Help! 10 week catnapping through the day

[babiiprycess]

Hi! I’m a new member and hoping to gesee some advice/help. As of early last week my 10 week old has been taking 30 min naps for every nap. I actually started another program called Little ones and I don’t think it’s working/causing a lot of confusion for me. They suggested awake times of 2 hours for 9-12 week olds. I’ve tried putting my son down at 1hr and 15 min to 1 hr and 30 yielding same results-30 min naps. However he is sleeping through the night 8:30-8:30 with usually 1-2 wakes. I’m thinking it’s from exhaustion. I read about the Easy schedule and found this forum hoping I can get some help because this is draining me and has caused my anxiety to increase 

[becj86]

Hi, welcome to BW

Happy to hold your hand as you find out what works for your baby (they're all a bit different, so we have guidance times but work out what suits each baby because we're not all average). We call EASY a routine, not a schedule. That's because we follow the same order of events to give you and baby predictability. We say to eat/feed, then play/activity, then sleep. That helps set you up with the least likelihood of feed-to-sleep associations which are very tricky to change.

We have a few questions that are super-helpful to have answered, just so we're not assuming things:
What settling techniques are you using?
When is he feeding?
How is he feeding?
How is he settling to sleep?
Where is he sleeping?
Does he have any medical issues (prematurity, illness, etc.) and have you had any advice from medical professionals that you need to follow?

I think one of the first things to do is to try (I know its hard, esp. with anxiety) to relax a bit and just take a few days to really watch your baby and get to know her cues. Some babies at 10 weeks can do 1.5hr A time and some still haven't fully woken up from that sleepy newborn phase and are still needing a nap after 1hr. I think its reasonable to take some of the guesswork away by watching the clock for 1-1:15 A time then watch baby for 15mins and put down for a nap at 1:15-1:30 A time. I think you know him best and can determine if he's a very sleepy baby who needs a shorter A time or if he's ready to go towards 1.5hr A times which is fairly average for 3 months.

[babiiprycess]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply and support!

Settling techniques - rocking and patting him in his rock and play. If that doesn’t work then I’ll pick him up and do the same. Trying to transition him to the bassinet attempting one nap a day in bassinet.
He usually feeds every 2-3hrs
He’s exclusively breastfeed
It sometimes can take 15 mins to settle him for day naps then he’ll wake up and after 20-30 mins and I can spend 30 mins resettling him. At night sometimes up to an hour or two but it’s getting better.
No medical issues.

I will definitely watch his cues. Sometimes it’s hard since he yawns all the time but I’ll try my best today to see what happens. Thanks again!

[becj86]

Sometimes it’s hard since he yawns all the time but I’ll try my best today to see what happens.

Absolutely its hard when they yawn all the time. Yawning happens for more reasons than tiredness and when its a tired sign, its a late one generally. Try to pick the earlier ones like maybe he starts rooting again, maybe he closes his eyes for longer or gets red around the eyes, maybe he gets a bit more cranky, etc.  That's much easier when you're only observing closely for 15mins rather than 1.5hr and its a much more targeted search.

I think he's pretty overtired from the 2hr A time and he may need a few days of just really consistent 1:15-1:30 A times to catch up a bit and then you may start to see a better pattern. WRT settling, I would say to try to settle him in the crib/bassinet with shush/pat so that you can be there at 25mins into the nap and just be ready to do the exact same settling technique so he is reassured that nothing much has changed since he fell asleep and can learn to connect those sleep cycles. This will take some time as he's about to get more pronounced sleep cycles at 4mo but its a useful skill worth having.


Having said all that, if you have a reliable way to get 1.5hr nap into him by walking with him in the pram/sling/carrier or whatever, do that for a nap or two (I generally suggest the first one or two in the day so he's getting some good ones in which gives you a better chance with naps later in the day) just for your sanity.

[babiiprycess]

I definitely did not enforce the 2 hour awake time, I could tell he couldn’t stay awake that long. As of today he took a 30 min nap in the morning from 9:25-9:55 he managed to have a 1.5hr nap from 11:30-1:25p but had to resettle when he woke up at 12p. Took 15 mins to resettle. He just got from a 25 min nap from 2:55 to 3:20p.

So what you’re trying to say is stay with him the entire time so he can go back to sleep when he wakes at the 30 min mark? I feel like my whole day is constantly putting him to sleep since his awake time is so small. I’ll try the stroller tomorrow, he used to give us great naps in the stroller when he was younger but I didn’t want him to get used to it so we decided to go away from it.

Thank you!!

[becj86]

So what you’re trying to say is stay with him the entire time so he can go back to sleep when he wakes at the 30 min mark?

No, this will send you mad, potentially. I said settle him to sleep, go back in at 25mins so you can see what happens and resettle those OT wakings 30min into the nap before he's all worked up and it takes ages.

Whilst in an ideal world your baby would always sleep in his crib, that's not terribly practical - you still have to be able to get out and about and do errands, etc. so having him able to sleep in the stroller as well is helpful, not just convenient.

[babiiprycess]

Ahhh got it! Thanks I’ll try this tomorrow. I’m so desperate. I tried to have him sleep in his stroller this afternoon and he got maybe 15 mins since everything woke him up. I attempted to put him down for another nap when we got home but no go. He’s now at about 2 hr awake time...it’s an endless cycle.

[babiiprycess]

Progress today! Morning nap was 37 mins but I went in  prior to try to resettle before he fully awake. Took 9 mins, I think the patting woke him up but he went down for another 12 mins before he got hiccups  Afternoon nap was about 50 mins when he woke, and he woke crying I thought he was going to wake up but I carried him for a bit and he fell asleep. He went down for another 1hr and 30 mins! I’m hoping it’ll happen again tomorrow! With the wind down and shh/patting his wake time seems to be 1hr and 15 mins. He’s much happier today then he was yesterday.

Question if he takes a longer nap would his awake time be longer after that nap?

[becj86]

Question if he takes a longer nap would his awake time be longer after that nap?

Not necessarily, usually if the nap is reasonable length, you would just stick with the 1:15 A time you've decided on. If its really short (30mins or less and no resettle), you can reduce the next A time by 10-15mins if he's really struggling - small enough change there that if you're watching for cues, you'll catch them and put him down that bit early anyway

Well done on the resettling!

[babiiprycess]

Thanks!

I also noticed before he goes to sleep and when he stirs after that one sleep cycle he makes this sucking noises/face. He sucks on his hand but usually is unsuccessful, therefore gets frustrated (but eyes are closed) Do you recommend a pacifier. He’s EBF and at times doesn’t know how to suck a paci. Any tips?

Yesterday wasn’t as good with naps. Lunch nap was an hour and then he refused his last nap so he was very tired by bedtime 

[becj86]

I also noticed before he goes to sleep and when he stirs after that one sleep cycle he makes this sucking noises/face.

This is pretty normal self-soothing behaviour. He doesn't necessarily need a dummy to achieve that, he will find and master sucking his fingers given time, just as he would require time to work out what to do with a dummy. He will find the mastery of many new skills frustrating at times throughout his early years, so don't worry too much about that.

I went with a dummy because I thought it would be easier to wean than finger sucking because you can at least take them away. I didn't bargain on my boy being so attached to his dummies and as it didn't affect his speech or vocab in a negative way, we let him keep it a long time. He had a significant overbite when I finally weaned it but that resolved as his jaw grew and was gone within a year or so. Its a personal choice, I think I'd have gone batty without the dummy but given you're at this stage already without one, I'd probably carry on without. I certainly haven't found that a dummy is a problem wrt breastfeeding but there are some people who get concerned re: nipple confusion.

If his naps are getting shorter, he may be ready for a touch more A time.

[babiiprycess]

Thanks for all the info! I ended up giving him a dummy when he gets super frustrated. He ended up spitting it out when he was done but he didn’t know how to suck it very well to begin with. I swaddle both his arms since he stills wakes himself up with the startle reflex.

I can try a bit more awake time but would that create OT?

[becj86]

I can try a bit more awake time but would that create OT?

Not if his naps get longer again... If it does create some short-term OT because he's used to a shorter A time, its usually easier to resettle than the 40min naps and he should string his sleep cycles together better within a couple of days.

Totally reasonable to still swaddle, its a lovely strong sleep cue from you to LO.

[babiiprycess]

Thank you!

For the last two days his first morning nap has been longer than an hour! Now can I let him sleep for 2 hrs or is it recommended that he only sleep for 1.5? Yesterday I woke him at 1.5 but for the rest of day he only did 30-45 min naps. I’m wondering if I should just let him sleep for 2 hours. Thoughts?

[becj86]

Yes, let him sleep for 2hr if he wants it. I would probably cap around the 2hr mark though, I found watching after 2hr and just waking DS when he stirred the least unpleasant way to wake him.