How long is this extended nap? -add'l ? inside!

[PeepersMom]

Okay, if my baby goes to sleep at 10:15 am and wakes up at 10:50 and it takes me until 11:05 for him to fall back to sleep.  Then he sleeps until 12:00 do you consider this a 1:45 min nap or 1:30 ( subtracting the 15 min of pat shush where his eyes are open almost the entire time)  I have always subtracted the 15 min.  DH thinks I am nuts and would not subtract it.

Or is it a 35 min nap followed by a 55 min nap?? 

Who's overthinking what??? :roll:

ACK!

[Katet]

I call it a 1.45min nap... that is the time he is out of 'action' for.

Personally if my ds naps for an hour or more... I just use the end point to work out when the next one should roughly be.

I wouldn't put too much in store with the "total" time if it is only 15mins in between 1.30 1.45 are much the same in my book

HTH

[PeepersMom]

Thanks, I think 15 min isn't too bad, either.  Especially if it is over an hour.  Now every minute UNDER an hour I count.

Follow up question - what if he sleeps 25 min followed by 45 min of extending followed by 25 minutes?  I always stand over his crib thinking if I had just picked him up and played with him for these past 45min he would have been ready for a nap at the same time. :cry:

Although I know that would probably be the wrong way to approach things.

[Taylor's Mommy]

Hi Meg,

Try to think of it this way (the times are an example of course):
he is supposed to be sleeping from 9am-10:30 am, but only sleeps from 9-9:30 and then 10:15-10:30, so technically he slept for 45 minutes right?  But like Kate said, he was out of 'action' for a total of 1.5 hours, in which time you were teaching him that it is time to sleep for a certain amount of time and on a certain type of schedule/routine.  In essence you are helping him to set his internal body clock that will tell him "from this approximate time to this approximate time, I need to sleep."

THe theory is by keeping them in the nap setting for the remainder of the nap time, even if you don't get them back to sleep, you are still teaching them that eventhough you woke up early from your nap, it is still time to sleep.  Some may agree or disagree on whether this actually works of course, so it is up to you.  This is also for the baby who wakes up crabby and still tired from their short nap...if he's waking up happy then you go with the flow KWIM?

HTH!

[PeepersMom]

Hi Andrea -

I didn't want to post another topic so I hope you catch this message.   You mentioned that if my son is waking up early, but happy just go with it.  Well, he does wake up USUALLY happy.  But this is even if he only slept for 20 min.  Not if he slept for say 55 - which I would probably be okay with.  But I am just not okay with a 20 min nap even if he is happy.

Am I off base with this?  How can he nap for only 20 min?  For a few days I had no choice but to let him take 20-40 min naps and he wanted to nap pretty much every 45-1hour.  To me that isn't a good pattern at all.

So I guess I am confused by this.  Again, am I over reacting to him?

[Taylor's Mommy]

Meg-you're right-20 minutes is not really even enough to be considered a nap at all.  55 minutes and he wakes up happy I would say okay, but definitely not 20 minutes or anything less than 45 minutes as a matter of fact.

[PeepersMom]

Oh good, that is the way I have been feeling about it, too.   If I ever would get him to at least 45 min and he woke up happy I would be happy too!

It has been weeks since he slept longer than 40 min the first part of the nap.  Probably a month now, actually.

Things are going so badly I just am at my wits end with sleep - day and night.  Or lack there of.

Thanks again for making me feel like at least all my work has a purpose.