45 minute naps?

[KaCee]

I'm lucky if she naps for 30 min's these days!!

Due to a lot of chaos around here I've let things TOTALLY slip with my 7 month old dd. Her daddy was out of work for 2 months due to an injury, and I've been quite ill with a digestive disorder. So rocking, using the pacifier and other props have been prevalent just for ease of use to settle her for naps or for the night.

She started waking throughout the night at first, and now she's struggling with daytime naps. My dh gets up with her during the night and doesn't have a lot of patience for pat/shush or pu/pd, so he just does whatever works to get her back to sleep - and claims it works just fine.

But now I'm stuck with a non-sleeping baby during the day!!

Here's our schedule right now:

7:30 awake and bf
8:30 cereal with fruit
Activity
9:30 attempt at nap (never shows signs of tiredness but as soon as I go to quiet room with her naptime music she starts drifting off immediately)
9:45-10:00 finally asleep
awake 15 - 20 minutes later - I do pu/pd which exasperates her further, pat shush doesn't calm her - but keep trying until "awake time" at least half an hour later
10:30 quiet play
11:30  bf
12:30 Cereal and veggies
Activity - gets cranky!
1:00 usually ends up in swing chair and dozes
2:00 - try nap again (NEVER works in the afternoon! - might sleep for 10-20 minutes)
3:00 bf
5:00 cereal and veggies
6:00 bf
7:30 wind down: music, stories, sitting in dark room with Mommy
8:00 bedtime (sometimes don't actually get her down until 9:00

And then she wakes up to 5 times in the night crying.

I'm ready to start actually fighting for a schedule. She's a textbook baby and adjusts REALLY well. I need encouragement! Today I've caved once already when her crying got to me too much when I was trying to put her back to sleep for her morning nap! I tried for about 45 minutes and the crying just got more and more deperate the more I picked her up and put her back down again.

Can't I just hire someone to come in and do all this for me?  :wink:

[Meg's Mom]

I'm ready to start actually fighting for a schedule. She's a textbook baby and adjusts REALLY well.

Your fight will start w/ teaching her to fall asleep independently.  If she truly is a textbook baby adapts easy then it will be hard to start w/ but she will get the hang of it real soon.  I have fallen on props more then once and have come back from it fairly easy – but it took true consistency.

Next will be your schedule...in particular you wrote: she doze in her swing at 1.00 then trying to get be to sleep again at 2.00 – she won’t be tired again that soon.  Have a look at the EASY forum for good examples of schedules for a 7mo old.  You should be shooting for A times from 2.0-2.5hrs at least.  An earlier bed time will also help w/ the night waking as she must be overtired by 9pm.

I would start from basics:
-start putting her to bed drowsy but awake - let her settle, when she starts to cry that "come get me now!" cry, go in and use pu/pu or shh/pat to help learn to put herself to sleep the rest of the way.  You can not cave if you truly want to teach her to fall asleep and be able to put herself back to sleep as she moves from one sleep cycle to the next.
-read Tracy's new book and start w/ the chapter on teaching sleep
-download Tracy's sleep interview
-read the announcements above about teaching sleep for 6+mos (the last 2 are on the top of this forum).