Refusing to nap in the afternoon

[cwolff]

I think total in the 5months she's been alive I've had 4 days where she actually took all her naps.  Lately, I cannot get her to nap in the afternoon for more then 45 min.  I have tried shortening her morning nap, which seems to be getting long.  Doesn't make a difference.  I've tried shortening her afternoon wake time, then she just refuses to go down at all.  I've tried lengthing her afternoon awake time, like today I made it 2 1/2 hours, made no difference.  Then when she woke at 45 min happy as a clam I got her up and kept her up for an hour.  Fed her a bottle and back to winddown.  At 4pm I tried to put her down, she refused.  So back up again until 4:40pm, tried again.  Refused.  So back up again till a little after 5pm, refused.  I don't get it.  She's tired, I know she is.  I've monitored her activity, and it's very lowkey and the same usually every day.  I guess maybe she is touchy, or spirited, I don't know which.  Whichever one is where she won't close her eyes for anything.  Please help.  We have no set routine because she either naps late in the morning, or takes a short one then and a longer one early afternoon.  Then no later nap.  We are on a 3 1/2  to 4 hour easy, and the eating part is good.  The activity varies from 2 hours, to somtimes 1 1/2 depending on what the last nap looked like, but the sleep like I said is a mess.  We do a winddown routine starting at least 15min before nap, which is walking, then books, swaddle, rock and bed.  What's wrong??

[jekholm14]

HI there,
it is frustrating I know.  My DS is not the greatest sleeper and is just starting to "learn" to nap properly.  What are your nap times?  Maybe she isn't up long enough as she is getting older and more alert.  One thing I can say is DON'T keep shortening her morning nap!  Never wake a sleeping baby unless it will interfere with her routine.   Do you give her a chance to try and resettle?  Obviously you do have to get her if she is fully awake and talking for more than 10mins or so, but if she is fussy then she need more sleep.  Are you actually rocking her to sleep?  If so then she is probly using that as a prop.  I'm not sure if any of this will help, maybe if you post your exact routine we could figure out the problem.

[cwolff]

Yeah, what a mistake waking her was.  OK, here's my routine for the most part.  I have to go by the clock because her tired signs start pretty early but she won't sleep for long if I put her down.

Wake up varies from 6-7:30am so I'll go with yesterday's day

Wake at 6:30am
A tummy time and floor time till 7am
E 7am
A - activity center for 10-15min, then floor time playing with blocks, chew toys, etc.
Winddown starts around 8am, with walking around a little bit then upstairs to read a couple books.  Then we walk into her room and close the shades.  Swaddle and sit in the rocker for a couple minutes.  When her eyes start that opening closing I put her in the crib.  She usually will go right to sleep.
S 8:25am

Up at 9:15am no matter what I did
A which was tummy time, then a walk
E 10:15, early because I didn't want it too close to the nap
A which was pretty much winddown routine
S 11:00

This time she woke up around 11:30am, and I gave her the paci and left.  She wouldn't settle back down so I picked her up and sat in the rocker for a few minutes.  Then I put her back down in the crib and left.  She actually fell back to sleep till a little after 1pm.

A 1:15pm tummy time and floor play
E 1:45pm
A which was floor time and then outside to lay on a blanket and talk to the trees.
S 2:45pm (I put her to sleep a little early because we had a physical therapy appointment at 4:30pm and I knew she wouldn't get another nap)

Up around 3:40pm
Awake until bedtime at 6:30pm because we had the PT to do.  She was very tired by then and very cranky.  We don't usually do that, but had no choice.  If we had been home I would have tried to give her another nap, which she probably wouldn't have taken.

Then after bedtime it was up 1am to eat, then back to sleep till she woke for good around 7:30am.  The other night wakings were paci related unfortunately, but it wasn't a horrible night.

Now today, she woke up at 7:30am, and I put her for her nap at 9:30am.  She woke around 10:10am, and was just staring into space.  I gave her the paci and I haven't heard from her, so I hope she's back to sleep.

Any help or advice you can give would be great!  Thanks.

[shem2005]

My DD always sleeps about 45 minutes as her last nap of the day and she always has. Somedays she will go an hour but very rarely. However, the catnap for us works fine because she sleeps longer in her first two naps. This is our schedule:

7am wake and feed
8.25am nap (she is not a morning person as you can tell)
11am wake and feed
12.45pm nap
3pm wake and feed
4.30-4.40pm nap
5.15-5.20pm wake and play
6.20pm bath
6.40pm feed
7pm bed

I have only just got her napping well again after about a month of short naps. Most days she will stick with this routine, occassionaly though her middle of the day nap will be shorter but i just resettle her.

If she does wake early from her last nap can you just move her bed time to 6pm or maybe keep her bedtime at 6.30pm and she may just 'learn' to extend that sleep after a while???

[Holly n Harvie]

I have been told that the 45 min nap thing is a biological thing for 4 to 5 month olds and it generally stops at 6 months. My DS is doing the EXACT same thing. He sleeps really well for his morning nap but the afternoon one is 45 mins ARG!!! :evil:
Here is our routine - I stick to it pretty ridgidly no matter what. DS likes consistancy.

6:30 - 7 wake
7 - bottle / play
8 - rice cereal
8:30 - 9 wind down and nap
(10 ish he will stir, but usually falls back to sleep on his own)

11 - wake and bottle / play
12 - fruit
1ish - nap
1:30 - 1:45 WAKE AAAHHHH!!! I try to keep him in his bed as long as I can to try to get him to sleep. Yesterday he finally fell back asleep at 2:30 and woke at 3  :?

3 - wake and bottle / play
at around 5 ish he shows signs of tiredness so down for a cat nap at 5:30ish only sleeping for 30 to 45 mins.
7 - feed / bath
7:30 bed

Even with the short naps he still sleeps well at night and generally doesn't seem upset, so I don't really worry about it too much as he will grow out of it.

You could try the method of going in at the 35 min mark and try to help them transition through the 45 min mark back into deep sleep. That is explained more in the Sleep forum on naps. I had to do this for his morning naps and I haven't had a problem with them since.

Good luck ! ! !

[jekholm14]

Well, at least you have a good routine base going.  You just need to work on those nap times.  I'm sure once your LO gets older the problem will fix itself.  What I've noticed is everytime DS has a short nap it's because he wasn't up long enough.  I guess sometimes he shows sleepy signs when he's just a bit tired and needs quiet time, not sleep.  So, have you tried keeping her up for 15more mins?