3 month old catnapping

[holmesmarie15]

Hi there I have a 3 month old that is a notorious cat napper he wakes between 7-8 in the morning and will only take a small feed he well then have activity time and when I see some sleep signals I will bring him up to bed now I usually let him sit up and have a bit of downtime first and after a while he will generally drift off but he needs white noise in the background he will war then around the 40 min mark and sometimes I can get him back to sleep after about a half hour and then he could sleep for up to two hours after that I'll feed when he wakes and try get him down for the next nap but it's always harder and only ever f40 mins and then usually I'll take him for a walk for the cat naps he could have his last feed between 8-9 at night and could take a while to go to sleep but he will usually sleep soundly till 3-4 now sometimes he sleeps soundly after this feed but sometimes he could be trashing about but still asleep but he has my husband and I wide awake so I don't think that's a sound sleep he is getting.. he has me worried as I don't think he's getting enough sleep at all and I'm worried what effect this will have on his brain development. I'm also exhausted and finding it all very tough please any advice would be greatly appreciated

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

There are usually a couple of reasons why babies wake at 40 mins.  Either they have not learned yet to fall to sleep independently which means when they come out of one sleep cycle they do not know how to transition to the next sleep cycle without help. The other common reason, if they are already an independent sleeper, is that the A time is a bit too short (it can also be too long but that usually shows as naps shorter than you describe).

Is your LO sleep trained?  Did you use the BW method of shush/pat?  Or are you trying to sleep train at the moment?

If you can record the exact times of your EASY and post them here we could have a look and see if a tweak on teh routine could help get better naps.  When you post your EASY this format is helpful:
WU (wake up) 7
E 7
A 1hr 15
S 8.15 - 8.55am (40 min)  tried to resettle
S 9.25 - 11.25 (2hr) woke happy
E 11.25
A 1hr 15
...and so on. Include
BT (bed time)
DF (dream feed if you do one)
NW (waking for no feed)
NF (waking for feed)
WU (next day wake up time)

Try not to worry about brain development. Babies do need sleep, yes, but you are doing all you can to help him sleep and you are not purposely keeping him up or not offering naps.  He will be fine.  They say the brighter kids need less sleep than the norm so you never know the short naps could be an indication of a fabulous brain!

These early months are tough. I felt like I was feeding and getting by LO to his bed all day long.  It gets easier though.  Try not to worry and rest whenever you possibly can.

If you can answer those questions above and post your EASY times we can probably offer more support.

[holmesmarie15]

He's not really sleep trained and I haven't tried the shush pat really. I'm a first time mum feeling totally overwhelmed I seem to google every little thing and tried every routine and worry about everything in the beginning I was taking him everywhere we did baby massage , yoga and swimming and I'd nearly get a coffee everyday he seemed to just sleep in the car or buggy for hours and I took those times as his naps but the evenings were always hard probably because he wasn't getting structured quality naps ... Now I'm gone the other extreme I'm trying to follow easy but I don't go anywhere as I feel it will knock out the routine

So yesterday for example  ( but everyday is different) this is the way the day panned out

Night feed at 3:30
Woke to feed at 8:30 I left him to sleep as I feel he won't drink his morning bottle otherwise
10:15 sleep
11:30 wake
12:00 feed
1:15 sleep
1:55 wake tried to get him back to sleep but wouldn't go
2:30 feed
4:00 sleep  could sometimes take up to a two hour nap if I can get him back to sleep after 40 mins
6:00 feed
7:00 usually go for a walk to get him to sleep for an hr
8:30 feed and then around 9:30 bed but it could take up to a half hour to get him to sleep


But like I said everyday is very different I also try not to clock watch and follow his signals so the timings are approximate
But I do generally find I get him back to sleep after the 40 mins in the morning but then he will sleep well into the next feed then around lunchtime I find it hard to get anything more than 40 and sometimes in the evening again I could get him back to sleep after the 40 mins but that's rare and if I do he would oversleep into the next feed again

[creations]

Hi again
I think if you are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted it might be an idea to look at where you can go out and about which would kind of fit his routine and also offer you a bit of a breather.  If you were going out a lot you maybe felt better about things because you were getting some Y time and felt some freedom of movement but now you maybe feel trapped at home and chained to the cot.
When mine was little I used to stay home in the mornings and get a good first nap at home in the cot (I think I did the first two naps until the A time increased) and then he had a nap in the car on our way out and we'd do a baby group or go to the park etc and then he'd have a nap in the car on the way home.  The timings were regular, I didn't go out at random times and this helped a great deal, I looked for activities which were at roughly the same time each day and either arrived late or left early depending on how they fitted hs nap routine. All the baby groups in the morning I ignored. At 12 months we switched, out to toddler groups in the morning with no nap and then straight home for long nap in the cot.
Although the BW methods and routine suggest getting into the routine at home very many of us here continued to get out and about and have still found suitable routines and sleep trained too.  have a think about it and maybe look at what's available in your area and the times to see what could fit - I just think you might feel better and babies need their mummy to feel good.

I'll have a look through your routine tomorrow when I'm back on.
Could you also try to record your EASY times over the coming days so that we can see how things go.

[creations]

OK, had a look at your EASY and as it is approximate times it would be really helpful to see some days recorded as actual times if you can do that.  Tracy suggested 3 days of observation I think, you can post 1 or 2 would be fine but keep recording the times if you don't mind as we find them really helpful.

For the naps where you get him back to sleep and are then concerned about the sleep running into the next feed time. I would just let him sleep and then feed when he wakes, this way we can have a look at what his current routine and rhythm is and he will be nicely rested.  It's ok for feeds to come a bit late if LO is asleep, he knows he will be fed when he wakes and if he was properly hungry he'd wake up, don't worry.  Many LOs move to 4hrly E at 4 months and some are ready to do that earlier so it isn't a problem if your LO is okay with it.

[holmesmarie15]

Thank you so much I'll keep track for the next couple, of days and post again . We've had a tough couple of days with him so I'm only after spotting this reply now

[creations]

That's okay. Post whenever you are ready.  We are not going anywhere