to lose it closer to the end of it and yes sometimes we get the odd 1 hour-1.25 hour nap as well. I try to go with the flow most days because I've been through this twice before and know that it's just a short time in their lives and eventually it will all be over. I have two fantastic sleepers now that were struggles when they were babies so I know it's all worth it, it's just frustrating when it starts to really affect the day and then the night. As soon as he wakes up in the day I start to dread nap time because I know I will be getting only a short break so I spend my time rushing around while he's sleeping instead of being able to relax.

With the other two boys no matter what the day was like once I put them down for the night they went down independently but A can't even manage that part independently!!! I have to pat him there too! It's constant patting! I'm pretty sure in her book, Tracy writes that it only takes a week to teach I dependant sleep, well he's nearly 14 weeks old and still doing it grrrr!

[cuckoochick]

Well this morning we have been out to a dance class for C. I left the house early planning to drive around so G would sleep beforehand but she didn't and ended up doing a 2.5hr A time and so I got a short nap (40mins) but I would have got a short nap anyway!

I'm going to stick with 1hr 45 for another day or two and then I'll push to 2hrs A time if there's no difference. She's always been high A times and I think I probably haven't moved her on quickly from 1.5hrs as she was doing that a while ago.

Is A LSN?

[*Jo*]

I don't know to be honest, I think he's high usually (well before this started he was anyway)

It's 1am and he's woken and won't go back to sleep so I'm going to give him another bottle... Ugh

[*Jo*]

And here we are again, I took him to his room at 1 hour 25mibs and I've been patting him for 10mins, he just refuses to go down any earlier!!!!!!
Also when he's OT he only takes a couple of secs of patting to fall asleep so I know I'm not putting him down too late or he would need less assistance.

And yep 4 NWs last night yet again....

[Layla]

Hi Jo,

BTDT (including the looking after other children whilst extending naps part ) and I pretty much gave up, realising that the short naps were purely developmental. Not sure how old your LO is (guessing under 3 months with A time 1.5hrs?), but pretty much what I did up to 3 months was try and extend 1-2naps in the cot (when the girls were at school) and the rest were in a sling/baby carrier. Not ideal but sometime around 3 months, little J started sleeping longer in the morning all on her own and so we had 1 good morning nap, followed by 2 or 3 catnaps. Very soon after, she dropped the last catnap and we were down to 3 naps (1 long, 2 short) and finally now that she's on 2 naps, she's taking 2 decent naps....

Yes, she was miss cranky pants because she catnapped but I just tried to stick to the E's as much as possible and so we had A's before E's and then S, followed by more A

HTH a little

[*Jo*]

Well I think I might have an idea what could be going on. The other day at my mums he slept in the portacot and he slept really well, well today I found mould under his mattress of the bassinet so while I'm waiting to put the cot up I've put him in Calebs bed to sleep.. He's done really well again, still wakes at 40min mark but resettled easily. Maybe he likes all the space?

[gb18]

Hi!! No advice from me I am afraid but just sending out masses of sympathy. I too am struggle to extend naps. I never have any naps more than 45 mins, no matter what I do. I have been trying for 5 weeks to extend them.I am lucky in that he settles well at a night time although due to being hugely OT the last two nights this has changed. He refuses to eat and will not settle without being cuddled and using a dummy (paci). This has not been the case for weeks.

I am struggling with fitting in naps as he is tired by 1hr 30 minsA time roughly therefore I take him up to settle and nap. As he only sleeps 45 mins then by 4 naps it is 4pm at the latest when he wakes, he will not nap at 5.30 and then ends up being awake nesrly 3 hours and obviously there is a meltdown!!

I am wondering what others thoughts are on - extending A time even though he will be harder to settle for naps? ( I notice that you have considered this Jo. Have to tried it?)

Jo - you say you had a similar thing with other children. How long till they extended their nap time? At what age and did you have to work at extending them?
Layla - you have posted that the short naps were purely developmental. Do you think this is definitely the case? Should I just increase A time and wait for my LO to extend naps in his own time? He is happy when wakes, night time only feeds once normally so not excessively waking. He is 12 weeks old.

Sorry to ask questions on your post Jo. Hope that things are slowly improving for you.

[Layla]

Ahhh yes Jo, we also had to transition J from bassinet to cot earlier than we would have liked to - sometime around 3.5months but she still only managed to take a good morning nap and the afternoon nap was hit and miss . I do hope you've found the answer and he starts sleeping better in his cot ... perhaps he does like his space

Gb18 - For us, after extending A time, trying w2s, shh/pat and HTTJ, I realised I just had to let go and that in our case it was developmental. Isabella and Jasmine did the exact same thing - catnapped until around 5/6 months. All 3 were great at night but daytime sleep was wonky and I don't think there could have been anything more I could have done. The morning nap is usually the 1st to establish around 3/4 months, with the afternoon nap to follow around 5/6 months (I read this can't remember where but that was the case with us anyway).

At 12 weeks, be careful extending A time too much - but its worth a try (maybe try extra 5-10 mins). The morning A time is usually the shortest so I probably would leave that one alone but you could try an extra 5-10 mins to the subsequent A times to see if it makes a difference? Also when we were in that 4-3 transition period, I used the sling to get that last catnap in and when she started refusing it outright (even in the sling), I did a little A push so that the A time before bed wasn't so long... If he's fighting the last catnap, I really would be putting him to bed earlier. If I didn't take her last nap by 5:30-5:45pm, I would quickly do bath and into bed for the night at 6-6.15pm. Be careful with him being awake for 3hrs before bedtime, it might lead to more nightwakings or early wake ups.

HTH

[*Jo*]

Ok well so far so good!! He still wakes up at around 40-45 mins but I can resettle him most of the time... I don't know if it's that he's in a cot now and has more space or if it's something else but I'm not complaining!! Lol

[tazz]

Hi all, DS is 15 weeks tomorrow and from about 8 weeks has been a terrible catnapper, though he would usually do 2 45 min naps, then be so tired that he would have a feed, pass out so I would wake for a nappy change then put him straight down and he would sleep for 2-3 hours but that doesnt happen anymore.  He was also sleeping 8-10 hours at night without a feed (7pm -3am) but now wakes at 10pm and again at 2:30 for a feed each time and he wakes for the day anywhere from 5:30-6:30.  My other two girls tend to wake him in the morning unfortunately.  He self settles most of the time though he always has a winge about it (only ever mantra cry) but at night goes down without a complaint.  The other day I started giving him a dummy a the 45min wake and he would then go back to sleep for another hour or so and I was thrilled, but this conincided with the extra NW and feed, not sure if its related or not.  This morning after he woke from the 45min nap, I managed to resettle using white noise and I just put my hand on his tummy and he calmed enough to go to sleep and we managed to get another 1/2 hr or so.  I have been through it before but every baby is different and this time its the hardest.  DD1 was always happy after a catnap and DD2 did 45min naps x 2 at sleep time with some A time inbetween but with no intervention from me.  I didnt care too much about the CN's but now that we have NW I'm worried that its a slippery slide.  Better go, I hear the little man calling for me!