Extending Naps- Wake to Sleep and Self-Soothing

[erind1983]

My little guy is 5 months and has been taking 40 min naps since he was 2 1/2 months old. We used a Sleep Consultant when he was 3 1/2 months old which was amazing as my son learned to self soothe and fall asleep on his own in his crib. His nights are fantastic as he sleeps for about 12 hours with one feed. His naps unfortunately are still short and we were instructed to leave him in the crib the full hour in the hopes that he would fall back asleep, which didn't change anything. I realize now that he is habitually waking at the 40 minute mark so today I tried the wake to sleep method which extended both naps to an hour and a half each!

My question is- will using this method somehow affect his ability to self-soothe? It was not recommended by our consultant but I didn't ask why. I just had to try as a last resort! I'm just worried I will mess with his skills and then his nights will regress!

Any thoughts on this?

[Layla]

Would you be able to post your routine please? He could be taking short naps because he needs more A time? I haven't tried w2s to extend naps, mine was a habitual short napper until we dropped the catnap but out awake times had to be stretched to 3hrs.

If w2s is working for you, there is no harm in doing it. If your LO knows how to fall asleep, that's great... he probably hasn't yet learnt how to transition between cycles, in which case it is a matter of time and development or he isn't tired enough to want to sleep more, in which case its a matter of adding a little more A

[erind1983]

Thank you for your response!  His awake time is generally 2 hours and his routine is this:

7:00 Wake for the day
7:00-7:15 EAT
7:15-8:30 ACTIVITY
8:30-9:30 SLEEP (I make sure he is in the crib for one hour)
9:30-9:45 EAT
9:45-11:30 ACTIVITY
11:30-12:30 SLEEP
12:30-12:45 EAT
12:45-2:45 ACTIVITY
2:45-3:45 SLEEP
3:45-4:00 EAT
4:00-5:30 ACTIVITY
5:30 BATH
5:50 EAT
6:10 STORY
6:15 BEDTIME

We have been doing an early bedtime ever since we started sleep training with our consultant because he was so tired at the end of the day from the short naps.  He tends to be tired after 1.5 hours of awake time, so I am hesitant to increase it even more past 2 hours.

I know he is tired after 40 minutes because he often wakes up cranky.  I am going to try the W2S for the next few days and see what happens to both the daytime and nighttime sleep.  Hoping day improves and night stays the same.  Thanks again for your response!!

[Layla]

You might need to bump up those A's - at 5 months, the av is around 2-2.5hrs; we were working towards dropping the catnap and our A's were closer to 3hrs by 5.5months. You could try gently pushing A time every 3-4 days, 10-15mins every 3-4 days until you get there. See how you go with w2s for another couple of days but otherwise you would proabbly need to add a little more A. Some babies start to lose their sleepy cues around this age and sleepy cues are more habitual. He is tired from not having enough sleep but may need more A to sleep more.

When I was stretching A's, I used to take mine out of the house, lots of distraction and then do a longer windown or really low key activites just before nap time.

See how you go and let me know

[erind1983]

Thanks Layla! I have been successful extending the first nap to 1.5 hours since trying W2S out (4 consecutive days). I was only successful with nap 2 on the first day and haven't gotten it since. This morning he actually did wake during nap 1 at 40 min BUT he put himself back to sleep shortly after!!! So I feel like he is breaking the 40 min wake habit with nap 1.

I will keep trying with nap 2 and what about nap 3? I know that one is usually a catnap but do I still try to extend it? Also, should I keep doing W2S for nap 1 until nap 2 is sorted out? Tomorrow will be day 5.

Thanks for your help!

[Layla]

You don't need to do it for nap 3 because that is only meant to be a catnap and you don't want him sleeping too much during the day and that interfering with night sleep. I never did w2s (well I wasn't successful when I tried, lol) but I found that naturally our morning nap lengthened first sometime around 3 months and the afternoon nap extended on its own when we dropped the catnap, around 5-5.5months.

Are you still giving him more A? The wake up at 40mins he will always do, they all do as this is part of the sleep cycle and then they put themselves back to sleep for another 40-45mins. Maybe try not doing w2s for the morning nap anymore to see if he will put himself back to sleep and just do it for the afternoon nap?