Change in nap routine - please help!

[cmckenna]

My 4 month old dd has been an excellent napper since birth.  The past 3 days she has become a 30 - 45 min napper.  She used to take 2 - 2 hr naps and 1 - 1hr nap.  I actually used to wake her from her early morning nap and afternoon nap.  She has been on a 4 hour EASY for 3 weeks now because she was refusing to eat in the day.  Spreading out her feeds has improved her daytime eating.  Here is our schedule

E 7:30am
A
S 9:15 or 9:30 (sometimes too tired to stay awake for 2 hrs)

E 11:30am
A
S 1:30 (2hr nap now 40mins)

E 3:30
A
S 5:15 (45 min nap)

E 7:00pm bedtime routine

Night Wakes at 9pm (try not to feed), 1am, 4am, wake up in the morning

[Mom to M&M]

Have you tried putting her down earlier in the morning? She may be caught in a cycle of overtiredness and need less A time for now to get back on track. What happens if you put her down as early as 9 am for her first nap? If she'll sleep then I'd try to get 1.5 hour nap and then start second nap 2 hours from end of first nap...

[Pimento]

My lo is 11 months and I've various times like this with her sleep.  She's always needed more sleep than most and once she gets in an over-tired cycle it just gets worse and worse.  It has always been that the less she sleeps the less she seems able to sleep until eventually she's so exhausted tiredness wins over.  I would agree with the other suggestion of putting her down a bit earlier in the morning - in fact I did this just yesterday for my lo's lunchtime nap after a week of bad sleeping and it did the trick and she went back to a 2 1/2 hour nap.  The thing that I've learnt is that the reason for the problems in napping tend to present themselves eventually... i.e. growth spurt, teething, physical development etc.  I always try to just stick with the routine as much as I can and eventually it sorts itself out.  Good luck!

[cmckenna]

Thanks so much for the advice.  I actually tried putting her down after 1.5hrs this morning but it didn't do the trick.  I will try after 1hr tomorrow.  It is probably overtiredness as she has been having difficulty sleeping at night and we just returned from vacation a few days ago with a 6am flight and 4:30am wake up. 

[cmckenna]

Thanks again!  I put her down after 1 hr today and she went to sleep like a charm for 1.5 hrs.  Not as good as normal but still better then it has been.  She is having a good nap right now as well.  Hopefully this will do the trick.

[Mom to M&M]

Great! Just keep an eye on things - after she catches up on sleep you may need to start gradually extending A times again. Good luck!