Please share your 45 min nappers success stories

[chomer]

You are all so wonderful.  I echo ErinB's thanks to all of you for the support and sense of community!  So, I have some good news, I guess...  Sullivan took a 2 hour nap this AM!!  Although he fidgeted at the 45 min mark he kept on going!!  I am SO happy.  Now the "I guess" part...  He cried last night from 2:30-3:50 AM.  So, my guess is that the exhaustion from this night interruption helped him sleep though the 45 min mark.  This is the first time he has woken up screaming since he was only a few weeks old.  He began consistently sleeping straight 12 hours at 10 weeks old.  So lucky!  But, over the last week plus he has been waking up in the middle of the night (but not doing the serious crying that he did last night).  He's not hungry, just upset.  Did anyone else experience this around the 5 month mark?  Could it be due to teething?

Since I'm on a roll with questions...  I like the idea of letting him sleep on his tummy.  Right now he can roll himself from tummy to back, but hasn't mastered the other direction yet.  Prior to letting him tummy sleep, I need to wean him from his swaddle.  Do you think it's important to wean a 5 month old from a swaddle?

[andibig]

could possibly be teething. my DD got hers at 18wks!!! is he drooling and try to bite on everything. a lot of LO's start getting thier teeth at around the 6mth. glad he slept for 2 hrs. he must have read these posts!!

[LilysMum]

I'm another who had success with tummy sleeping extending the 45 min nap.
I stopped swaddling Lily as soon as she decided she wanted to sleep on her tummy as she kept grabbing it and pulling it up around her nose and mouth.  I had a draw sheet on the cot over the sheet to catch spills and removed this for the same reason.  I removed the swaddle cold-turkey and I don't think she even noticed the swaddle was gone!

With the night wakings - once Lily decided to sleep on her tummy it interrupted her sleep for a while.  I think the effort of changing positions during the night and getting comfy again would wake her up.  We're having a repeat of this at the moment as she's decided she wants to sleep on her side and it takes about a half hour for her to manage to get herself positioned so she doesn't topple over.

[Brandonsmom]

Brandon will nap 45 min. when he hasn't stayed up long enough. So I extended his wake times gradually and with A LOT of patience this "phase" passes. But it does take time and patience. When he first began with the 45 min. monsters (as my hubby likes to call them  ) he was around 2 months old. After trying everything I know of I found Babywhisperer and started shhh/pat. He has a sound machine playing and I would pat him until he calmed down. I also made his room as dark as possible. Sometimes this took nearly an hour of soothing/stopping/soothing/stopping ect. I would take a little break from it sometimes and just step out of the room when it got to be too much, but anyway, eventually I patted him less and less until eventually he would wake up and go back to sleep on his own. This is also around the time he began to sleep longer at night. These short naps have began to rear their ugly head into our lives again. Brandon is now 5 months old but now I'm pretty sure the problem is teething and not that he's unable to sooth himself back to sleep. It so frustrating sometimes, as soon as you get over one problem there comes along another.  But honestly I can tell you that finding this site has helped me so much. There are a lot of smart and friendly folks around here. And it always helps to know you are not alone. I hope this helps you out. Good luck!

[avery's momma]

still trying w2s after three pretty successful days.. though sometimes i miss the window.. and i haven't really had success with the late afternoon nap any day so far just thought i'd let you know it's still working for us, and she seems much more rested (and i am much more sane!) hope your lo's sleep longer than 45 mins. i love it when i look at the clock after i have done w2s and it has been over an hour since she konked out. it's the best feeling to know she's going to sleep longer than 45 mins.

Brandon will nap 45 min. when he hasn't stayed up long enough. So I extended his wake times gradually and with A LOT of patience this "phase" passes.

do you suggest extending A time for a 11 week old? right now A time is 40-45 mins from wake to fussy. do you extend it past their cues? just wondering....
hope all these lo's sleep longer than 45 mins tomorrow!

[ashtonsmummy]

hi i just wanted to share my success with my lo naps that is also leading to less waking at nite. He is almost 7 months now and until about 2wks ago he was only napping for about 30 to 45 mins for his naps and up at least 2 3 sometimes 4 times  a nite . I started going into his room at about the 25 min mark and would wait right beside him and as soon as he would stir or grumble i would just pat his back like the tick tock of a clock and he would startle a couple of times then i could leave the room and he would sleep another 30 to 40 mins. but i did have to do this with every nap for a good 2wks and i started to notice hey i am having 6 to 8 hr stretches of sleep during the nite, at first i was waking cause thats what i was used to and now i actually sleep, there is the odd time he wakes in the nite but i am able to pat him back to sleep. still at this point he wont go thru the whole nite he screams bloody murder if its been longer than 8hrs since he last nursed. so he is usually up at the 2or 3 hr and then i nurse very briefly and right to sleep 6am rolls around and he wants a good feed then to sleep he goes and up anywere from 7 to 8 for the day. i am currently working on discouraging his nite time feed with shortening the feed time, someone also told me to give him water has anyone had success with that one is so pls tell. anyway thanks for listening i love this form and all the love that comes with it.

[chomer]

Ashton's Mummy,

Thanks for sharing and congrats!  I've been doing the shhh/pat trick for, what seems like, forever.  It works about 70% of the time, but Sullivan has his eyes open for a good ten minutes and then it take him about 20+ minutes to actually fall asleep again (he rocks his head back and forth and slams his legs down).  I suppose it's better than just getting him up and rocking him back to sleep.  Hopefully with my persistance and his growing development he'll catch on soon!

Thanks for the support!
Courtney

[JenB1974]

Hee Hee! This is such a great site! I was sitting here chuckling whilst reading these threads, as it is so great to realise you are not alone, but one of a hundred mums rocking/shushing/patting/singing/pressing their lo's through the dreaded 45 minute mark!!! I laughed out loud at the vision of your lo's eyes being open while your trying to get them to sleep past the first sleep cycle - just like my DS!!!

I keep playing "it's just a developmental stage, it's just a developmental stage" in my head during my 30 minute pram rock. I tell you, the whole thing is making me mental! You've gotta keep your sense of humour I suppose!

Lets all try and hang in there! {{{HUGS}}}
JenB

[BabyBsMommy]

I posted not too long ago - THERE IS HOPE - here's the link:

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=60841.0

let me know if I can help at all!

((HUGS))

 

[chomer]

BabyBsMommy,

Thank you SO much for sharing your story!  It's very encouraging.  Good for you for persevering!  My 5 1/2 month old is SLOWLY starting to catch on.  Last Friday he slept through on both of his naps (the first time that has happened since he was 2 1/2 months!) and then 6 days later he slept though his AM nap and then today (the 7th day) he just slept through his AM nap again!  I do not know the reasons behind these little successes however am making a conscious effort to ensure that he is awake for a minimum of 2 hours and that he is put in his crib awake.  He’s had a nanny taking care of him Mon-Thurs for the last month and it has been difficult to hammer into her that he must be put down for naps while awake.  I think she's finally respecting my wishes.  Aside from these efforts, I have room darkened shared and put tape over the little cracks of light that were coming through the edges of the windows, I wrap him up in a swaddle and tuck his legs under a sheet that is snug under his mattress.  Lastly, I sneak into his room at the 30 min mark and begin to shhhh until he falls back into a deep sleep after the transition.  That's usually 45 min - 1 hr of being down there. 

I hope all these tricks help other moms out.  Thanks for the support!
Courtney

[mom-2-3]

Hi Courtney,

I have 2 kids, a dd who is 2 yrs 2 mths old, and a ds who will be 5 mths on the 11th.  Both started short napping after the 1 mth mark.

With my dd, I let her nap anywhere she fell asleep, the swing, the bouncy chair, etc.  I eventually put her into her crib around the 4/5 mth mark and  her naps eventually lengthened on there own around the 5/6 mth mark.

With my ds, I thought I would try and help him extend his naps.  I tried for a month, patting and shushing until my wrists were tired.  I stayed home for 2 weeks solid, and didn't extend his naps once.   

Although many people have had success with w2s and other techniques, I just didn't have anymore time or energy to invest in trying to extend my ds naps.

For naptime, I turn on some classical music, place him in his crib, give him his stuffed dog, soother and taggie blanket.  He generally goes to sleep w/i 5 mins.  Half the time he spits out his soother in exchange for his thumb.  I am carefull not to put him in bed before 2hrs and not to leave him awake anymore than 2.5 hrs.

Here is the good part    For the last week or two my ds has been having one long nap a day.  I really do believe that most babies will naturally adjust on their own.  I think that if you have the time and the energy, you can help them along, but if you're like me, you just have to wait.

I am a big bw fan, and have all of the books, but if you want to know more about the biology of sleep, Healthy sleep habits, happy baby, by Mark Wiessbluth is good.  Although, I don't feel that his philosophy on cio is appropriate for most cir!@!stances.  (I will admit that I have let my dd cio, when she is trying to manipulate me into sitting with her while she sleeps, or as a stall technique)

Also, for the last week, my ds has been skipping the 5 am feed.  Sometimes he doesn't wake up at all, and sometimes I have to give him his soother.  But he now sleeps from bedtime, 6 or 6:30 pm to 7:00am 

I hope whatever you try, you have success!

[joyfulmom]

Mom-2-2, and all of the other women who talk about the development of napping longer,

Thank you for your posts.  I was getting very depressed and frustrated trying to extend naps and it not working.  This developmental concept is very inspirational and makes since..  My 9wk old has pretty much done 45 minute naps since 1week old.  I always wondered why people work so hard to extned naps (W2S, pat/shush for hours on end) when the reason it's a problem is really the parent's exhaustion anyway.   I tried all these things and just ended up more frustrated and exhausted.  I couldn't help but feel that my ds was not ready to nap longer.  Granted, I do go in and put in the paci to extend naps sometimes, I also try to have him nap during arrands..he sleeps really good then.  My hope is that he will lengthen them eventually and in the meantime,  I find rest where I can.

[chomer]

To all of you wonderful mum,

I want to share my greatest nap success with you thus far...  I have given up trying to extend my 5.5 month old son's 45 min naps!  Ah, the relief!  For the last 2 1/2 months I have spent over an hour shhing/patting/rocking my son at each of his naps.  In reflection, I wonder if I was nuts to spend so many hours in the dark each day.  Granted, I do think my efforts were in my son's best interest and he always ended up with 1.5-2 hour naps.  He even occasionally slept through the 45-min mark himself.  Nonetheless, I'm done.  Part of my reasoning is that I recently noticed that he was fighting his 3rd cat-nap which indicated to me that he didn't need as much naptime sleep.  SO, my thinking is, what if he gets three 45-min naps versus two 1.5-2 hrs naps (with mom's assistance)?  The rest time isn't that different.  I'm going to test this for a week.  If I see his personality change as a consequence of being overtire (which is what I noticed occur when he began these 45-min antics 2.5 months ago)?

I am wondering if any of you have also given up on intervening.  What was your experience like?

Thanks!
Courtney

[Sarahboh]

I felt the same way, I needed to give up trying to extend them to stay sane. I just couldn't do it anymore as it upset both myself and Ella more, and it exhausted me to no end. Ella is a good girl and it made it much easier when I came to the conclusion I wouldn't extend anymore and just deal with the short naps. At the time I did exactly what you did, got one extra nap in of 45 minutes until I noticed the morning one starting to lengthen, then I could go for a 45 minute afternoon one and a catnap. It will work itself out and eventually the naps will lengthen with time. I have been following your posts and notice you have had some morning naps lengthen, that is great as I am sure he is on his way to doing it consistently! You are doing a great job! Sarah 

[chomer]

Thanks so much, Sarah.  Well, it turns out that we might need to continue to help in with the mid-day nap.  I had an appointment today, so my husband watched Sullivan during the afternoon.  He got Sullivan up upon his wakening from his 45-min mark to have a screaming baby within 10 mins.  He said that after consoling Sullivan, he put him back to nap for another 45-mins.  So, maybe I'll do a 45-min in the AM and PM and help him through for a longer one midday.  Any feedback to this idea?