30 min sleep myth? 5 month

[ChloesmomJing]

Hello, DD2 just turned 5 month 2 days ago. and lately she wakes up at 30/40min mark for all the sleep. mostly 30mins. sometime she wakes up crying in that case I am able to put her back to sleep. but sometimes she wakes up content. either way, she has to wake up at 30min mark. I've tried different A time but with no luck. please help me. Thank you.
We started to try to do EASY routine since she was 3 month.

right now her easy roughly looks like this (with a spirited almost 4 year old big sister around, I found it is really hard to keep a schedule consistent )

6:30 wu
S 8:30-9:10
E 9:10 breastfeed (her appetite is really bad in the morning)
A
S 10:45-11:10 (wake up happily)
A
E 12:35 bf
S12:50-2:50 (wake up a couple of times after 30mins and put her bake to sleep by putting a hand on her leg)
A
E 4:30bf
S 4:50-5:10 (usually 20-30 mins )
A
E 7:00 bf
S 7:10  most of the time cry a lot and won't settle till 7:30 or even 8pm and wake up several times after 30 mins.
but once she settled she can sleep for 3-4 hours until she wakes up fully for bf.
so the rest of the night goes like this: 12 bf, 3 wake up and put her back to sleep by putting a hand on her leg. 5 bf (then sleep by my side from then on till her sister wake her up..)

about her sleep, we didn't get much of a success by doing. She has moderate eczema which I think causes her to be itchy and her legs jolt even during sleep and sometimes wakes herself up. So instead, we put our hand on her leg so her leg doesn't move while lying her in her crib and found that put her to sleep.
By the way, DD2 is a chubby baby and wearing infant clothes of 9-12 month. Is it a chance that she can take longer A time? She is cranky after an hour and half if she only get 30 mins sleep..
 
Thank you all for the help

Jing

[michaeljacknnugg]

My guy is roughly the same age (5 months this past Saturday) and his A time is a lot, lot longer - anywhere between 3 and 4 hours. He's a bit ahead of average though, and we are establishing ourselves on two naps at present.

It might be worth giving her A times a push, starting by adding on say 15 minutes. Most babies are on three naps at this stage and a twelve hour day.

[ChloesmomJing]

Thank you for your prompt reply. I want to extend her A time but I'm so struggling with the cat naps in the morning. This morning was another failed trial.. I extend her first A time by 10 mins to 2 hours and 10 mins and she slept 10 mins and wake up to cry. I went in and put her back to sleep. then at 35 min she wake up quietly (we have a camera). I waited 10 min and she seems fully awake and so I came in..
SO far our easy look like this
6:25 wake up by loud sis
S 8:35-9:10 (8:45 wake up crying and put back to sleep)
E 9:10
A outing
S 10:35 -11:15 (10:45 wake up crying and I have to came in to settle her again)

I also tried wake up to sleep method but with no luck either. I feel like I'm out of choice. any suggestions are welcome!

[michaeljacknnugg]

Sometimes you just have to roll with the short naps, unfortunately. We've just had a 4.5hr A because he got woken from his last nap and wouldn't go to sleep again. Early bed if you can, on those days, but they do eventually work themselves out.

I've decided I will do anything I can (which means feeding back to sleep, mostly) to extend one nap a day. The other one I will follow his lead on.

Does that help?

[ChloesmomJing]

thank you for your advice. So what do you think my way of putting her to sleep? lately she's relying on it more and more and sometimes I have to put my hand on her leg hard to stabilize her and so she will fall back to sleep. How can I gradually withdraw? Can it become a pro?

[michaeljacknnugg]

To be honest you seem like you are doing so much better than us, I'm scared to advise! I've found for both mine though, doing as little as possible and gradually weaning it away seems to work.

[ChloesmomJing]

I have one more question . About putting her to sleep early at night, right now the sunset is becoming later and later. It seems that too bright bothers her even with blinds. So we couldn't put her to sleep calmly even though she is tired. So do you think a blackout curtain will do the trick? Does that sound normal?

[creations]

Hi there, I see you are cautious to extend teh A time but I agree with pp that it's pretty short, also W2S is unlikely to have a chance to be successful (or helpful as a tool) if the A time is not a suitable length for the LO.  You A time looks ok compared to the guidance times but like pp said some LOs are on much longer.
I think I'd increase the A to 2hr 20/30 and prepare yourself to resettle.  The thing is she may take a few days to get used to a longer A time (and you may see some OT wake ups in those days but these are usually easier to resettle) but should get back to some longer naps in the end.

I see no problem with having a hand on her legs if it helps her to get to sleep or stay asleep during a W2S or re-settle mid-nap...it can be weaned when she doesn't need the additional help, you may also see that this is not needed as much if the A increases and she is more ready for sleep (I mean she may not need it so much after she settles into a new A time, the settling in days can have some disturbed sleep for any LO).

WRT black out curtains. Many people in the BW community use total black out of one sort of another (they would say a 'necessity' rather than 'normal' ).  Some find that baby will not sleep well with even a small chink of natural light getting through.  I did a trial with mine at around this age and put up kitchen foil (using tape) across all the bed room windows, it *totally* blacks the room.  I was sure my DS slept better but in the end I left the foil as I just didn't get around to buying blinds and couldn't find exactly what I wanted to ensure ALL light was stopped.
Mine is older now and has just blackout curtain instead, no foil, there is quite a bit of light that gets in where they meet and also at the rail area around the top and the edges of the curtains, it is far from total blackout but for my 5yo he is fine with it and goes to sleep well.

[ChloesmomJing]

hi, thank you for the long post. I will try to extend the A time again. Like you said I'm very cautious about OT and everytime I see an OT I'd backout because I thought I was doing it wrong. So I'm gonna try a few more days of longer A and see if it helps with the longer nap 

And thank you for the blackout curtain opinion. in fact I went to fabric store and got some temporary blackout curtain liner to hang on the window today. And it happens that DD2 woke up at 2:50pm in the afternoon and refused to take a cat nap. so I had to put her to sleep at 6:15pm. I think the blackout curtain really helped. though she woke up at 6:45pm (ot?) but I was able to resettle her and she is still sleeping (us time 9:45pm). before she'd woke up fully and assuming she's taking a nap

[Gully]

Hi
We were in the exact same place as you about a month ago. We extended the naps slowly out to 2 hours 40 minutes and she now naps much better (averaging an hour and a half rather than the 30 minutes). I was scared to push awake times too but the advice we got on here was right and it did work  .

Now we are trying to drop the 3rd nap, but we had a lovely few weeks of  easy baby there!

[creations]

everytime I see an OT I'd backout because I thought I was doing it wrong

It's funny, there is a great tendency to fear OT (me too when mine was little) but very rarely people fear UT.  I learned though experience that mine was SO much easier to resettle with a bit of OT and impossible with UT. The problem with UT (as well as being really hard to resettle after a short nap) is that the short nap is not restorative so they end up getting OT by the end of the day anyway so it's a bit of a catch 22, if you put down earlier to try to avoid OT you can end up with more OT later on.

Looks like Gully had a great experience   Thanks for sharing and paying it forward Gully

[ChloesmomJing]

Thank you moms for your suggestion and experience. I'll try to extend her A and see how it goes.

[creations]

ah yes, I was planning to come back here to say... although I previously posted my 5yo is now fine with a black out curtain, he is not, too much light is getting in from the Spring/Summer sun first thing in the morning, creeping around the edges of the curtain and particularly the top where the rail is. I'm having to put up more black out to try to reduce it.  I'd really hoped this year we didn't need to totally screen the windows but looks like we do.

Good luck with extending the A, let us know how you get on

[ChloesmomJing]

hi moms,

I just want to give you an update of where are now. the last 3-4 days, somehow we had a wired schedule. It all started from her resisting cat nap on Friday afternoon. then I have to put to bad really early that day. And somehow we get carried away and everyday our bedtime gets earlier and earlier . I was trying to extend her first A time as the first nap is always short. However, right now it hasn't been very successful. today, she got up at 6:20 (7:00 pm bedtime last night, started at 6pm and struggled and cried a lot, NW 8pm wanted to be fed). and I started to put her to nap at 8:20 thinking it might take her sometime to fall into asleep. rather she cried hard -unable to console type, and even when she finally fall into asleep, she woke herself up.. eventually after 45mins I gave up and nurse her to sleep  . It feels that when she is really tired the only thing can put her to sleep is nursing.
Another thing I noticed is that she is asking for nursing more often lately especially during the night. Last couple of nigh she woke up every 3 hours sharply, and sometimes we were able to put her back to sleep but most of the time she won't unless being fed. Is there a growth spurt around this age or is it becoming a pro?
Sorry for another long post. I'm just so exhausted and confused..

[creations]

Sorry to hear you ended up a bit trapped with the EBT.

There's not quite enough info in your post, could you post your EAS times for either yesterday or today please?