Short naps!

[My little Liam]

My DD has been crying and fighting naps the past 2 weeks or so... we were doing around 1hr10-15 A. The last two weeks she will cry in her crib and finally pass out around 1hr20 A but then sleep 50-55 min only. Today I uped her A to 1hr25. She cried out once and fell asleep but woke after 1hr. She tried to fall back asleep without success. I got her up and BF her to keep with our easy  and she fell back asleep almost instantly after a few sucks. She is an independent sleeper so I don't think she needs the breast to fall back asleep... do you think she needs even more A time or does this have to do with nap development?

[Lindsay27]

Given she's nearly 3 months many try to move to 1.5hr A and told for a few days.  If she wakes early can you maybe try to resettle her in the crib? Does she take a paci? Naps at this age were the pits for us and got better once we were on a 4hr EASY.

[My little Liam]

Sorry I haven't written back...
Yes she takes a paci. I try to resettle in the crib but it usually doesn't work. She might fall asleep for another 5-10 minutes but that's it and it's rare.

So last Friday she had her vaccinations done. Was very sleepy for two days and since then won't go down for a nap with less than 1hr45 A. She will scream the house down. I thought OT and tried even earlier and she got even angrier and fell asleep at 1hr50. We are getting 50 min naps with this A time which is her usual length so I guess that's one sleep cycle. Could she have such high A times at barely 3 months? I guess the lengthening of the nap will eventually come but she does get increasingly OT as the day goes by with these short naps and she still won't go down before 1hr45... she's a puzzle this one...

[Martini~]

We went to 3.5h easy at that age and 3 naps (3months) as no matter A times DS1 was fighting 4 naps a day:).

[My little Liam]

Martini could you give me an example of your day?
This is us so far today:

WU 0805
A 1hr50
S 0955-1045
A 1hr42
S 1227-1317
A 1hr43
S 1500-1535
A 1hr45?
S it is now 1720 and she is fighting this nap. Sleeping and waking repeatedly
I am trying to keep bf to 3hr intervals although she isn't feeding that well. I don't think she is that hungry.

Update: she slept 1725-1800
For Bt I was running a bit late and put her down at 1950. She got all worked up and at 2030 I had to rock her to get her to sleep which I usually only need to do if she is very OT.
NW 2110 tried to settle until 2145 when I rocked her again.
She is generally an independent sleeper but usually falls asleep at BT during the Bf. I am trying to stop that habit and put her down awake. I don't know if the difficulty falling asleep tonight was because she is used to falling asleep at BT during the BF or because she was OT. Considering she sleeps independently during the day she should be able to at BT as well, right?


So, when you say a 3.5hr easy do you mean a 2hr A time?  Considering she won't sleep more than 50 min at the moment even with a 2hr A time that's barely a 3hr EASY. Or do you think the nap would extend with such a high A time? It seems so high for this age. Won't she be crazy OT??

This is my second child but my sons sleep was a mystery and I could never figure out his A times. Today he is 4.5 and super LSN. I guess she could be too but she was such a sleepy newborn that barely opened her eyes for the first 6 weeks. My DS was wide awake by day 3 so I was hoping for a HSN child this time

[creations]

Considering she won't sleep more than 50 min at the moment even with a 2hr A time that's barely a 3hr EASY.

Has she ever napped longer than the 50 mins?  Did she used to do a 1.5-2hr nap regularly?
If not then the waking might be habitual at the sleep cycle transition and W2S might help you teach her to stay asleep for a longer nap - LOs do sometimes ned to be "told" to sleep longer rather than only relying on A times.

It looks like you are feeding on wake up from naps to keep your EAS routine.  It is preferable to keep E times at 3hrs (or longer if moving towards the 4hr routine) rather than automatically feeding on wake up if the nap if short. Your EASY will look more like EASAEAS.

hope this helps.

[My little Liam]

Well she took amazing naps until 8 weeks and then they slowely shortened to 50 minutes.
I could try W2S...

Regarding the feedings I will keep to 3.5hrs then.
I still don't know if I should keep her at 1hr45 of A time or push even more? Do those A times seem crazy? She seems to like a longer night and will sleep even 13hrs at night if I let her. I thought that might be causing the shorter naps but even if I wake her in the morning after 11 or 12 hours we still get short naps...

[creations]

If my DS could have done a 13hr night I would have let him - believe me I wouldn't have messed around with that for anything lol

Seriously though, perhaps she can cope with teh shorter naps if she gets such a great night?

Mine started the 4 month regression at 3.5 months and I suspect we stayed on too low an A time for a while as he'd done better on longer prior to the regression and better on longer after the regression...but it does mean I can't really say if longer would have made any difference during the regression.
2hrs A does sound long but maybe after 13hr night it is okay? have you tried? Do you get sleepy cues or not?
It's not unheard of for a LO to have super long A times and even to move to 2naps at more like 4 months instead of 6 months - just not so common.

I'd be tempted to give it a go but I am saying that from the the safety of being behind a computer monitor

[My little Liam]

This was yesterday.
WU 0840
A 1hr35
S 1015-1100
A 1hr35
S 1235-1310
A 1hr35
S 1445-1525
A 1hr35
S 1700-1745
A 1hr50
BT 1935
NW 0440-0450
WU 0805

I really don't think she could handle 2 hours. She seems to settle between 1hr30-1hr45. W2S doesn't seem to help although I will keep trying. The problem is that I don't use ssh/pat to settle her. She has white noise and a paci and I kind of just leave her to it. Sometime she cries a bit but she eventually just drifts off to sleep. I know the paci can be a problem with transitions but I do make sure to be with her between cycles to pop it back in if needed and it doesn't help. She also doesn't jolt during the transitions so I don't think that's what is waking her. I guess I might just have to wait for the naps to lengthen on their own.

As you can see she did a 12.5hr night. Now the problem is that she settled for her first nap today after 1.5hrs and if she continues this way we will be in a situation where after her 4th nap it will be too late for a fifth but too early of a bt. I am afraid we will just keep moving BT earlier and earlier.

For example:
U 0805
A 1hr30
S 0935-1025
A 1hr30
S 1155-1245
A 1hr30
S 1415-1505
A 1hr30
S 1635-1725
A 1hr45
BT 1910

Like I said earlier she does like a 13hr night but there are also many 12.5hr nights which would make her WU around 740 and we usually have a 8/830 WU...

[My little Liam]

So I am really trying to figure this out. I just sat in her room and watched the entire nap. After 30 min she went back into a light sleep with eye twitching at at 45 minutes woke up happy as Larry. What does this mean??? UT? OT? So confusing....

[Martini~]

I cannot my EASY exactly but at 10weeks A was 1:30 to 1:45. And if DS managed to have good morning nap, he failed with second one. 4 naps without problem with settling but problem with length. Around 12weeks I pushed to 1:45/2:00 and he surprised me doing even 2:15 but from 4 naps (2 ok and 2 shorter) we went directly to 2 long naps and 1 catnap. I guess I pushed him too late and if I had done it around 9/10 weeks I would have 3 longer naps and around 12/13 weeks 2 longer and a catnap. Around 16/17 I had to cut morning one because nights were affected and from that moment we did max of 3h daytime sleep. From that moment his A time went up much slower and his daytime sleep was maybe 2.5 when he was 12mo. It's just the first weeks when it's galloping:).

I love Tracy's Easy but most of sleep books advice 3 naps around 2/3 months not for low sleep needs babies but for all:).

[My little Liam]

I will definitely give it a try on Monday when my ds is back in school.  Thank you creations and martini, very helpful!
So martini you cut the morning nap actually when he started the 4month regression? And doing that stopped the regression problems? Also, moving to the 2hr A time, did your ds have a hard time at the beginning getting used to it? She acts super tired before  but won't sleep before 1hr30 A. Very frustrating...

[creations]

The EASY you posted looks UT to me, also your description of her waking.
You had said previously you were already on 1hr 45 but you are now back to 1hr 30...I'd just increase to 1hr 45 and then after 2-3 days 2hrs and see what happens. You won't know unless you try.
BT can be moved slightly to work with the last nap time, and eventually you'll settle into a workable routine.

[My little Liam]

I agree it looks UT on paper but she acts so tired and whines so much sometimes that it confuses me...

[creations]

She going to whine and moan with an UT nap too simply because she has not had enough sleep.
The first A time she might be getting tired habitually and showing signs she's ready for a nap but isn't, you need to push through that the extra few mins.  Thereafter though UT naps are likely not satisfying and leaving her tired overall but she doesn't necessarily need a shorter A time to compensate but rather a longer A time to get a longer nap and feel more refreshed.

[My little Liam]

Yes I know you are right.
This afternoon we were super busy. I was late to put her down and she fell asleep with 1hr55 A time after a nap beforehand of 55 min. She woke after 30 min, resettled he slept 1hr40! I know she can do it and I guess this kind of proves it. I will try to go for longer A's starting tomorrow and we will see how it goes.

[creations]

Yes, that 30 min disturbance and able to resettle looks like a classic OT nap but it really does show that she can do a longer nap when tired enough.  TBH given the choice I'd go for OT naps (even if I was to have to resettle every day at the 30 min mark!) which end up a good length rather than UT naps. The UT naps were a nightmare here, give me OT any day!!

[My little Liam]

Yes I definitely hate the UT naps!!!!
The question is if constant OT naps will eventually cause problems even if she is resettling for them?
Starting now so we will see what comes of it.
Maybe within a few days she won't be OT for the naps once she gets into some sort of rhythm...

[creations]

Maybe within a few days she won't be OT for the naps once she gets into some sort of rhythm...

Yes absolutely. Most LOs will adapt to the new A time (so long as it is a reasonable increase not huge) over a number of days.
And even though she gets the OT wake up in the nap overall she is going to be better rested if it results in the longer nap - and hopefully less moaning and whining as a result!