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Feeding to sleep & 45 min naps for 5 month old
NattysMom:
My daughter has just turned 5 months old and I'm having issues with short naps and feeding to sleep. She is exclusively BF and eats every 3 hrs with 1-2 Night feeds. I wasn't quite sure which board to put this on, sorry if it's the wrong place.
We started shh-pat at 10 weeks because I wasn't able to put her down until she was in a deep sleep and she would usually wake up the moment I put her down. Now she can go to sleep independently but she wants to be fed until drowsy most of the time.
My easy is not so great, I try to feed when she wakes up but she will only have a little snack just so she's not starving anymore because she wants to be fed to sleep later. I've also tried feeding an hour after waking but she just snacks again. So when nap time rolls around she is ready to take a full feed. The moment she stops eating but drowsy I put her down, she is still awake and I walk away usually with no issues. There are times when she stays awake after eating and goes to sleep no problem but not very often.
I'm trying to stop the eating until drowsy part so I tried waking her up a bit (talk to her, hold up sitting, go outside) when she's drowsy after eating which she did not like. Now only twice after doing this she's been fussing/fighting before each nap and bedtime, like she wants to eat but she doesn't want to get woken up! So she ends up very OT and sometimes we both give in to feeding to sleep.
45 minute naps have been happening since around 6 or 7 weeks, at first she took a longer morning nap but eventually they all became short. I've had no luck extending with shh-pat or W2S, shh-pat she just snaps her eyes wide open and won't go back down and for W2S I've gone in at different times to find the right point in her cycle but they don't go any longer. I tried W2S for morning naps at first and then tried for afternoon naps because she usually wakes up tired. They are almost always 45 mins, very rarely 1-2hr (maybe 3 times in a month). Awake time is usually 2 to 2 hours 30 mins. Usually awake times are longer earlier in the day and they get shorter later in the day as she gets more and more tired. She doesn't use a pacifier. She usually wakes up happy, stretches and talks for 10 mins then cries for me to get her but sometimes later in the afternoon she wakes up still tired.
This is my approx easy give or take 15 mins, sometimes if she wakes up really tired there is an extra nap with shorter awake times in the afternoon.
WU 8
E 830
A 2h15
S 1015-11
E 1130
A 2h30
S 130-215
E 230
A 2h15
S 430-515
E 530
A 2h15
E 7
BT 730
DF 1015
1-2 NF b/t 230-530
Thanks in advance for your help!
becj86:
Hi :)
--- Quote from: NattysMom on October 05, 2017, 01:44:11 am ---E 830A 2h15S 1015-11
--- End quote ---
Here, she is having an undertired nap, so you can increase this A time. I'd try 2:30 for a few days and see if that nap lengthens.
--- Quote from: NattysMom on October 05, 2017, 01:44:11 am ---E 1130A 2h30S 130-215
--- End quote ---
Here, she is having an overtired nap, so that tells you she can't quite do 2:30 off a 45min nap, so reduce to 2:15 after a short nap and see how that goes.
With the feeding to sleep - Is she rooting, looking for food at what would be sleep time based on her A time? If so, rooting may just be her sleepy cue as I was for my son, so rather than feeding at that time, putting her down for a nap might reduce the fighting. Its worth a shot.
NattysMom:
Thanks for the reply, I will see how today goes and get back to you. She can barely make it to 2 hours for her first awake time but I'll try to stretch it today.
NattysMom:
Here's our day so far:
WU 820
E 840 Likely not a full feed but refused more
Started wind down at 1020 (turn out lights, white noise, sleep sack)
Started yawning and rested head on shoulder.
Put down and left, fussed for a few mins then started shrieking and sucking on clothes.
Picked up, started rooting, tried pupd for 25 mins, cried as soon as put down every time. She was very tired like she was trying to sleep (closing eyes) but then would snap out of it and get angry, also tried pacifier.
Eventually fed at 1045, she seemed hungry probably bc she didn't eat enough before and I didn't want her to go to sleep hungry.
Put down at 1050 and left, cried 1 min later (this sometimes happens a few times when OT), picked up for 10 secs then left, asleep within a few mins.
Woke up at 1130
becj86:
Alright, so she may well be hungry then - something you can do there if she can't manage 4hr is to make it 3hr by giving a topup feed an hour after the main feed - this allows LO to get enough food (and you will just replace these topups with solids soon anyway) and allows her to still get hungry enough in between feeds to take a full feed as it sounds like maybe she's snacking if she's feeding before and after every nap.
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