Please help - 6mo short naps and so confused

[magw21]

I have to be honest, I'm struggling with this a bit now... Louisa seems to be constantly OT - bags under the eyes, drooping eyelids, more grizzly. This morning she had 2h 37m A time, and then she only slept 26 min. I'm trying to get her to resettle right now, but so far she's just lying there grizzling and if I go in there and try any shushing/patting/nose rubbing etc, she just looks at me with wide eyes. All of my instincts are screaming to get her to sleep more, even if that means lots of short naps. Please help. Is this how it's supposed to be while she gets used to longer A times?

Her night wakings aren't helping the situation either. Last night she woke at about 4.15 (sometimes it's closer to 2 or 3 am, she's a bit random), and she stayed awake for 1.5 hours. I decided to stay awake to see what she did. Most of the time she was just lying there quietly with her dummy in, but as time went on she started doing a low grizzle. I think that's a sound she makes when she wants to go to sleep but is struggling. She eventually nodded off again at about 5.40, and then woke for the day at about 6.40. She also settled later than usual last night, so all up she only got just over 9 hours, whereas normally it's closer to 10-10.5. That's on top of a total of 1h 48m during the day yesterday. 

She doesn't have a night feed - hasn't had for some time. We dropped the 10pm dream feed a couple of weeks ago because she was getting increasingly disinterested in the bottle and annoyed if woken (and we were hopeless at not waking her, so that was pretty much every time). Now she's having 4 larger bottles a day and consistently finishing/almost finishing them. She's also having small amounts of solids 1-2 times a day (she's still not that keen). So I'm not sure if hunger might be a contributing factor to her NWs or if it's purely the effect of being OT/UT.

[magw21]

I'm feeling a bit better now than I was this morning when I last wrote... Although I'm not sure what A time to aim for tomorrow.

After I wrote this morning I decided to follow Louisa's lead for her next nap. I gave her a bottle at 11 and put her down after that because she was getting very grizzly and looking tired. She was in bed just over 2 hours after she had last woken up, and asleep 10 minutes later (so basically a 2h 15m A time). She woke up and resettled a couple of times, for a grand total of 1h 48m! She was much happier after that. Her next A time was about 2h 20m - I was keen to get her to have a catnap by 4 at the latest.

Unfortunately her BT didn't go to plan - even though she was in bed just before 7 (A 7pm sleep would've been a 2.5hr A time), she didn't go to sleep until nearly 8pm. She was getting pretty cranky by 2 hours after she had previously woken up, so I don't know if I missed the mark and she was OT...

Here is the day in the usual format:

WU 6.40am
E 7.30am
A
S 9.16am-9.42am (Put her in cot at 9.10. I went in and started her elephant at 26 min because she was stirring, but that may have actually backfired and woken her up. I put her dummy back in too, but she didn't resettle.)
E 11.00am
A
S 11.42am-12.19pm (Put her in cot at 11.33. She resettled herself!)
S 12.21pm-12.40pm (I went in and started the elephant and put her dummy back in, and she resettled again!)
S 12.46pm-1.38pm (Total sleep 1h 48m.)
E 2.50pm
A
S 4.00pm-4.34pm (Put her in cot at 3.38. She woke at 34 min, which was my aim due to proximity to bedtime.)
A
E 6.25pm
S 7.55pm (Put her in cot at 6.57pm. Possibly missed tired window - she was grizzly and cranky and then suddenly started squealing and being a bit hyper. I did a calming BT routine, but she still just lay there for an hour before settling. We had to put the dummy back in and restart the elephant a number of times, though she wasn't crying or grizzling.)

Do you have any ideas about what sort of A time I should aim for tomorrow? Also, what are your thoughts on the idea of a shorter A time before the first nap of the time. Could it be she needs to be 2.25/2.5/2.5, for example?

Thank you!

[lolsyb1982]

Glad your day went better than expected!

A lot of LO do have their first A as the shortest and lengthen as they go through the day so if 2.15 gave you a decent nap today aim for that again tomorrow.
It's very much trial and error until you find a routine that works (usually for them to change it again a couple of weeks later). Things do become more predictable once they're on 1 nap!!

[Scottishmummy]

Hi

Just popping in to agree with Lauren about the differing A times across the day. 

It looks like she was overtired for the first nap, took a short one then needed a shorter A time to make up and had a long catch up sleep...but then was a bit UT at bedtime me from having a half hour nap after a long 2nd nap.

It's a real juggle to work out routine.  Around this age it isn't unusual for some babies to do a short-long-short routine. My DS never took a long first nap but around 6mo started taking a long pm nap but then I had to cut the 3rd nap short otherwise he took ages to settle at BT, or woke early.  So your DD might naturally fall into a short-long-short pattern too.

I wonder whether it's worth trying 2hrs first A time; 2.5 hrs for next A time and around 2.5 for A after that but then only a short nap.  So aiming for something like:
Wu A 2hrs
Nap 1 9-9.30-45 (assuming she only takes a short nap herself)
A 2.5hrs
Nap 2: 12/12.15- waking
A 2.5hrs ish
Nap 3( if 2nd nap is long) 4-4.30
A: ? 2.5-3hrs?
BT ? Try 7-7.30?

[magw21]

Thanks to both of you for clarifying about the differing awake times. Louisa has always tended towards a shorter A time first thing - now I just have to work out what the ideal is, at least for this week. 

However, in the spirit of the Olympics I'd like to award Louisa with the gold medal for night sleep. I'm still reeling from the shock - last night she slept for 11.5 hours straight. If she woke up, she didn't tell us! She has never done that before. For a couple of months, from about 2-4mo she consistently did 8 hour blocks, but never more. Since then she has done anywhere between 1 and 4 WUs every night, so last night was a spectacular effort. Let's just hope she can do it again! 

As for the rest of the naps... Yesterday she did three short ones again, but we'll keep tweaking. Maybe she has turned a developmental corner. A few days ago she also started 'talking', doing 'ba wa ga ma na' types of sounds.

Thanks for all your help!