Disater naps dn't know what to do

[Aldorette]

Hi there
My baby has been sleep trained last week and things have gotten amazingly better she sleeps about 10-11 hours at night with one quick 15 minute feeding at around 1am and she goes back to sleep immediately she sometimes wakes up at 4am but then I leave her and she goes back to sleep she also wakes up quite happy but after 40 minutes she is tired again, but the naps are reaaly getting me down she will go down and go to sleep in about 20 minutes with just a little fussing but the problem is she only naps for anout 30 minutes and then won't go back to sleep i've tried leaving her for an hour to see if she will fall asleep but she only plays with her lalla (pacifier) and when i get her out she is just miserable the whole day keeps yawning and rubbing her eyes but won't sleep. She takes about 3 30 minute naps a day. I've played around with her wake time and it doesn't seem to make a diffrence sometimes she will skip the morning naps and it just gets worse. She is not on any schedule but i try to do flexible 4 hour easy but she rarely feeds every 4 hours its closer to 4.5 hours and then it starts to interfere with nap time. She wouls either not feed because she is tired but won't sleep because she is still hungry. My pediatrician who adviced me to do sleep/nap training told me not to worry to much about a schedule and rather watch for sleep and hungry cues. Any advice about what I'm doing wrong?? Thank you and sorry for the long post I wanted to be specific 😅

[Bella89]

Nothing to be sorry about
Hello, and welcome to BW forum

We can all get to a place where we don't know what to da anymore. Don't worry and keep your head up

I have few questions:
1. How old is your baby?
2. Is she BF, FF, solids?
3. What do you mean by sleep trained?
4. And finally, how does your day look like? Can you write it down in an easy to read format? like:
7 WU
7:30 feed
9-9:45 nap 1
....

[Aldorette]

Hi please excuse me for taking so long to reply😊
•She will be 7 months in a couple of days
•on formula and 2-3solids a day
•sleep trained - my pediatrician advised me to let her cry for a certain amount of time and then pick her up and comfort until she is almost asleep and put down again until she is asleep sometimes she goes to sleep without crying just chatting of practising crawling but other times she cries
•every day is completely diffrent so i'm going to give you an example of the last 2 days as its been a complete mess

Thursday
Wu - 5:30 left her until 6 to see if she would fall asleep again without luck
6:00 - formula
7:00 - refused breakfast
8:00 - 9:00 no nap got her up
9:30 quick formula and down for a nap
10:00 fell asleep until 11:00
12:30 formula and lunch but refused lunch
13:00 -14:00 no nap
14:30 down for nap
15:45 fell asleep until 15:15
16:30 dinner
17:00 bath and night routine
18:00 put to bed fell asleep at 18:50
01:30 formula
Friday

5:50 wu and formula
7:00 breakfast refused
8:30 down for nap
8:00 fell asleep until 9:00
10:00 formula
11:00 lunch
12:30 no nap
13:30 no nap
14:00 formula
14:30 tried again no nap
5:30 bath and bet time routine
5:50 asleep
00:30 formula
4:50 wu and left her until 6 she did not fall back asleep.

I sometimes give her formula and lunch earlier as it clashes with nap times

[Bella89]

Hello again,
first of all, lots of support and hugs sent your way!! It sounds like you have your hands full and struggle right now

Please, let me tell you that letting your baby cry for any amount of time without any support is not a good idea. We don't support that technique on this forum as we believe it breaks the bond with your baby and stops any trust your baby has in you. When a baby cries it's because something is not right, something is bothering them and they cry for you to help them. Now, we can start finding out what is wrong and fix it !:)

It looks like you're giving her lots of opportunities to nap, and she might rest a little these moments which is making her NOT tired enough to take a good nap. Does that make sense?

I would suggest pushing that A time to let her enjoy play time some more. Especially the first one.

What do you think about this for a little while?:
5:30 WU
6:00 formula
7:45 breakfast
8:30 nap till ?
10:00 formula
11:45 lunch
1:00 nap
2:00 ? formula
3:45 solids
5:00 nap but no later than 6
7:00 formula, bath...

Ultimately, at this age you want this:
7:00 (it can look like this, pushing A times and breaking OT cycle can help EW)
10:30-12 nap
3:30-4:30 nap ? or longer
7-7:30 BT

At 7 months they need more time to enjoy themselves
What do you say, you wanna try?

[Aldorette]

I'm more than willing to try. I just thought that since she is overtired i should keep A time shorter.
I can quickly give a an update how yesterday and this morning went.

4:50 wu got her up at 6:00
6:00 formula
7:00 breakfast
7:50 nap fell asleep in a couple of minutes without crying or fussing
Woke her up at 10:00 because i didn't want to ruin the afternoon nap
10:00 formula
11:30 lunch
12:30 no nap
14:30 formula
15:00 no nap
16:30 dinner
17:10 bath
17:30 fell asleep withou crying or fussing
00:00 formula
6:00 woke up due to noisy dog
6:00 formula
7:15 breakfast
9:00 down for nap fell asleep at 9:15 after i comforted her
9:45 wu
10:00 formula
11:30 lunch
12:30 i just put her down for a nap but i don't thing she will nap she is babbling away

Her bedtime use to be at 7:00 and mostly she would sleep until 6:30 with one night feeding and sometimes early wu but fell asleep again after 30 min
But my mom advised me to put her down earlier since its almost winter.

I will try that new routine from tommorow

[Bella89]

I would advice you not to wake her up from naps now, when she is struggling with being OT. I would wait with this when she will catch up.
Also, putting her down for BT earlier is a good idea when she is OT or hasn't nap for a long time (skipped nap basically). I personally would not change BT because the day is shorter during the winter. It brings you another adjustment that you have to cope with. So DD has to keep up with her developmental changes and adjust to earlier BT as well. It can be difficult and give you EW or long NW.

I'm more than willing to try. I just thought that since she is overtired i should keep A time shorter.

That's true, but you have put her down for naps so many times and she still didn't want to sleep, so maybe you could try something different. I know it worked with my DS, when he was OT the only way to break the cycle was to create a decent A time.

Keep me posted!

[Aldorette]

Hi it's been a while but I wanted to give you an update.
I tried that routine for about 2 weeks and saw no improvement so i decided to go back to put her down whenever i see a tired sign and it works she naps for at least 1 to 1.5 hours twice a day. Unfortunately we still strugle with early wu but i think that is due to us getting up at 4:30 for DH to go to work. She sometimes goes back to sleep after a while otherwise we just start the day. Over weekend she wil sleep until 7:00. Thank you for your help and advice 

[Bella89]

Good to hear that!

Yes, it is always a good idea to watch for clues:)