12 week old chronically overtired won't nap - how do I catch her up on sleep?

[jennfullwood]

Hello moms,

I have a 12 week old little girl who struggled with a horrible milk allergy her first 2 months after birth - horrible GI issues kept her up day and night and she is now chronically overtired. She is now on an elemental formula and her GI issues have been resolved for this past month. I don't believe at all that she is having any symptoms that are affecting her sleep now. I have tried to follow EASY since birth with her (I used it with my son beautifully), but I haven't been able to make it work for her yet. Since she was 2 weeks old, she stopped sleeping for naps and I have been unable to get any long naps since then. If I am lucky, her naps are 30 minutes tops, with the RARE 1 hour nap if I literally almost put her straight back down from waking from a prior nap. She apparently has always had very short A times and when she was a baby, showed no tired signs that I could pick up on. I struggled so much knowing when to put her down for naps - it was like hitting a moving target and always missing. Her first 2 months I would only get either 30 or 40 minute naps - going back and forth between UT and OT I believe. The 3rd month it got worse and now only 30 minute naps happen once or twice a day - the other naps I can't even settle her down and I have to carry her in a front carrier just to get her minimal rest. I am beside myself doing everything I can to help her sleep.

When she was younger, she could self-settle for naps - but hardly anymore as she is so OT. Everyday I keep her A times extremely short as she seems to wake up exhausted from the start. She is sucking her hands and rubbing eyes and jerky movements almost immediately and for sure within 30 minutes of waking. I know at this age they should be awake 1 hour and 15 min - 1 hour and 30 minutes. There is no way she could do that right now - she would be a crying mess. I put her to bed early every night trying to catch her up on sleep (at 5 or 6pm and she sleeps until 7am with multiple wake ups. She still has at least 2 feedings at night - and sometimes 3 if she is waking a whole lot. She never seems rested of a morning.

I know to try to break the OT cycle I need to keep A times very short and quiet and get her to nap as much as possible - but she still will only take 30 minute naps and it's SO difficult to get her settled down. By noon, I have a horribly OT baby already...I just can't figure out how to catch her up on sleep. Nothing I do seems to work in getting her more rest.

Please, does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this? Thank you for your help!!

[lauradj]

Hi there!  It sounds like you two have had a rough start.  I happen to have some experience in that area as my DS2 had reflux and had to be put on soy protein formula.  Honestly, most of DS2's naps took place in a baby carrier for the first 3 months.  I could not ask my toddler to stay inside so I would always aim for one nap in the crib and the other two happened either in the stroller or in the baby carrier.  Sometimes that would help him sleep for 45-60 minutes but sometimes it didn't make a lick of difference. 
When you say she's awake for 30 minutes, do you mean after you've fed and changed her or in total?

[jennfullwood]

Hi and thank you for your reply.

I know it sounds like such a short A time, but she starts showing tired signs 30 minutes after waking in the morning, or from the rare nap. Sucking hands, very jerky movements, rubbing eyes, sneezing, and shortly after these, the fussing starts. So this 30 minutes includes the feeding. I feel like I'm immediately needing to put her back down, or at least try, but it rarely ever leads to a nap in her bed. I too have carried her for 3 months in the carrier for 95% of her naps and I'm exhausted. It just seems to get worse and worse. She's 13 pounds, so I'm not going to be able to do that for much longer and I'm so worried about her lack of naps without me being able to carry her.

Of course her nights are really bad too, lots of wakings and prolonged wakings now too.

Any other insight? Thank you so much.

[deb]

When my DD1 was around 3 months, her early morning sleep was awful, so she woke already-tired for the day, which led to short A time and thus to short-napping. We solved it, eventually, with reflux meds (in our own case that was HUGE!), with getting her past her 5:30AM-ish waking to feed using a dreamfeed so she wasn't waking hungry, and with nap extending w/her pacifier. There's a thread that I can never find any more (it was moved during a re-organization of the board; can mods help?) about Josie and her 45-minute naps; getting rid of that 5AM waking was KEY to the whole thing.

At the moment she's also likely hit the 3-month growth spurt, so her sleep will likely be further disrupted while her feed schedule adjusts.

[BabyA0105]

I too have a 12 week old that only takes 30 min naps.  We have been able to successfully get him down in his crib using shush pat for sleep and naps the past couple of days but it has obviously been a battle so his schedule is all messed up.  In general, he wakes up twice a night to eat (no dream feeding) over an 11-12 hour stretch.  His wake times are around 1.5 hours (have been longer because of the sleep training the past couple of days). We have been doing EASY for 3 weeks now but I never get Y because his naps have always been short and so its more like EASAEAS.  The only way he will sleep longer than 30-40 min is if I wrap him in my moby - but even then I see his eyes open at the end of his first REM cycle.  Wake to sleep does not seem to work on him 😞.  Any thoughts on what else I can do? Is it possible that he developmentally can't connect the cycles yet? Should I just wear him in the afternoons so he sleeps longer stretches and isn't so cranky? I just think it's odd that he can do it at night but not during the day.  I even tried black out curtains....

[lauradj]

Josie and her 45-minute naps; getting rid of that 5AM waking was KEY to the whole thing.

I'll check my old posts, I have it somewhere!

[lauradj]

Found it!  I saved under my BW bookmarks 

How Tracy Helped Josie and her Family Get Past 45-Min. Naps!