Success storys? Teaching bubs to get past 45min naps!

[hana1978]

I was hoping to get a little inspiration and encouragment with regards to extending nap times - has anyone managed to turn this around for themselves so that bubs is now sleeping 1.5 - 2 hrs?
Im desparate to get this sorted, my LO takes roughly x4 35min naps each day, they did used to be longer - it gets harder to put him down as bedtime approachs so more often than not hes awake from about 3.30-4.00 until bedtime (id love it to be 7.30 but is about 6.15) which i know is too much - he gets overtierd and hard to put down.
If i did shh/patt each time he woke, how long is this expected to take - days?  Weeks?  And how long should i expect to spend next to his crib at first - an hour or more?  Would it get less each time?   He can fall asleep independantly most of the time but can not move past the 35min naps no matter how exhausted he is.  I dont rush in, i leave him to see if he will settle but it turns in to a full on cry at which point i go in.  This has been going on about 3 weeks, so i want to nip this in the bud really before it gets worse, i think overstimulation might be partly to blame, i have playgyms and bouncy chairs that light up and play music, he also loves watching telly so i used to let him for 10-15mins spurts throughout the day  :oops:  :oops:  :oops:  also i think hes body clock has just got used to 35min naps.  Hes not too cranky inbetween naps but hes certainly not himself and still rubs his eyes even if hes smileing so i know he needs more sleep.  Even if he took a 35min nap in the morning and afternoon but took a 2 hour lunchtime nap id be happy - not for me im just worried that hes not getting enough sleep. 
He sleeps okish at night, wakes once or twice but 9 times out of 10 out of hunger.  I just need a little assurance - has anyone been in my situation and improved things?

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hi, I can totally understand what you're going through and know what you mean about knowing your LO can be better off with more sleep. I was exactly the same.

My ds struggled with 40 min naps from when he was 5 weeks until he was about 4 months. After trawling through the BW site, a NZ baby site and asking everyone, I discovered what was going on and how to fix it for my boy.

Like you have thought, I was overstimulating when he was awake, from under the play gym, to the jolly jumper, a bit of baby mozart etc. Never any 'quiet time' just on the floor by himself or with me. I was always giving him something to do. After 1h 15mins awake he'd be yawning and rubbing eyes to go to bed. So off he'd go, cry for about 5-10 mins then fall asleep for 40 mins exactly. He'd wake up crying mostly but would not resettle even though I could see he was tired. So, up he would be for 1h 15 mins then back to bed. This would go on all day.

Someone pointed out that due to his shortish awake time when he got to the 40 min mark in his sleep cycle which is a light sleep time, he'd wake up through the transition and think "hey, I'll wake up now, because I'm not tired enough to go back to sleep, due to my short awake time". So, I decided to keep him up as long as possible without him having a break down, but do it with really low stimulation. Infact, the whole time we did nothing 'stimulating' for him. It was just stories or walking around the house/garden. He stayed awake for 1h 45mins. Was exhausted when he went down so much so he didn't even cry, just closed his eyes and went to sleep.

He slept for over an hour! I didn't even hear him at 40 mins. I was so surprised, happy and relieved. So for the next few awake times I did really low key and kept him up 1h 30m to 1h 45 mins, depending how he was going.

He can still only do 1h 45m while at home but lasts longer if we're out.

His naps are usually 1 hour for the first, up to 2hours for middle of the day then 1 hour for the early afternoon. I also usually go in to see him smiling and laughing, not crying. Sometimes there's a few tears but only until I pick him up. Not like before.

After 2.30pm once he's woken it's a rare occasion that he will have another nap in his cot. He'll sleep in his buggy while walking for about 30 mins, but that's the only way to get him to sleep. So some days he can be awake from about 2.30pm until bed at 6.30 -7pm. These afternoon can be a little tricky sometimes, but hey, his other naps make it all worthwhile!!!

This worked for me, can't guarantee it will work for you or others, but I hope it does! I battled these naps for so long, I knew he'd be happier if he had more sleep and he is. All the best.

PS I hope you haven't fallen asleep from reading this rather long novel!  :lol:

[hana1978]

Wow    thanks for your reply, and it wasnt too long 
You know what i think overstimulation might be playing more of a part than i thought, my DS has just woken up from a 1h45min nap  :shock:  :shock:  :shock:  This morning after reading your post i thought id experiment - i didnt let him watch telly or put him under his gym or in his chair, just sat with me on the bed or i walked him around.  He went down without a peep this morning, he did stir at 40mins but went back to sleep  :shock:  Probably a coincidence - hope not tho - hasnt napped that long in weeks and weeks !!!!!!!!!!
Still have to conquer the afternoon nap tho - not sure that will be so easy  :roll:
Thanks for your help 

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hi - grat news, good luck for the afternoon naps!

[Aarismom]

Hey hana,

Another quick suggestion that has really been helping me. I just recently extended my lo's waking time to 2 hours exactly (she's over 4 months now), but it doesn't seem to be helping the 30-40 min waking times (except in the am now). I actually keep wondering if I need to keep her up even longer, since she often doesn't look tired even after 2 hours!! She'll go to sleep, but won't take a long nap without a little help.

What I've been doing is going in right before the 30 min mark and placing a hand on her shoulder area when she starts to stirr to keep her shoulders pinned to the matress (and she can't lift her head as a result). I'm usually in there for a good half hour before she transitions back into deep sleep. On bad days, the most she'll do is whine a little every 5 mins or so, maybe open her eyes and rub them and try to pop her head up (she's a tummy sleeper), but *usually* she goes right back to sleep, and will sleep for another 15 mins to another hour. And if she wakes after an hour, I just shrug my shoulders and know that at least she got a good hour (anything 1 hr or more at this point is restful). She usually wakes up smiling and cooing.

Just another idea, I'm sure you've heard it before, but I thought I'd mention it again

*HUGS*
Sonya =P

[hana1978]

Hello and thanks for your reply - i think i might try and extend his waking times by 15mins.  Normally i start wind down 1h after his last wake up so that hes in his cot awake by the 1h30mark - hes normally asleep in 10mins - maybe i should start wind down at 1h15 instead - thing is this would be fine for the first nap but as its only 30mins an hour later hes really really tierd - should i extend the waking time anyway and hope he sleeps a little longer do you think?  Hes 5 months now but was 9 wks prem.

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hana, the first few times might be a bit messy, ie it might be a bit harder to get him down, as he's still not sleeping long enough to stay awake longer. Perhaps just try 5 or 10 mins longer. Apparently 15 mins is a long time in a little one's life, I guess 15 mins of them crying seems long to us though so perhaps that's how it feels to them?!? (I digress...)

The other thing is I've found my ds only stays awake 1h 30m after he first wakes up for the day. This is quite common, to have less awake time then. Sometimes he's awake longer, but not always.

I guess all you can do is give it a go and hope for the best. If it works for the first awake time and he even sleep 40 mins you may find it makes a little bit of difference to his next awake time. I've found the difference between my ds 40 min naps which now last an hour have helped his awake time immensly.

Let me know how it goes.

I'm trying to extend my ds to 2 hours at the moment so I know what you're potentially going through!

[hana1978]

Hello again and thanks for the advice - i did jump in the deep end this morning and extend his wake time by the full 15mins  :oops:  he took aggggggges to settle  :oops:  :oops:  :oops:  bad mummy!!!!
Im going to do what you suggested and increase gradually by 5mins - i think he can have his wake time extended now and maybe the reason hes naps are so short is because its all he needs at the time due to his short wake time...?? :?   I dunno its worth a shot anyway !
Like you said even if i managed to extend to 1h that would be a great improvement for now!
hey ho - ill keep you posted!
Thanks again 

[Eden's Mum]

Now I am hardly qualified to give advice as we are really struggling to get close to any kind of nap routine at all. But I though you might find it useful to know as i did that it seems to take ds2 about 15 minutes to put himslef to sleep. What i mean by this is self soothing with no intervention from me at all. In fact if i intervene now, it will generally take him longer.

I have watched him do it, when i put him in his cot and stayed in the room at a distance and i have heard him do it over the monitor. During this time he will sound like i need to go to him. he makes lots of grunting and straining noises, will occaisionally have a few second silence every so often and then start up again, and whilst usually he will not scream if he is going to go to sleep, he will shout out. It is a sort of one off shout that then returns to grumbling, and then a few minutes later will come again. I rarely leave him to scream and scream. if i have to it is because i am desperate and have run out of options to help him.

The reason i mention it is because whilst he doesn't always do it, and doesn't necessarily sleep past 45 minutes, it is tmepting to run in and start soothing them unnecessarily which i guess is the accidental parenting that tracy talks about. in fact alot of thier noises are not distress even thought they leave us feeling axious becuse we don't know what they mean. At night this fussing will eventually lead him back to sleep again if there is nothign he needs, so in the day, that should    be the case too.

Having said all this we are all over the place and i am holding on to my confidence in his abilty to put himslef to sleep with a very wobbly grip. but your lo's might well be able to do this if they hve the space and the lack of any distractions to try it. having siad this we have been expecting ds to do this since day one, and have never done sh-pat.

I am going to give this lack of stimulation thing a go and try and stretch him out and seem if that helps. useful tip.

[hana1978]

Hi Clare thanks for your reply!
It is difficult to know when i should go in and when im basically letting him CIO which i dont want to do - i do let him fake CIO before naps and bedtime as i know hes just trying his luck and doesnt really need me - but when he wakes from a nap im not sure what to do as the cry changes - its more urgent but not a proper waaa waaa - he doesnt grunt or sound like hes trying to resettle hes vvvvv awake and alert and calling for me to get him up.  If i do leave it for a while it gets louder and louder although its still not a proper upset cry but i dont know what to do with him at that point so i get him up :roll:
The thing im confused about is i can just plonk him in his cot and leave and he will fall asleep 9 times out of 10 alone but he just can not seem to resettle which i thought would improve once i taught him independant sleep  :roll:

The lack of stimuli seems to be working tho so id def give that a try if you havnt already - sometimes he may only sleep an extra 10-15mins but hes much much easier to settle - i dont let him watch any tv now!

Are you sleep training at the moment?

[Eden's Mum]

yes we started sleep training from the start really. very gentle and kind but firm. We had awful problems with the first and didn't commit fully to sleep training until he was about 18 months. we kept doing it rather half heartedly beofre. Once we committed to it it took one night! With Noah he is so much younger we don't leave him to scream and scream unless we are absolutely 100% certain that the only reason he is crying is because he is over tired. Then we know that going in will make it worse. Otherwise he leave him to fuss and cry but not to scream with that rythmic  insistant style like you describe. We have a 10 minute rule usually but as i say it takes noah abotu 15 so i have been trying to leave him that long to make sure he has had a real chance to do it himslef.


Obviously noah is a lot younger but we figured taht if we teach him to slef sooth now it will save him and us in the long run. I actually took my own advice today and left him to cry when he woke after 45 minutes of nap time in the middle of the day. I know he needs 2 and a half hours then as he is awful when he doesn't have it and lovel when he does. I heard him wake, decided to wait a bit, so turned off the monitor as i figured why torture myslef when i have made that decision. I then checked the time and switched it back on after 15minutes. silence. He then slept for the full time and i had to wake him  he shuffled about alot during th light sleep time but we didn't go back in at all.

this after noon abotu 1 and half to 2 hours after the end of this nap i decided he was tired. dh and ds1 ahd been having some rough and tumble in the lounge and i thought after seeing this post ds2 might be over stimulated, so i took him upstairs gave him a couple of minutes of quiet time with me,a nd then just put him in his cot. hestruggled at first. he hadn't been yawning or anything, he had just seemed agitated downstairs. When i got down stairs i could hear him fussing and shouting, but not that insistant screaming so i turned off the monitor again,a nd 10 minutes later when i checked he was asleep. we hear him sout out after half and hour but didn't go back as it went quiet again, but when i went in after 45 minutes, he was awake, queit and looking abotu him in his cot quite happy.

Needless to say when we put him to bed tonight he went down really quickly as he was not over tired and had had the right feeds. Today was perfect. yesterday was awful. I just need to have the confidnce in myself that i know when my child is tired or hungry and in him and his ability ot go to sleep. when i don't and i disturb him by trying to help i actually make it worse.

apologies for the awful spelling. I am afraid spell checking all my typos is more effort than i can muster at the moment! :oops:

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hi again Hana and Clare - I also thought as ds can self settle at the beginning of his naps, he should be able to do it part way through. And even though he does it mostly at night as he's now sleeping from 7pm until about 5am without waking, he doesn't do it so well during the day. 1 hour is frequently his nap time now. It is past the 40m cycle though, but 1 hour is another cycle time.

Interesting, I was at a cafe with friends yesterday for most of ds awake time, so the activity time was pretty low key. IE cuddles and bouncing on someone's knee. By the time we got back he'd been awake 2 1/2 hours. He looked really tired, but normally in the afternoon he wouldn't go to sleep in his cot at all. Well, much to my surprise he went down and out within seconds. Now I'm wondering was it the low key activity or the lengthh of awake time or both that made that happen? I'll have to try to replicate this again somehow without going to the cafe. Then again.... the coffee and cake was great!  :lol:

Well, better stop rambling now. Happy sleeping everyone and happy awake time too!

DS just had about 2h 20m awake from his first wake up. I put him down at 2 hours and it's taken him 20 mins to go to sleep. Assuming he is asleep. It's quiet. He just made calling sounds then quiet the whole time, no crying or tears. He woke up at 6.40am, then I left him there until 7.,30am. I fell asleep again and he wasn't crying, just the odd noise. Perhaps, once again the low key lying in the cot doing nothing activity helped prolong his awake time. Normally he's 1h 30mins max.

It's beginning to sound like I do nothing with my son. I can assure you, that's not the case. Although I do remember someone saying to me that even lying on the floor looking around is activity for babies. All the things to take in.   :lol:  :lol:

[Deb_in_oz]

   Now I'm wondering was it the low key activity or the lengthh of awake time or both that made that happen?

i am in the same boat. thank you for this thread - i have been following it and saw your point about the low key awake time... I had already been stretching her awake time (and we were now at 2hr 45 - 3 hrs this week) and yesterday added in the low key attitude (as much as possible with a 2 year old playing in the same house and Dh playing music DVDs  :roll: ) and for the first time we had a breakthrough with the PM nap (always stuck at 1hr 30 which woudl be fine if she took a longer am nap but that one has been stuck at 45 min for a LONG time). she was up for 3 hrs and went down without a peep (amazingly not overtired as i expected) and she slept 1hr45 or 2hrs (Dh was here and not sure of exact wake time, just that it was in that range)  WOW!

then this morning she could not make it any longer after 2hr 30 and put her down and she was asleep by the time she landed in the cot.  slept for 1hr 30 exactly!!

now i don't know if it is the low key thing, awake time or just her age, but i am going to keep more of a balance between activities and just give her suffed toys more often than i had been (they are great for exploring but make no noise apart form a little rattly sound in some)

will see what happens later today - the last time she took a 1hr 30 am nap i got stuck with a 45 min pm nap which is worse for us!

[Matthew's Mommy]

Hi there,

Just wanted to interject.

There's a difference between CIO and giving your baby an opportunity to resettle to sleep.  CIO is letting him scream and cry hysterically until he passes out after an extreme long period of time.  Giving your baby an opportunity to resettle-- is not running in at the slightest peep, more like holding back, listening (or observing), and supporting if needed. Tracy has always recommended this approach. She's mentioned about the phantom cry at the 45 min. mark.. many infants will do this cry, when coming out of a sleep cycle.

I just wanted to mention this, since CIO was mentioned.. but really it's not CIO that you're doing.  You're really providing an opportunity to self soothe :wink:

Hang in there ladies..

[Little Bear's Mum]

Debra, that's great news. Isn't it cool when things go right?! After me giving this great advice that worked for me, the last couple of days for me have turned to custard! Yesterday was 40min sleeps all day. Today started great with 2 hours, then 40m and 45m. He did have his 5 month injections though and he's so close to a tooth popping through (I hope) that it could explain why the short sleeps.

I think the 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon worked again too. Even though the sleep was short.

Good luck everyone!