sleepy signs?

[chirojaz]

I am getting a little frustrated by my DS and his sleepy signs.  I feel like his is in the midst of an OT loop and I can't catch him up.  He is 6 weeks old and will start yawning after only like 20 minutes of awake time.  Sometimes even less!  But when I put him down to sleep he has a REALLY hard to falling asleep independently so I'm wondering if he is just a yawner and not actually tired or what?  When he finally gets to sleep after sometimes 45 minutes he will wake up after 30 or 45 minutes and then I have to keep resettling him to continue to get a decent nap.  Should I keep him up longer after he starts yawning? I see that average awake times for his age is about 1hr 15min so him yawning after only 20minutes has me confused because its so much less awake time than the average.  Please help I am at my wits end with this, our EASY is all over the place.  I also have a 2.5 year old DD so things have been very hard around our household to say the least

[lauradj]

Hi there, I can understand why you're a little confused.  Each baby's signs are different, my DS also yawns at around 20 minutes but I know he's not sleepy yet because the other signs aren't there as well.  For my DS, his eyes get heavy and his body becomes more still.  I also know that an hour is the longest he can go in the morning.  Later in the day, the yawns become my main cues and once I get two of those within 5-10 mins, I know it's diaper/story/sleep sack time.
I wouldn't recommend keeping your LO up for more than an hour at this young age.  My LO is 3 months now and I'm slowly transitioning him from 1.15 to 1.5 hrs.  At 6 weeks, an hour is plenty!  I hope this helps.

Cheers, 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I usually use 2 sleepy signs together,  along with a rough idea of A times with my little boy.  He also used to chill out (go still) as he started getting tired, so when he also started yawning that's when I paid attention. Though don't beat yourself up about it - at 6 weeks it's so easy to miss the sleepy window cos it's so short.  I used to get jack into bed at what I was sure was the right time and still have to ssshhh him through a nap, or he'd lie there awake for an hour and then start crying cos he was then OT. It takes a while for them to get used to falling asleep by themselves and at around 6 weeks they wake up and it gets harder!  I was still APing a lot at that age....

Enjoy your LO, you know they don't stay little for long

[eva026]

DD had no sleepy signs at all for ages and ages. I'd watch her like a hawk and nothing. We just had to go by the clock till about 6mo.

[brummum]

Are you including feeding in your awake time? So awake time is counted from eyes open to eyes shut and include feeding time. I totally agree with not worrying too much about her needing lots of help to get a longer nap at this age. We did alot of buggy/holding naps at this age. Little one wouldn't really do a decent nap in his cot until around 4 months (and even then not consistently!). My little one was a yawner too and I got to the point of having to almost ignore the yawning as his awake times were silly short, It think sometimes they need a little push but do adjust. Other signs I watched for were eye rubbing and fussing. I actually found he got more animated rather than less when he needed a nap!

[chirojaz]

I am including feeding time in the 20 min of awake time.  He nurses pretty efficiently for about 10 minutes and then is done and then about 10 minutes later starts yawning.  I kept him awake longer before his afternoon nap just now, he was yawning more and more at 20/30 min., I ignored it to see if I could keep him up longer and get any other sleepy signs.  The only thing I noticed at about 40min awake time was he started to fuss a little so I went and changed his diaper and did our nap routine and he wouldn't/couldn't fall asleep without my assistance after almost 1.5hour total.  Feeling discouraged.  Just not sure if I should try and keep him up longer or what.  When my toddler is awake it is so hard to even try and help my DS get to sleep because she is either in the room fussing, being super loud, or just needy of my attention. Ugh

[eva026]

Would a sling work? I don't know if expecting him to get to sleep on his own at this age is not a bit too much. We only started sleep training when DD finished 4mo, before that it was just whatever got us through the day.