If my 4mth old has 45min naps, how do I get him to 4hr easy without OT?

[maraya]

I've been battling with 45 min night wakings this last month.

I've been advised to transition him to 4hr easy, which feels right, but am struggling with it because his naps are never consistent.

I've been trying to extend his naps and teach him to SS since he was 10 weeks old, and though at the moment our days are all over the place, he is able to SS and yesterday did so for two of his naps - one nap of 1.5hrs and the other 2.5hrs (which I didnt wake him from as he is so OT) I watch him on the videocam and he opens his eys for ten minutes then goes back to sleep so I know he can do it.

The problem is when he doesn't go for a long nap and they are only 45 min, how should my day look to fit into a 4hr easy?

I have a 3.5yr old too so its really hard to spend time resettling - most often lately I just get him up and put him back down when he feels ready (maybe half hour to an hour later) and he generally goes off back to sleep, but sometimes that falls into the time he needs to be fed so I feed him a little while before putting him down - it has made our feed and sleep times very erratic and I feel so out of whack.

Any ideas how I can structure my day?

Thanks so much
Maraya

I'm certain this is contributing to the 45 NW.

[Layla]

Hi there,

What are your awake times now? Short naps can also be developmental and we also battled with short naps at that age. Also there is a big sleep regression at 4 months, which doesn't help when you're trying to set your LO on a routine!

At 4 months, we had a good morning nap (1.5hrs), followed by 2 shorter naps and an earlier bedtime. I used to try and keep the E's 3.5hourly (mine is breastfed and wouldn't have gone 4 hrs then) and I relied on 1 good nap in the morning and the rest of the day was hit or miss (the afternoon nap). Eventually when we dropped the catnap around 5-5.5months, the afternoon nap extended. I used to take mine out of the house to extend her A time

Could you post what your last couple of days have looked like? When he wakes at night, how do you resettle, have you tried leaving him to see if he will go back to sleep?