Help at Bedtime / Catnap right before Bed / Won't Nurse / Short Naps

[Firenze]

My DD is 14 weeks old. I've been doing E.A.S.Y. i haven't read any of the books or anything but just heard about the eat, wake, sleep routine and that's what we have been doing. She falls asleep in her crib with her pacifier on her own.

I'm having some trouble with bedtime and naps. My DD takes 4-5 naps right now and they last 30-40 minutes each. I BF every 2-3 hours. At night, she wants to take a catnap late in the evening around 7 or 8 pm. I try to put her down for the night then, but she always wakes up after 30 minutes. So she goes to bed at 9 or 10 pm and then will sleep for 6-8 hours, she will have one feed and then sleep another 3-4 hours. I'm wondering when she wakes up from her catnap at 8 pm or 8:30, should I try to nurse her and put her right back down for the night or should I give her more awake time? The hiccup I'm coming across is my DD doesn't like to nurse before bed/naps. She knows it's time to go to sleep and she's full from her feeding earlier so she won't nurse. Has anyone else experienced this? So if she takes a catnap at 7 or 8 pm then when she wakes up she will eat when she wakes up. She won't eat before a nap or bed.

Here's a loose example of her day...

E/A 8 or 8:30 am Awake for the Day and Eat
S 9:30 catnap

E/A 10:15 am
S 11:45 am

E/A 12:30 pm
S 2 pm

E/A 2:30 pm
S 4:15 pm

E/A 5 pm
S 7 pm (This is the hardest nap to get her to take. Sometimes it ends up later, depending on if she goes down easily)

E/A 7:30/8pm
S 10 pm (she will not nurse again before bedtime)

What should I do about bedtime and is there anything I can do about these short naps? Or do I need to just ride it out until she's a bit older and then lengthen?

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

The shorter naps could be that she hasn't learned yet to transition from one sleep cycle to the next.  It's great she can fall to sleep at the beginning of her nap alone, but perhaps she doesn't know what to do when she wakes.  You could try a W2S method, here's a link:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=223809.0
see naps option 1
use your usual soothing method such as shush/pat or a firm hand on her to help her stay asleep, she will still stir and wake but hopefully she will get the idea that she is to go back to sleep if you can help her with this. This method works in cycles, do 3-4 days then have a day off to see what happens.  if she doesn't transition alone then go another round of W2S for 3-4 days again.

Another reason for waking after one sleep cycle can be UT 9under tired) meaning needing a touch more A time but your A time is good for age so I wouldn't go straight to this yet.
A times are guidance only and are changed to suit each individual LO so if you try W2S for 3-4 days and aren't having any change you could add on another 5-10 mins A and see if it helps.

I'm wondering when she wakes up from her catnap at 8 pm or 8:30, should I try to nurse her and put her right back down for the night

You  will probably find the E times change as her naps lengthen and that this evening/BT thing changes too. But yes you can try just feeding and putting straight down again.
To be honest if she is waking in the morning at 8/8.30 I wouldn't expect BT to be before 8/8.30pm and lots of LOs wont' sleep a 12hr night so in those cases BT would be even later based on your morning WU time.  So perhaps 9/9.30/10pm  My DS only slept 10.5hrs over night.
You could also try a cluster, so rather than right before BT/S try an extra feed an hour or 30 min before and just see if she'll take a top up.  My DS wouldn't feed to sleep and wasn't interested in feeds out of his routine times but he would take a BT feed no matter how close the previous E had been - so if he had a CN and ate after that he would eat again at BT (and even more than all the other feeds) as though he knew this was his big feed before night.  I'd probably just keep offering the BT feed even if she refuses as one day she might change her mind.
Despite BT being late you're getting great nights with a good long stretch there, which is classed as sleeping through the night

[Firenze]

Thanks so much for the response. I appreciate it. I'm new at this, how do you go about the patting part of the shush/pat back to sleep in the W2S nap option 1? I've found that sometimes just patting the mattress helps her. But I don't actually pat her. She's in the Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit and that thing is sort of bulky/hard to pat her in. I will definitely give this a try for next few days for naps to see if they might lengthen a bit. It's like clockwork with her and her naps. She's up after 30-45 min, guaranteed.

[creations]

Whatever you would usually do to sooth in the cot when she needs it, that's what to use for the W2S. I know with LOs who are independently falling to sleep you might think you don't "do" anything but even the most independent need help sometimes.
I'm not familiar with the merlin suit but I think even a padded sleep suit would be okay to pat. Some people pat on the nappy area so that LO can stay laying on their back rather than trying to roll them onto their side for the patting, that's fine. and if patting the mattress works for your LO that's fine.  Really the idea is to just help he back to sleep by going in at the right time rather than wait for her to wake.

[Firenze]

Thanks for your response! Do these nap W2S ideas work best for a certain age? I've tried them all and they don't seem to be working. Wondering if this is a developmental thing that she will outgrow as she gets older.

[Firenze]

I should also mention that I have a toddler at home and it's been hard to do the W2S nap ideas while my toddler is trying to entertain herself.  Mainly because they aren't working after 20-30 minutes. It's just not fair for her to have to entertain herself so much while I put baby down, then try to get baby to sleep longer, and BF throughout the day. I'm starting to feel bad!

[creations]

If you aren't having any luck with W2S maybe add another 10 min onto your A time and see if that helps.
Or, just accept short naps and get on with your day, many people do especially around 4 months as short naps can be developmental.

[Firenze]

Thanks so much! Yes I will play around with Awake time. And if that doesn't do anything, I think you're right just accept where we are for now and hopefully things will work themselves out as she gets a bit older.