Author Topic: Advice on Extending naps  (Read 1316 times)

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Offline emme's_mum

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Advice on Extending naps
« on: November 10, 2005, 02:48:43 am »
Help me! I need some advice on my LO routine.

My LO will be 4 months in 9 days time and we are still on a 3 hour EASY.
I have kept her on the 3 hour EASY because she gets tired after about 1 - 1.5 hours of being up. I have thought about extending this but she starts yawning then rubs her eyes and her movements are jerky so I put her down and she goes to sleep. I keep hearing about the 'watching for tired signs and don't miss the tired signs or put your baby down before she is overtired'. Lately she has only been having 45 min naps which I try to extend, sometimes she goes back to sleep and sometimes she doesn't.  She is BF and feeds both sides within 15-20mins.

At night she is generally in bed by 7pm, has a DF at 10.30 then wakes up between 2am - 3am for a feed then 7am which is get up time. The longest she has gone is 7 hours overnight but she has only done this a couple of times. I added a DF after reading the BW but it doesn't seem to have made a difference in extending sleep as my LO used to sleep from 7pm - 2am have a feed then get up between 6 - 7am so it kind of doesn't make sense to me that I am doing a 10.30 DF.

I did get her to sleep longer than 45mins for a couple of days but then she has reverted back to the short naps. We are having really warm weather at the moment and she just radiates the heat so I am wondering if that has something to do with the short naps.

Anyway should I be trying the 4 hourly routine and trying to keep her up longer even after the tied signs show? Would this help to extend her naps over 45 mins? and maybe even get her sleeping through night.

I was thinking about trying EASAS as sometimes when she gets up especially after a short nap she doesnt want to have a feed yet. I am pretty sure that she is okay with feeding every 4 hours but we can't cope with the sleep and activity on a 4 hourly basis yet.

Any ideas would be appreciated as I feel we are going backwards and I can't quite figure out what I need to do.
Cheers
Pip

Offline deb

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Advice on Extending naps
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2005, 03:51:08 am »
When Josie was a baby (WOW, so long ago! :)) and I was starting out extending her awake time, I did it in tiny increments. I'd take her back to her room before she would normally show her tired signs and we'd change her if needed and play back there. I'd just play with her and a stuffed toy or a diaper cloth in dim light till her eyes could barely stay open, give her a snack feed (this was partly related to the 3-month growth spurt), and put her down.

Also, is your DD waking around 4AM? If so, can you get her back to sleep w/a dummy/pacifier? Maybe use wake to sleep if there's a habitual waking then? Maybe yu can get her to sleep through that and she'll wake for the day w/o being so tired - at least that's how it worked for us. We had to introduce a dream feed for Josie to get her through that waking w/o feeding her but it helped. Natalie, on the other hand - we had to STOP the DF because w/o it she sleeps till 3AM but with it she wants to wake at 5AM for the day :shock:, so it might be a matter of trying different things and seeing if something clicks. If not, odds are that in another couple weeks the naps will extend on their own, as will the Awake time, but if you're looking for results NOW, check out the Announcement at the top of the Naps board about Josie and her 45-minute naps. Tracy gave us lots of good info, and even though it was 3-1/2 years ago, I managed to get the info down while it was still fresh, so it might be helpful.

Offline emme's_mum

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Thank you
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2005, 19:51:14 pm »
Thanks for that I am sure there are some things that I can use in there.

My LO has refused a paci/dummy since day one so unfortunately I can't just go in and pop it back in her mouth to get her back to sleep. She has started to suck her thumb but can't always find it yet.
Yesterday she just absolutely refused to go back to sleep after 45 mins for all her naps. I shushed/pat til my knees nearly caved in for the first nap and then the second she drifted in and out of sleep after the first 45 mins for another 45mins.
Now when I just put here down she cried for a little bit so I did shush/pat, she quieten down but she just lay there with her eyes open. I left the room at this point because I get really frustrated about benidng over killing my back when it doesn't seem to be helping any. She has now gone to sleep with minimal fuss and no help from her mother!

She did wake up at 4am last night but slept from about 7.30pm and didn't have a dreamfeed. She woke at 1.30am but put herself back to sleep within about 5 mins. Normally she just wakes between 2 - 3am after having a DF at 10.30pm and I feed her again at that 2 -3 am wake up. So at the moment it makes sense to me to drop the DF as it doesn't seem to be helping any.

I think that to get her to sleep through the 2am waking I need to increase calories during the day but she doesn't want to drink anymore than what she is getting.
For example we just had a BF. She took one side then refused the other. So not sure how to increase calories when she refuses more milk.

Also she has a small hole in her heart. The doctors told me that this won't effect her in anyway but I have read others who say their child also had one and got tired more easily.

Thanks for your help deb. It is so fab to read all the postings on here and know that there are others out there struggling with exactly the same things.

Cheers
Pip

Offline Sarah O

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Advice on Extending naps
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2005, 20:08:01 pm »
Hi Emme's mum,

I can't really help you because I am in the EXACT same situation!  It could have been me writing your post.  I would add to it that in my case, I'm not sure if wake-to-sleep is such a good idea for extending naps because I might be causing her to wake when she *might* have slept through...it's so hard to know whether we're helping or hindering isn't it? 

I just keep telling myself, this problem is so widespread it seems almost universal, and very few of us are going to these extremes and yet somehow the babies come through it.  I'm sure they'll get into a new rhythm on their own. 

Wishing you all the best.

Sarah
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