Short naps

[LevAndDina]

Hi all,
We put our 5 month old daughter on the EASY routine 7 days ago.
We now manage to put her to sleep pretty easily, it usually doesn't take more than 20 minutes.
At night time she sleeps fine, wakes up once for a feed and goes back to sleep.
The problem remains with nap time. occasionally she sleeps for an hour and a half, but usually she wakes up after abput 20-45 minutes and so we spend the rest of the time shush petting her without success.
What can we do to prolong her napping time?

Thanks

[Kellyjs]

Hi, would you mind posting your easy for us to take a peek at? I have a feeling she may be a bit UT and therefore waking after one sleep cycle. This is a good link to keep handy, but look forward to hearing from you x

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

[LevAndDina]

Hi Kelly,
thanks for the link.
Here is our EASY routine from yesterday, mind you we've only began practicing the routine a week ago so we are not really sure we are doing it right.

She woke up at 7:00
E - 7:15 (bottle + breast)
A - 7:35
S - 8:55 (until 10:55)
E - 11:15
A - 11:30
S (this is usually the problomatic nap) - 13:00. She slept till 13:35, we came to shush/pat and she fell asleep only an hour later, at 14:30, and woke up again at 15:00.
E - 15:15
A - 15:35
S - 17:00. She woke up at 17:20 and we did shush pat till 17:45
E - 18:00
A - We read a book and take a bath
E - 19:00 (Tanking up)
S - 19:15
She woke up at 1:15 for a NF and than slept till 6:30 this morning.

Each S includes a few minutes of winding down, but she doesn't like those minutes and it's usually a bit of a struggle.
What are we doing wrong?

Thanks

[Kellyjs]

Sounds  like you're doing really well actually hun 

Ok, that first nap is great isn't it? Not need to tweak anything there. Around now LO's start varying their A time a bit so may show a preference for a shorter first A, then longer A's later in the day or vice versa.

One thing we have to bear in mind is that she'll be getting ready to drop that third nap soon. I think that's what happening for you hun. I'll post a link that explains it in detail for you at the end.

I think that second nap is an UT one. If she is going back to sleep albeit eventually it could be that the A times aren't too far off it just needs pushing just a bit. I'd extend it by 15mims so aim to pd around 1.15pm and see if the nap lengthens without you having to ssh/pat.

As you're extending the A there, I would probably just keep that last nap as is at 20mins as it obviously suits her. 2hrs A after a short nap could be considered long to BT for some, but you didn't mention any NW's in the early part of the night so we could assume she actually likes the longer as to BT. Wdyt? Xx

All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

Eta.. Wrt the wind down and fussing. I used to do this big wind down with DD, sit down, song, cuddle etc etc. She used to arch her back and fuss. Still kept with it. One day at Xmas I think, DH out her down for a nap. In true male style he just plonked her into bed and she fell straight asleep.  I was all ready to give him a right telling off about not sticking to the routine until I realised she was asleep. From that moment on I realised she just wasn't that into it!!! This is a great link if you wanted to try and identify your LO's temperament type The BW "Know Your Baby Quiz"

[LevAndDina]

First of all, thanks a lot for the reassurance.
Secondly, I think you are right, maybe we should make the second A longer. We didn't even think about different lengths of A, so THANK YOU!
We are also thinking about adding a small E before the second nap after reading some stories in this forum because we suspect that part of the problem could be due to the amount of E she gets in the first two feeds. Usually she eats far less in these feeds compared to the other feeds.
But now we are worried that it doesn't settle with the EASY routine. What do you think?
 
we will see how tomorrow goes, and hope we have some Y

[lily_layne]

We are also thinking about adding a small E before the second nap

I always did a top-up feed with DS before his naps. Eventually he dropped the feeds right after a nap in preference for eating before he slept. Sometimes he nursed to sleep (still does occasionally at 10 months) but it did not become a prop issue. The beauty of EASY is that it is a routine, not a set in stone schedule, so it can be made to accommodate each LO's differences

[Kellyjs]

Exactly what lily said, sometimes we have to get a bit creative with the timings when they get older. I used to do EAEASY for quite a while! It's worse when solids come into the mix as it becomes EEAEAS etc etc.

I might consider feeding, then doing the stories, as that would count towards a little A time. Wdyt? But in either case, just like lily said if she does fall asleep I wouldn't worry too much as you're not doing it all the time xx