3.5 mo nap schedule - Please Help

[Prempadams]

My daughter is 3.5 months old and I cannot figure out her nap schedule.  Somedays she will take a 2 hr nap if I lay her down after 1 hr of wake time and some days she will only nap for 45 mins.  Can someone please help me as to what kind of schedule she should be on?  When I should be putting her down and how long she should be sleeping for.  She wakes up around 7 am and eats every 3-3.5 hrs and goes to bed at 7 pm.  Thank you.

[Kellyjs]

Hi and welcome to the forums  . I'm sure we can help.

An hour of awake time is much too short for a 3.5mo hun. See this link here, I think you'll find it really helpful. Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

The 45mins nap is an UT one, and we've all been there. Basically she's sleeping for one sleep cycle and waking up because she's simply not tired enough to go onto the next sleep cycle. I would look at extending all the A times by 15mims hold for 3 days and see if it improves. Ideally a nap over an hour, better if 1.5hrs would be great. If not, add on another 15mims. Could you try tomorrow and let me know how it goes? A log looking like this will help:

Wu say 7
E
A
S 8.20-.. Etc etc all the way to the end of the day.

[Prempadams]

Ok, thank you so much! I will try it out tomorrow.  Question though, do I put her down at 1:20 or do I put her down around 1:10 to give her time to fall asleep? Basically does wake time mean from the time she wakes up to the time I put her in her crib or the time she wakes up to the time she falls asleep. Sometimes she can take anywhere from 10-20 mins to fall asleep.

[Kellyjs]

A time works from eyes open to eyes closed including any E times. Saying that, as she's already taking 10-20 mins to fall asleep I think that reinforces my thought about UT. I'd probably aim to pd 5 mins beforehand? Wdyt? Doable?

Remember she may get a little cranky during the extension of the A time, just try and do something low-key like read a book or a change do scenery can help too. Even if it's just another room. Keep me posted, good luck! Xx

[Prempadams]

Ok so she woke up at 7:20.  She was happily playing and started to get a bit fussy (not too much though). I put her down at 8:35 to give her 5 mins to settle down and go to sleep. At 8:40 she started crying on and off.  She fell asleep at 8:50.  Should I extend her WT to 1:30 for the next nap?

[Kellyjs]

No I'd hold it at the same A hun. Just for a few days. If we extend too much too quickly we won't be able to see a pattern and the UT naps could change to OT ones before we have chance to blink! Let me know how it goes. It may be that we do extend to 1.5hrs, but we'll give the lesser time a go first xx

[Prempadams]

Ok thank.  I will report back after the second nap too! 

[Prempadams]

Ok so she woke up at 10:10 (1:20 min nap).  She went back down at 11:25, no crying this time, she was just talking to herself.  At 11:35 she settled down and by 11:40 she was asleep.  I did notice that she doesn't cry when I bring her into the room, which she normally does!

[Prempadams]

Ok this nap didn't go too well.

‪11:25‬ - down. No crying, just talked to herself 
‪11:35‬ - settle down
‪11:40‬ - sleep  
‪12:18‬ - up/crying 
‪12:22‬ - back asleep
‪12:30‬ - up again playing and crying
‪12:45‬ - back asleep 
1:35 - up

[Kellyjs]

Ok, this isn't too bad actually and a massive improvement dyt?

I do think another slight increase in A time will be on the cards soon, but I just want to hold this for a few days and see if a constant pattern emerges ok? Do remember around this age short naps can be developmental too, especially all this waking in between. And she's not far off the 4mo sleep regression too, so that can play a part.

Do you follow the wonder weeks at all? It's a good app to get or there's info about it on the web. It basically predicts any unsettled periods through developmental leaps and can be very handy to have close by to save your sanity! Xx

[Prempadams]

I was discouraged after the second nap, but I see it as progress now.  Her third nap was a lot better

2:50 - down/crying
2:55 - stopped crying/settled down
3:08 - asleep
4:45 - up (1:35 nap)

I do have the wonder week App. She's in the Events leap and in the stormy period.  She's not really fussy though, but I can see how it can relate to her nap inconsistency. 

Thank you so much for your help.  She's going to be 4 months on 11/9. After 2 days of keeping her WT of 1:20 when should I increase it and how do I increase it? I also know I need to factor in the time change on Sunday. Thank you, thank you, thank you again for all your help!!!

[Kellyjs]

My pleasure hun 

Actually the time change and the increase in A time might work together for you for a little while. Which way are the clocks going for you? Back or forwards? I'll post a link at the end for you. If it's back, may I suggest using the 15 mins increment change to shift the whole routine? Maybe move once every 3 days rather than a week like it says in the link?

Then after the routine is shifted, it'll give us chance to extend the A time again slowly, just like we did before xx

How to Adjust to Daylight Savings

[Prempadams]

Ok, I will try out the 15 min change every 3 days.  I am a bit discouraged though.  She did great this morning and then the third nap was a total fail. Not sure what I should do now, do a rescue nap in the swing or put her to bed early?!

Nap 1

8:30 - down no crying
8:38 - sleep
10:05 - up (1.5 hr nap)

Nap 2

11:22 - down, talked, cries for a min
11:45 - sleep
1:20 - up (1.5 hr nap)

Nap 3

2:45 - down - fussy/cried a bit
2:55 - sleep
3:27 - up/cried/tried to go back down/cried
4:30 - up to feed

[Kellyjs]

Interesting that her third nap was better on the day that her second nap wasn't.

Let's hold these first two A times for at least a few days ok? The first two naps are good. I wonder if we should increase that 3rd A by a little tomorrow wdyt? Maybe add 10 mins and see where that gets you tomorrow? Remember tomorrow is always another day. It's looking so much better already dyt? And the third nap is always a tricky one anyways. It's never perfect  xx

[haleytreat]

I am having the same type of issues with my 4.5 month old. One day she will nap well with 2 hours A time and then the next she will only nap 30 min. I am not sure what I am doing wrong.