14 weeks and 10-30 min naps

[bethg]

We put 14 week old DD to sleep in the crib for naps starting 3 weeks ago. Before that, she was falling asleep independently in a bassinet. The first nap in the crib, she went to sleep by herself and slept 1.5 hrs. Since then, she seemingly cannot get to sleep by herself. 10 min after going to sleep, she has a jolt so big she wakes up screaming. I tried holding her down through the jolts, which doesn't always work. I tried swaddling with one arm out to suck, but she gets so upset that the other arm is in that she is struggling and crying every time I put her in the crib. So every bedtime (which is 5x day at this age!) is spent crying and shh - patting through the 10 min jolt. And then, she wakes up after 30min. These are my concerns:
1. My spending 30 min in the nursery at the beginning of every nap, plus returing 20 minutes later to get baby back to sleep is not an option anymore - 4 yo DD cannot be left alone that much.
3. How do I teach her to fall asleep by herself? Is the jolting a developmental thing that will work itself out over time? How does S-P help her learn to fall asleep independently? Because I've been doing it for 3+ weeks with no change.

This is what our day has been like since starting the crib:

7am Wake up and feed

8:10 go up to start nap, Asleep by 8:30

8:45 Wake up. S-P asleep at 9.

9:30 Wake up

10 Eat

10:40 go up to start nap.  Asleep by 11.

11:15 Wake up. S-P asleep at 11:30.

12:00 Wake up

1:00 Eat

1:15 go up to start nap.  At this point she's overstimulated, overtired and backwards on the EASY schedule, eating right before sleeping.

The rest of the schedule is not worth wriitng down, because we don't even get 30 minute naps after this.  She will eventually get to sleep with S-P, but wake up after 10 minutes.  And then we can literally spend 2 hours doing S-P with her waking up every 10  minutes until it's time to eat. 

6:30-7pm Eat and Bed
11pm Dreamfeed
3 or 3:30 am wake up to eat.  No problems going back to sleep in the middle of the night.  Still sleeping in a bassinet in our room.

[Lindsay27]

Hi hun, my DD is about the same age as yours and we get lots of short naps too, I think a large part of it is developmental, and we still get huge jolts as well.  I still have my DD swaddled (both arms in) which seems to help.

One thing I noticed though, is I think your A times are a bit short which is why I think you are having to spend so much time getting her down initially.  If her WU is 7am I wouldn't think about starting the wind-down process until about 8:30...assume 10mins to fall asleep which would give you a 1.40 A time.  I think she will settle on her own better once she is tired enough.  I think you are maybe just starting the wind down process a little early.

For us, I swaddle my DD and then rock her until she is really drowsy and calm and then place her in her crib and just place a firm hand on her chest until she is through the jolts and she nods off.

[bethg]

Thanks Lindsay!
A couple follow ups:

1. DD is obsessed with sucking her fingers. This does cause some problems because a loud suck will wake her up.  But also, if I swaddle with both arms in, she will fight and scream, which does not make for relaxed falling asleep.  On the other hand, when swaddled arms out, the jolt can send both arms flying straight out and smacking the mattress which wakes her up and she starts screaming.  I feel like she ends up screaming either way.

2. If we extend the wake up times, will her being more tired keep her from waking up after 10 minutes?  Today, because of taking big sister to preschool, we got home right at 1:30 awake time.  We went straight upstairs and did nap routine.  She fell asleep independently perfectly happy in 10 minutes.  I was sitting next to the bed but not touching her.  I waited 10+ minutes and she was still and breathing evenly, so I left (totally silent).  Two minutes after I left, she was awake and crying.  We can't seem to cross the 10 minute barrier.

Other times, when I have stayed with a hand on her through the jolts either they wake her up anyway, or she's awake 2 minutes after I take my hand off.  How do we get her to stay asleep??

[Lindsay27]

My DDhas recently become very obsessed with sucking her fingers too, I actually started to swaddle her 1 arm out tonight and then thought nope...get that arm back in there lol.  If she hates being swaddled completely don't force it, but just be prepared to spend a little extra time helping her through, the jolts DO disappear eventually although it feels like forever.

I think your morning today looks fantastic if she went off quickly and independently, I would try to keep that same A time going.  I think the 10 minute thing is just her body getting into a deep sleep.  It's very time consuming but you may need to stay in for 15mins until she is through everything.  Sometimes if I take my hand off DD too abruptly it wakes her so I usually place a firm hand and then lessen the pressure every few minutes so she doesn't startle when I take my hand off.