45 minute naps (6 week old baby)

[ecwinters]

Hello!  I would be very grateful if someone could help me.  I have a 6 week old boy and have been trying to follow EASY on a 3 hour schedule for 2 weeks.  He's a big baby (already nearly 12Ib), loves to eat, is very alert and active but is quite high maintenance.  From reading the different baby types I would say I have a cross between spirited baby and touchy baby.  He can go from happy to hysterical at the drop of a hat. 

I would say that his crying is almost always because he gets over tired or over stimulated.  I have been working at reading sleep cues, not stimulating him too much before sleep times and having a proper wind down time.  Getting him to sleep still varies - sometimes it's 15 minutes with minimal crying and sometimes it's 45 minutes of on and off screaming, but he almost always drops off.  The problem is that he only naps for 40-45 minutes before waking again!

This clearly ruins the 3 hour cycle!  I have a kind of 2 hour cycle going but I don't want to start feeding him every two hours and he doesn't always want food when he wakes up anyway as it's only been 2 hours since the last feed.

The day can go something like this:
7:00 - eat, activity
8:05 - wind down
8:20 - sleep
9:05 - awake

9:10 - activity, eat
10:15 - wind down
10:30 - sleep
11:15 - awake

And so on.  The timings aren't exact as it various so much with how long it takes him to go to sleep.  Does anyone have any suggestions for:
a) Trying to encourage him to sleep longer than 45 minutes.  I've tried sitting with him for the whole sleep a couple of times to help him over the transition, but he wakes up and cries just the same and I can't resettle him.   I have also tried going in to resettle him at the end of the 45 minutes but this just results in screaming!  I do sometimes get him back down again but it can take up to an hour of screaming and it's not worth the battle in my opinion.  Plus, he then gets hungry.

b) Making the EASY routine work with these little 45 minute naps.   I feel like his eating is all over the place and he's just snacking randomly.  I'm trying to do a 12 hour night but it's so random as I never know when his day will end as it's so dependent on the naps and how long it take me to get him down etc.

c) what to do if he just won't go to sleep!  Do I keep trying or just start the next feed when it's due?

Many thanks - this is my first baby so I am grateful for any advice.

[trimbler]

Hi ecwinters, congratulations and welcome Oh how I wish EASY really were easy... What you describe is actually really normal, it can take a few months actually before they start to be able to get over that transition themselves. Just a couple of questions for you before I try to answer yours - how is he currently getting to sleep? Are you using shh pat and how much? Does he take all naps in the cot or are you able to give him some in a sling/pram/car?

Ok so... A) the most common cause of 45min wakings at this age (I think!) is over-tiredness, even at the A time you're currently getting (around 1h 20, right?). Have you tried getting him to sleep even earlier? Both mine were/are short A babies, so at this age it was really just a (long) feed and nappy change before starting wind down, which was frustrating but they just couldn't cope with much more than that, I think our optimum A time was still only around 45mins at 6 weeks, which is shorter than most but not off the scale. Something to consider, anyway? DS in particular didn't show any tired signs until around 2h, by which time of course he was extremely OT! Your description of your DS as going from happy to hysterical in a moment makes me wonder if he's just quite late with his tired signs, and if you see them, you may have already missed that window? Sounds like you're doing well getting him to sleep initially, but using the same techniques isn't working so well after the 45min wake up? Some mums have used the wake to sleep method (I'll find the link...) but I've always been too chicken! Alternatively, at this age, if you can APOP (using AP on purpose) to extend the nap, this can work really well to help them get the sleep they need whilst they're still a bit young to be forming strong sleep associations. Plus of course helping get your EASY back on track!

B) You don't have to have a 3h EASY at this age, you can do 2.5h EASY or even less - do you have a feel for how often he wants to eat? With short A times and short naps, some people find EASASE works, so get him up after his 45min nap, give him a really short, low key time up, then go for another 45min nap before the next feed. You can of course work on extending the nap and give up when he seems hungry or when you think there won't be enough time for another feed before he gets tired again. Or APOP - really before 3-4mo I wouldn't worry about using  that as much as needed for your sanity and his sleep needs. If he can have a good 'cheat' nap then he'll be better rested and more able to settle for the following nap. Also I really wouldn't worry about a 12h night, if you can keep track of roughly how much sleep he seems to need over 24h (probably 14-16h+ at his age) then you can use the amount of A time he's had in a day to work out whether the next sleep period should be a nap or night, iyswim? He'll probably need 4-5 naps, or maybe even 6 if they're all short. The night will vary, and often tends to be shorter when they're very young.

C) personally at this age, I'd APOP if possible! As above. From 3-4mo you will want to be getting more consistent with sleep training and this is around the time they develop their own self soothing skills, so any effort you spend on teaching sleep now will help then, but try not to stress over it, I spent the first few months of DS's life in a darkened room and regretted it, whereas I did much more APOP with DD and by 5mo there was really no difference in their self-settling skills

HTH, hugs for this exhausting time, it won't be like this forever

[ecwinters]

Hi Trimbler - thanks so much for replying.
He mostly sleeps in his cot upstairs but I do take him out for at least one walk in the sling per day.  He will pretty much always fall asleep in the sling as long as I keep walking but not reliably in the car or pram!  The sling is the only place where he'll sleep for more than a sleep cycle at the moment.   In the car, he'll still wake after 45 minutes and cry.

When he goes to sleep, I normally give him a cuddle, swaddle him, draw the curtains and then put him in his cot when he's drowsy.  I then gently hold him/stroke his tummy until he falls asleep.  I tried white noise/shhing but although these calm him, he doesn't fall asleep!  Same goes for patting.  At the moment he likes it very low key.

Would AP be something like putting him in the sling to finish the sleep? I have tried that a couple of times but he didn't fall back to sleep unfortunately!  I would assume the same goes for the car although I have never tried!

I think his awake times vary depending on how much sleep he's had throughout the day which makes it tricky.  I know I need to work at spotting the tired cues better.   However, if I get it wrong the other way and put him down too early I almost never get him to sleep, or if I do, it takes a long time.  It's a total minefield.

I have thought about doing EASAS - and have even got as far as doing EASA - but then he never seems tired enough to go back to sleep.  However, I guess this might be worth more goes at.  I would worry that he would end up getting hungry half way through trying to go back to sleep for the second time as the cycle would definitely last more than 3 hours by the time he woke up the 2nd time.

When do you think he might get better at going through a sleep cycle?

Thanks so much for helping.

[trimbler]

Sounds like you're doing well with getting him to sleep, eventually you'll want to just use your hand until he's drowsy  and remove it before,he actually goes to sleep, but you have plenty of time to work on that... It's great that he can get a decent nap in the sling, so you always know you can 'reset' his,day with a guaranteed longer nap. Plus those walks can be quite enjoyable I found that trying to extend the nap in the sling wasn't successful for very long, sometimes I ended up just holding them to sleep in the room and carrying on holding them until the next E. Either way for mine it needed to be dark, either in a dark room or with sling fabric over their faces to block visual distraction, obviously making sure they could still breathe! Is DS's room nice and dark? As they get older they can become more prone to visual distraction, so as they stir between sleep cycles and open their eyes a bit, it's often better if they can't see anything.

A times are difficult, as you say there can be such a narrow 'ideal' window and they may well vary during the day. All I can really suggest is that you keep logging them and see if you can spot patterns, post them here whenever you like. And take one day at a time, even one nap at a time, I'm afraid you may not see consistent improvement for a while or you may be pleasantly surprised, but when the 4mo sleep regression comes along many LOs start to struggle more with short naps, which can be partly needing to stretch A times and partly forming stronger sleep associations - ie needing the exact same environment in which they went to sleep, to stay asleep or transition to the next sleep cycle. In my limited experience, before 3mo short naps tend to happen more from OT/OS, sometimes also discomfort - do you think that could be an issue? What's the shortest A time you've tried recently? You may also find you need to make the whole of his A time more low key, which may seem boring, but it's only a relatively short phase, even if it seems to last forever. Oh and of course - there's a big growth spurt at 6 weeks!! So you may find that he's actually just waking earlier due to hunger and will need to feed more frequently for a few days, if he seems to be taking full feeds more often then that's probably it! Sorry didn't occur to me before, so long ago.

I never tried EASASE, except when the middle A was trying to resettle a nap! Will just look up the wake to sleep link for you...

[trimbler]

Here you are: How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods)
HTH

[ecwinters]

Thanks so much - that looks really useful.