My LO has been a 40 minute catnapper since 2 weeks old - Help,

[Kerenjl]

My 13 nearly 14 week old bub has been catnapping since she was about 2 weeks old and I'm at my wits end!

When she was younger we would get the occasional long 1 or 2 hour nap, but she hasn't slept longer then 30 or 40minutes in a long time.  She is a great sleeper at night, only waking for one feed and sometimes even sleeping through (7pm to 7am)

I have tried everything to resettle her but to no avail - shush/pat, poke her 5 minutes before she was due to wake to try and reset her body clock, hand on chest to stop the jolt, playing around with her awake times etc.  I had given up on trying to resettle her as I was getting too frustrated and hoped it would sort itself out on its own but now at just over 3 months old she is still cat napping.  Even her sleeps in the car or pram are only 30 or 40 minutes.

Generally she wakes up happy/content after her first two sleeps of the day. Her morning sleep she will normally lay in her cot for 10 minutes after waking before she gets bored and cries. Her last sleep of the day she wakes up and starts crying immediately because she is so tired.

She self settles and we use no props to get her to sleep, she is swaddled, we have just started darkening her room more, we play white noise and basically try every trick in the book to get her to sleep longer.  My husband thinks as she is sleeping so well of a night time that 3 x 40 minute catnaps throughout the day is all she needs, but I'm not convinced.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to try next? Should I persist with trying to resettle her once she wakes after 40 minutes? Currently I'm picking her up from her cot after her first morning sleep and sush/patting her back to sleep for another 10-20 minutes on my shoulder.

Or whether they have had similar experiences and over time bub outgrows it?

Below is her routine which can vary a bit as she wakes at different times of the morning.She is exclusively breastfed.

7.15 - awakes for the day (her awake time varies from day to day, sometimes she wakes at 7 and other times 730 - I just adjust her routine by what time she wakes up.
720 - feed
0800 - play time / tummy time
845 - put down for nap (generally has a up to 5 minutes of protest cries before settling on her own with no sleeping aid)
0930 - wakes from sleep, won't resettle so we start play time
1030 - feed
1130 - nap
1215 - awake and play
1330 - feed
1415 - nap
1500 - awake and play
1630 - feed
1730 - 15 minute catnap
1800 - bath, last feed
1900 - bed

[bcaso]

I will state right now that this is probably NOT the response you are looking for, but nonetheless, here it is....
My daughter has also been a catnapper since 2months and she still is at TEN months. If I didnt know better, I would have thought that I, myself, wrote your story. Over the months, we tried EVERYTHING and when NOTHING worked, we cycled through and retried. We have worked with a pediatric sleep specialist who thought that her terrible napping was due to her poor nighttime sleep (the only place your story and mine differ). Once my daughter started sleeping through the night with no wakings, the specialist assumed good naps would follow. Well, my little strong-willed baby decided to prove her wrong! During this stressful experience, I read more sleep help books, research articles, blog posts, magazines, and more than I care to admit. All it did was stress me out and make me feel like I was doing something outlandish as a new mommy and couldnt understand WHY it was happening. Well, I still dont understand why and have JUST recently come to terms with it.   Perhaps later down the road, she will have affects from lack of sleep, but at this point I know that I hqve reached out to others and have done everything that I can as her mommy. I just try to take advantage of the extra awake time And to tip it all off, this week has been a BIG challang, as she has been REFUSING her 2nd nap (now only taking 1 30min nap each day). All I can do is offer her the second one when she is showing her tired signs, but I cant force her to sleep Good luck and hang in there. I hope that you cam find some inner peace......it took me 9full months to find mine!

[Emami]

Hi hun - short naps are so so common and it might just be a developmental thing at this point.  You've tried most of the things I would suggest and the only thing that jumps out at me is that when you do get a short nap I would try pulling back the next A time to avoid OT accumulating.  It looks like she is doing 2hrs after a 45min nap so I would try putting her down earlier and see what you get.  If it's still a short nap I would try resettling for a while (30mims was my max) and then get her up and move on.  I do think once you've tweaked A times, tried wake to sleep etc, then it's pretty much a case of riding it out and accepting that she's still learning how to sleep and transition through cycles.  We had short naps here until 4 months and they lengthened really without me doing anything.  I know for some it can take longer.  All you can really do is make sure you're trying to keep her routine as age-appropriate as possible and hopefully it will fall into place.  It is great that she can self settle and is giving you such fabulous nights though!

[Kerenjl]

Thanks for the replies.

I have adjusted her awake times to only being awake 1.5 hours after her short nap and still no progress. In the morning I've tried everything from 1 hr 15 mins to 1 hr 45 mins before bed and it's still the same.

The only problem with keeping her awake times shorter is that it then clashes with her next feed or I'm feeding her and having to put her straight down with no play in between. She can really push out to 4 hourly feeds now but I'm keeping them 3 hourly to try and keep her awake times shorter.

I've started a sleep diary, and have told myself I'll dedicate the next two weeks with resettling her and playing around more with her awake times and if it's still resulting in 40minute naps - I'll have to resign myself to the fact that it may just be developmental or her personality and move on and pray in time they get better!

Wish me luck!

[Emami]

Good luck!  Hopefully you see some long naps soon