I have a 5 week old baby girl.
She normally doesn't have any difficulty getting to bed at night (8 pm) and staying down for 3-4 hour stretches until 7-8 the next morning. However, daytime sleep is a different story.
Today she woke up around 8:30
- E: she breast fed for 30 minutes
- A: she had very low key activity for 15 minutes. This consisted of nothing more, that laying across my knees and looking around the room.
- S
I went up to her room to begin getting her wound down for her nap. Her sleep signs are a bit hard to read sometimes. She will sit calmly and then just start jerking her arms and crying an instant later. So my wife and I decided to preempt any missed signs and just take her to nap 45 minutes after waking up.
I made sure the blinds were drawn, closed the door and turned on a white noise machine (which calms her down). I then swaddled her tightly and sat down with her. I would try to sit her upright against my chest and hum a monotonous tune for a few minutes. If she would get really fussy and start escalating into crying I would use some of the techniques described in the "happiest baby on the block" (we have had a lot of success stopping her crying and subsequently relaxing her that way). Normally after a few minutes she goes through stages 1 and 2. Sometimes she would even have her eyes shut briefly.
I would then stand up and place her in her crib. If she was in stage 3, she would open up her eyes. 9 times out of 10 she would quickly settle down and start sleeping. If at any point I had given her a pacifier, she would normally either spit it out or let me pull it out without complaining. However, this tranquility does not last. She wakes up a few minutes afterwards. Sometimes I succeed in calming her down in the crib. The times she escalates into crying I pick her up and calm her down. I place her in the crib and shortly thereafter she wakes up again. This is a cycle that can last until she is due to eat again.
It is common for her to skip multiple naps in this fashion. At 2:10 pm today – she has not napped for more than 10 minutes since she woke up at 8:20 am.
What is truly frustrating is that this is not always the case. Half of her days are great. On these days, her first nap could last up to 90 minutes. Subsequent naps would be shorter and shorter in duration.
Please any meaningful advice would be greatly appreciated. If you need any additional information please post and I will be happy to provide it.
