8 week old cat napping all day and becoming overtired

[HelzBelz]

Hi all.

Desperately looking for some advice.

My eight week old girl has started to cat nap all day and becoming overtired by bedtime in evening.

Up to now, shes been on 3 hour easy routine, formula fed and taking 4/5ozs every three hours and napping 1.5hrs approx in each three hour cycle. Her bedtime time is 7pm when we start her winddown . I feed her in a low light room and then put her to bed and shes usually asleep by 8pm. I dream feed her at 10:30pm and She would then sleep to 3/4am, waking for another feed and the sleeping to 6/7am.

My problem now is that she has started cat napping all day instead of sleeping for her 1.5hrs between each feed. After her 7am feed, she falls asleep on bottle so i put her back in her crib im which she sleeps for 1 hour and then wakes crying. I have tried waiting to see will she resettle but she cries histerically. Ive also tried resettling her with soother/dummy but she still wont settle so i take her up. From this point on, she gets her feeds, falling alseep on most of them, i put her down and five mins later shes wide awake. I resettle her but the most i can get out of her for naps is 30-40mins. This goes on all day! I have maintained her feeds every three hours so I know its not hunger or wind. By evening time shes really overtired and its taking her longer to settle at night, when she does eventually drift off for the night she’s constantly grunting and groaning and sounds like shes very restless. She is still sleeping at night, waking at same times but i am worried if she continues to cat nap this will also be effected.

Please help! My little happy girl is disappearing on me and turning into grump, tired and contrary baby 😩😩

[becj86]

Hi,

Can you post an EAS, I'm not sure from what you've written when things are happening. I'm reading that she's falling asleep on the bottle - are you feeding her when she wakes from a nap?

Often sleep seems really easy initially when LO is in that sleepy newborn phase and then they 'wake up' and a routine really comes into its own.

[HelzBelz]

Thanks for you reply! Would love your opinion.

An easy routine from the other day went as follows;

E: 7am feed (fell asleep on bottle)
A:
S: 7:30am (put back in crib as fell asleep on bottle, slept for 1 hour, woke at half eight and tried resettling but eventually took her up as she just wouldnt sleep, dressed her and talked to her and then put her on play mat until 10am

E: 10am feed
A: 10:45 play mat
S: 11am took in arms and gave her a paci to wind her down, 11:15am put in crib, she woke so kept shush pat her and giving her paci, eventually drifted off at 11:45 but only slept until 12:15, tried resettling her until 12:30 but no joy so brought her for a walk in pram in hope she would sleep with motion of the pram but no look. She just looked up at me the whole way

E: 1pm Feed
A:
S: 2pm put in crib and tried settling her until 2:20om when she drifted off until 2:45pm and then woke. Again tried resettling her but no joy

E: 3pm feed (an hour early because  couldnt resttle her)  she fell asleep after just few ounces
A:
S: 3:30pm put in crib as she fell asleep on bottle, but woke five mins later, tried resettling her with paci and she dozed off about 4pm to 4:30pm she woke again and wouldnt resettle so at 5pm i took her up and put her on play mat, 5:15pm she dozed off on play mat until 5:45pm

E: 6pm feed but only gave her 2 ounces as her bed time was seven
A: 6:30 talked to her and held her with paci
S: 7pm began bedtime routine, and feed her in dark room, put to bed at 7:30, she feel asleep at 8pm

Dreamfeed at 10:30om and she slept until 5am.

The night sleep is good but im afraid all this cat napping during the day will eventually effext her night sleep. She is well aboe to drift off alseep at night time without paci. I out her in crib at 7:30 ish and she mooches until 8pm everynight but by 8pm is always asleep. So she is well able to self sooth.

Should i change to a 4 hour easy? She is taking on average 30ozs a day.

I would love to be able to consolidate all these naps into good naps. I know shes not hungry because its a struggle to her her bottles into her which makes me think shes over tired because she dozes off on them and i have to keep waking her to take her feed.

Please help! What am i doing wrong? She used to be so good 🙈🙈

[becj86]

Yeah, I can see why she's OT! At this age, she should really only be awake for a max of 1.5hr before nap time again. On the EASY you've written out there, she's had massive A times, some more than 3hr.

eventually drifted off at 11:45 but only slept until 12:15

So this is a 30min nap which is classically OT.

I think also that she's waking at 7 and treating that as a night waking rather than being awake for the day at that point, so probably she's really starting her day at 8:30 in this example, which makes sense given BT is 8pm.

So we tend to advise that night is 12hr long at this age, so if BT is 8pm, WU is 8am-ish.

What I'd suggest is that you feed her when she wakes after night sleep and then after each nap. Sometimes she won't be overly hungry for the first feed of the day if she's had a feed recently during the night, so just do a topup feed and then she should take a good feed at the next feed after the first nap. Count your 1.5hr from when she wakes up and aim to have her asleep by then, so try putting her down after about 1:25 and do shush/pat (or whatever settling technique you're using) to help her fall asleep.

It would end up looking a bit like this:
8am - WU, feed
9:30 - nap
11 - WU, feed
12:30 - nap
2 - WU, feed
3:30 - nap
5 - WU, feed
6:30 - nap
7:00 - WU, feed
8 - asleep in bed for the night

I suspect your night sleep might get worse then get better once she's having shorter A times and more naps - I suspect at the moment she's crashing from being exhausted by the end of the day.

[HelzBelz]

Ok so il try changing the morning then. When she wakes from 7am feed il feed her again and start her in 3 hour EASY from there.

Only thing tho, she wont always sleep after the 1.5hrs of awake time. I have being trying to settle her and she will drift off for 30 mins and then wake again. Do i keep trying to resettle her until her next due feed or just take her up and feed her again and start three hour EASY from there again?

I am finding, especially at the morning nap when i try to resettle her from an early wake shes smiling up and me and nearly laughing as ali try to give her the paci. Its only in the late afternoon or evening she gets cross after cat napping all day! If i could even get a good 1-2 hour nap in afternoon she would be set up for the evening.

[becj86]

Maybe just stick with the 1.5hr A times for a few days - be really consistent and see how you go. You can reduce it to 1:15 or even 1hr after a short nap if necessary. 30min naps are most often OT which is reasonable given her age but considering she's so little, 30min could be UT so its really hard to tell at this point what that one nap could mean. Its better to keep things consistent for at least 3-4 days, record it and then we can look through and see trends, etc. which can tell us what changes might help.

Do i keep trying to resettle her until her next due feed or just take her up and feed her again and start three hour EASY from there again?

The million dollar question! I think if you know she's not going to resettle based on her behaviour, its a bit pointless. Try for 10mins or so then get her up and go through the EAS again. If she's OT, be there to shush/pat through the sleep cycle transition, particularly be there at 25min and watch her. She'll be easier to resettle if she's only just woken than if she's wound herself up before you get there.