Author Topic: Cat nap refusal!  (Read 1512 times)

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Offline ecwinters

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Cat nap refusal!
« on: June 25, 2015, 17:00:17 pm »
Hi
My 3 month old baby is generally pretty poor at napping in the day - he'll go down OK but does those annoying 45 minute naps most of the time with the occasional longer one.  This means each day is sightly different, depending on his nap length.  We have now hit a problem when he wakes up at around 3:30/4:00pm - the earliest I like to put him to bed is 6:30pm (sleep time) so if this happens I try and get him to have a short 20-30 minute cat nap around 5:00/5:30pm before doing feed, bath and bed. 

This used to work OK if I took him out for a walk in the sling but for the past week he's been refusing to sleep!  He's really getting too big to snuggle down and sleep in the sling (he's a really big baby!).  He never sleeps in the pram so that's no use and putting him down for the cat nap in his cot results in screaming for 30 minutes!  The car sometimes works but mostly not.  Basically, there is no way I can get him to take this nap!  Should I keep at it or just give up and have him awake for 3 hours!  He's normally only had between 3-4 hours of day sleep by this point so I imagine he is tired...not sure what to do to avoid having an OT baby at bedtime. 

I know the obvious answer would be to sort out those 45 minute naps to get him on a better schedule but believe me I've tried!  He's been doing them since he was 6 weeks old.  He can self settle so there isn't a sleep prop issue and I've tried playing around with awake time etc.  Hopefully he'll improve but in the meantime I'm a bit stuck.  Any advice would be really appreciated.  Thanks.

Offline Martini~

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Re: Cat nap refusal!
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2015, 18:30:57 pm »
Could you please post your routine Honey?
~Marta

Offline ecwinters

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Re: Cat nap refusal!
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2015, 19:37:13 pm »
Today went like this:

Wake up - 6:45 (may have been awake slightly earlier but not sure - I went in and he was awake!  Was asleep at 6:30)
Eat - 7:00
Activity - 7:30
Sleep - 8:10-8:55

Activity - 8:55
Eat - 9:30
Sleep - 10:15 - 11:00

Activity - 11:00
Eat - 11:30
Sleep - 12:30 - 13:20 (think he briefly resettled after a sleep cycle)

Activity - 13:20
Eat - 14:00
Sleep - 15:05-16:00 (again, I think he resettled.  This awake time was longer because he fussed for about 20 minutes before sleeping.  He was in bed by 14:45.)

Activity - 16:00
Eat - 16:15
Tried cat nap in sling from 17:15 but this didn't happen. Gave up at 17:40.

We then did bedtime and he was asleep by 18:50.  No crying, a bit of fussing, but went to sleep in about 10 minutes after being put in the cot. 

I know the sleeping and eating is all over the place - wish I could get a bit more structure to the day and predictability about bedtime.  He sleeps well at night normally - sometimes right through (11 + hours), sometimes with an early morning waking around 5:30am when I'll feed him if he asks for it or he'll resettle himself, and sometimes with a wake up for food any time between 1am and 3am - he then may sleep through or do his early morning waking thing if I'm really unlucky!  I don't do a dream feed at the moment.  I tried it a couple of times but he still woke once in the night after that so I didn't see much point carrying on with it.

Thanks.  He is 13.5 weeks.  So basically just about 3 months old.   Most definitely a touchy baby but looks angelic, and when out and about will just look at everyone with huge eyes/smiles so gives off an 'angel baby' appearance.  So long as they don't try to hold him....!!!

Offline Martini~

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Re: Cat nap refusal!
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2015, 06:17:42 am »
His A times maybe too short for him. Usually 3mo is 1:30 and 4mo is 2:00 but somewhere around short naps started for us because DS needed A jump. Would you consider putting him down later than 8:10?
~Marta

Offline ecwinters

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Re: Cat nap refusal!
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2015, 08:47:26 am »
Hi
He's done short naps since he was about 5-6 weeks old, with the very occasional longer one it's not a recent thing.  So, I just tried putting him down a bit later - his awake time was 1 hour 30 minutes.  He was in bed by 1 hour 20 and took 10 minutes to settle - a bit of crying then fussing.

He did a 35 minute nap and woke up crying.  Is this overtired?  I'm sure he's overtired as he rarely gets more than 14 hours sleep in every 24 hours and doesn't get proper naps during the day.  But there's no way I can lengthen them - am at my wits end with him!!

Offline Martini~

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Re: Cat nap refusal!
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2015, 19:15:09 pm »
Usually 35min at that age where OT for us but still sometimes you have to push to get a longer nap. I would try 1:45 at first nap of the day when you know he is rested after good night.
~Marta

Offline ecwinters

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Re: Cat nap refusal!
« Reply #6 on: July 03, 2015, 17:38:00 pm »
This morning I stretched the A time to 1 hour 50 and got a 1 hour 30 minute nap (in fact I had to wake him up for feed)!
In fact it could have been a little bit more A time as he was awake when I woke up :)  He went down really easily - no crying.

I suspect he's had a big leap in A times recently as I've had a lot of nap refusal when I've tried putting him down after an hour and 30 minutes.  For the 2nd nap I watched him really closely and ended up with an A time of 2 hours - he started off going down fine but then had a little 3 minute strop and went off to sleep.  But I only got a 45 minute nap from him that time (our usual!).

The 3rd nap - A time of 2 hours again - was only 25 minutes though! So have no idea what to make of that one.  He woke up happy and lasted nearly 2 hours until last 45 minute before bed catnap. 

He's nearly 15 weeks old - can his A time really have jumped?