Author Topic: Help with a 45 minute napper  (Read 2093 times)

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Offline mommytham

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Help with a 45 minute napper
« on: December 18, 2017, 20:05:03 pm »
Hello,

My son is 11 weeks old.  For naps, I shush pat him to sleep and he always wakes up at the 45 minute mark crying.  I have left him to cry for 5 minutes to see if he can soothe himself, but he cannot.  After bedtime, he is able to sleep 3-4 hour stretches so I am not sure why he cannot get through the 45 minute sleep cycle transition for naps.  I noticed that at the 45 minute mark he fidgets quite a bit as if he wants to get out of the swaddle.  So far, I have been picking up when he cries and trying to extend the nap by holding him.  It is not a great idea, but shush patting him to extend the nap does not work and I find that if he does not get a good nap in, he is very overtired at bedtime and can stay awake for 5-6 hours from 7 to 1am!

Is my son a chronic 45 minute napper?  Is this developmental or is there something I can do to help him get through the sleep cycle transition (i.e., teach him how to soothe himself and to sleep independently)?  Should I bother extending the naps, or just let him have a series of 45 minute naps in hopes that his 3rd or 4th nap will be long?

I am trying to go on a 3 hour EASY but it is hard when he takes such short naps.

Any advice is appreciated.  Thank you!

Offline becj86

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2017, 00:38:02 am »
Hi :)

At 11 weeks, its pretty normal to still need to help him through the transition between sleep cycles - you can do this with shush/pat or hold through the jolts. Naps and night sleep are different - have a read: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64515.0

How long is he awake before a nap? Can you write out a day in EAS format

Offline mommytham

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2017, 03:25:09 am »
Thanks for the link which was super helpful.  I have tried HTTJ and that worked only once.  I have not tried W2S yet though because I am too afraid to wake him - each time he sleeps I hope that he will sleep longer than 45 minutes! 

He is awake for 60 to 80 minutes before a nap.

Here is a typical day in EAS format:

8am - E
8:25am - A
9am - begin wind-down and S at around 9:15am
10am - wakes up crying and isn't able to soothe himself back to sleep.  I pick him up and walk him a bit and give him the pacifier and then I hold him for 20 minutes or so and then put him down.  He might sleep for another 20 minutes.

11am - E
11:25am - A
12pm - begin wind-down and S at around 12:15pm
1pm - wakes up crying and isn't able to soothe himself back to sleep.  I pick him up and walk him a bit and give him the pacifier and then I hold him for 20 minutes or so and then put him down.  He might sleep for another 20 minutes.

2pm - E
2:25pm - A
3pm - begin wind-down and S at around 3:15pm
4pm - wakes up crying and isn't able to soothe himself back to sleep.  I pick him up and walk him a bit and give him the pacifier and then I hold him for 20 minutes or so and then put him down.  He might sleep for another 20 minutes.

5pm - E
5:25am - A
6pm - begin wind-down and S at around 6:15pm
7pm - wakes up crying and isn't able to soothe himself back to sleep.  I pick him up and walk him a bit and give him the pacifier and then I hold him for 20 minutes or so and then put him down.  He might sleep for another 20 minutes.

8pm - E
8:25pm - Bedtime routine and then bedtime right after.

He will then wake up at 11pm, 2:30/3am and 6/7am.

Although I have been advised to wake him up at 7am to start the day, I'm usually so exhausted from the previous day that I let him finish his deep sleep cycles until 8/9am when he's awake for the day.  So our days are not necessarily 12 hours long.  For example, today he woke up at 9am, but I am trying to get him to bed at 7pm because he seems really tired.  And when he woke up at 6am for a feeding this morning, it was a night waking instead of him being ready for the day so that's why we didn't start the day until 9am.

I pick him up and hold him to extend the naps because I am very scared that he will be overtired and up all night.  When he was 5/6 weeks old, we had many difficult nights of soothing him to sleep because he was overtired and my husband would hold him from 7pm to 1am and he would just be wide-eyed staring at him.  I just do not want to go back to that time so that is why I try to extend his naps to avoid that.  I also extend his naps because I know he is not ready for a feeding at the two hour mark.  If he wakes up after 45 minute naps, I do not know what to do with him.

I also have a 4 year old and I barely get to spend time with him because I am constantly in a dark room with my son getting him to sleep!


Offline becj86

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #3 on: December 19, 2017, 05:54:00 am »
I reckon if you try a 1.5hr A time, you might have more luck. He's probably a bit undertired by the sound of him. Has he ever slept more than 45min in one go?  Its really hard to tell if he's sleep longer if he had a longer A times because of the little extra 20min naps here and there in the day too.

Offline mommytham

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #4 on: December 19, 2017, 06:30:15 am »
He slept for more than 45 minutes on a few occasions when he was younger (maybe up until he was a month old) and then when he got his 2 month shots, he slept longer than 45 minutes.  I am worried that he might be overtired because he wakes up at the 45 minute mark crying.  Do you think the 45 minute naps are due to him not knowing how to soothe himself to sleep?  I have been using shush pat, but he might not know how to sleep independently yet. 

Offline becj86

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #5 on: December 19, 2017, 07:05:24 am »
45min naps are usually that he's not tired enough for naps (if OT, generally naps are 30mins). They can also be that he's not able to transition between sleep cycles but at this point, I think UT is more likely the culprit.

Offline deb

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #6 on: December 19, 2017, 11:52:47 am »
Try giving this a read - it was almost 16 years ago  :o but it worked! https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=649.0

Offline mommytham

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2017, 16:37:46 pm »
Thanks for the advice!  Baby is always yawning after his feed.  Does that mean that he does not ready for a longer A time such as 1.5 hours?

Offline deb

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2017, 21:07:32 pm »
I'd start smaller for now. Try for a full hour of A time, then work up from there. I found that working with the first A time, keeping J in her room for the whole time with just low-key activity and then lower lights and soft music once she started getting cranky meant I could keep a close eye on her cues, and I learned to tell when she was *getting* tired vs *already* tired, and I could often manage to keep her JUUUUST barely awake a little bit longer till she was just about ready to fall asleep as soon as she hit the mattress. Then I went in just before the 45-minute mark and tried to resettle her before she woke fully so she'd go another sleep cycle. It took a while before that was consistent, but we did get there eventually. And if it didn't work for one nap, we just reset and tried again with the next sleep cycle and so on.

Offline mommytham

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Re: Help with a 45 minute napper
« Reply #9 on: December 20, 2017, 18:04:06 pm »
Thanks so much for the tips.  I have a few follow-up questions (not sure whether they are appropriate for this topic, or feel free to move it over somewhere else):

1) At 11 weeks old approaching 12 weeks, what is an appropriate bedtime?  I find that he is sleepy at 7 or 8, but then usually it is just a catnap that he takes at that time, but sometimes it is longer sleep until his next feed, so I am really not sure when his bedtime should be.

2)  He tends to wake up from his deep sleep around 8 to 9ish am.  Today he woke up at 9:30am.  Does that affect bedtime?  Should I be waking him up early to start the day (e.g. at 7am)?  If so, how do I do that since he is still in deep sleep and he could have woken up at 5:30am for a night feed?

Thanks!