after 45 minute nap how long should I leave lo before intervening?

[ailan]

My lo is a textbook/grumpy baby and is 3 mo. 1 week.  He is a consistent 45 minute sleeper and I've had w2s method 1 work only a couple of times in a week of trying.  I've tried method 2 unsuccessfully.  He usually doesn't jolt now, but just stretches and wakes up.  As he wakes up (without opening his eyes) he starts crying, but not the mantra cry, usually he screeches right away.  Should I leave him to settle on his own?  See how long he cries?  If I go in and do shh/pat in his bed sometimes he'll go back to sleep for a couple of minutes, but wakes again crying and the intervals of tears increase while intervals of sleep decrease.  He's on a 3 hour EASY (which ends up easa because of short naps) and can usually only handle 1 hr to 1 1/2 hrs awake time before he becomes impossible to put back to sleep, sometimes fully missing naptime.

How long should I leave him to cry in his bed?  Or should I be doing something differently?

Here he goes!!

[ailan]

I just became a prop.  After his nap and 30 minutes of shh/pat and picking him up to re-settle him, it seemed as though he was not going back to sleep.  We left the room and he fell asleep resting on my shoulder.  I feel like if I had persisted he would cry until the end of his nap time, but now I'm the prop.

What do we do?!

[RegMum]

I'm in the same boat as you, so unfortunately don't have an answer, but what I am trying now (after  couple of weeks of W2S with limited success) is starting to count down till the next nap from the time that she wakes, not the time I get her out of the bed.  I'm hoping that if I can get some extra naps in, if not longer naps, she will start recharging - she's been overtired for days now and just cant seem to get back on track.  It's now affecting her night sleep.  I have found it best, in answer to your question, to respond to upset crying, but not whiny mantra crying.  She used to be able to put herself back to sleep better than she does now, but I have not found any improvement in her sleeping by going in and shh/patting her if she's not really upset.  When she goes down for her nap, she generally puts her self to sleep in a few minutes.  I tried method 2 of W2S for the first time this morning, and only succeeded in waking her (I must have been too late)

[ailan]

So are you shifting the 3 hr easy??  It becomes 1 1/2 hrs awake (E & A) then 45 minutes asleep (S& Y).  So does that make it a 2 1/4 hr easy? 

My other problem, which no doubt causes some of our nap issues, is bedtime.  Last night it was 8:00 when I started trying to get him to sleep, and he lay there smiling at me until I left the room.  It was 9:50 when, after a false start on sleep 1/2 hr before and a short period of crying, he finally went to sleep.  I really don't understand why babies can't sleep when they're so tired!!!  Its baffling.

Oh, I still wonder if I should leave him a little bit.  I think he realises what kind of cry will get me in there because as soon as he wakes he usually starts off with a high pitch scream.  I don't know what to think about that.

I'm sorry to hear that you're suffering through this too, its really tough.  And thanks for the suggestions and advice.  Hopefully we both have rested babies soon!

[RegMum]

My DD is still on the 3 hour EASY with regards to the feedings:

Yesterday went like this: 
Up@6:30 (start time on awake time - she woke herself.... I would have been happy to be in bed for another 1/2 hour)
Eat@7
In bed @ 8
Sleeping by 8:30 (Usually she falls asleep faster than this - she went to sleep by 8:06 but woke up and put herself back to sleep again)
Wakeup@9:10(start time on awake time)
Out of bed at 9:30 (1.5hr since I put her in there)
Eat at 10 (keep to the 3hr rotation for food)
In bed at 10:40
Asleep by 10:50 (I was going to use Pressure at the Jolts to keep her asleep, so I went in her room at 40 min.... well the dog got bored, walked down the hall and flapped his ears at the 45 min mark - waking her up!  I was not happy - but to my surprise she went back to sleep and slept until12:45 - she woke herself at this time, but I would have gotten her up at the 2hr mark anyways cause i don't want to affect night time sleep)
Eat @ 1
in bed @ 2:15
Asleep @ 2:25
Awake@310
Up @ 3:30 (a little early...  I just couldn't deal with trying to put her back to bed for 15min)
Eat @ 4
Normally she would have a 45min catnap an hour after she wakes from her afternoon nap. I find when I move up her naps like this, she won't catnap early, but if i wait until the usual time of day, she's overtired and won't sleep.  Yesterday we battled overtiredness until 5:45 (put her down twice and she wouldn't go to sleep, very unusual for her), and gave her a bath to relax her.  We got her down and asleep by 6:10 for 40 min (she woke herself up).  This actually worked to our advantage, as she ate and went to bed later than she has been lately - with an early cat nap I've been struggling for her not to be in bed sleeping by 6:45 - too early for a 7am wakeup.
E@7pm
in bed at 7:20
Asleep by 7:30
Brief wake up and self soothe at 10pm
DF at 11
E@4am
I had to wake her at 7am!  - That's the best night she's had in a week, and I'm pretty sure it was due to a combination of a nice 2hr nap, and a later bed time.

[RegMum]

Oh, and with regards to the crying - if my LO does her "get in here cry", and by the time I get to the bed she's stopped or started her whiny mantra cry, I turn around and leave without interacting with her. That way I feel OK about responding when she needs me (she knows i came back after all), but I don't give her too much attention when she doesn't really need it.

[ailan]

I read your activity suggestions for low-key, not overstimulating showering with the lights out to keep her up longer...good suggestion.  I'll try that one.

I guess I have several problems that you seem to be beyond already, the primary one being self-soothing.  I know my lo can do it during the night.  I always thought he was pretty much asleep until one night last week when I put him down to see his eyes open widely.  I swaddle him at night with his hands up close to his face because he usually wakes himself up just to get his hands free.  Anyway, he first put his right hand in his mouth, then both, then after a few minutes drifted quietly off to sleep.  During the day is a different story.  He cries and his hands, if he can get them free, overstimulate him so I can't wrap him the same way.  I'm afraid it was a very bad case of accidental parenting for the first 3 months and now we're trying to make up for lost time.  So I'm trying to get him doing both independent sleep and extending naps simultaneously.  We used to assume that he was ready to be awake after he slept for that 45 minutes (although perplexed with such a short sleep) that we would get him up, so now I'm trying to leave him there when he was used to being picked up at that point.  Although I've been working on a 3 hr schedule I've just been recently introduced to BW hence misinterpreting his state of being awake.  I guess BW wouldn't have talked about accidental parenting if it didn't happen more than once!

So, I'm wondering if it would be easier to extend naps if he knew how to self-soothe first.  What I'm doing now (working on both) is out of fear of more accidental parenting by getting him out of his bed when he wakes.  Even if he's crying and I know he's not going back to sleep, should I persist for the whole 1 1/2 hours before I get him up, keep him there until he does fall asleep again, or what I've been doing is getting him out of his room after 20-30 minutes of shh/pat when it's clear he's not going back to sleep just to have him entertain himself quietly until he's ready to eat again.

Ah, and one last question (for now) is when you say she puts herself to sleep, does she drift off quietly, or cry before she sleeps?    

[Layla]

Ailan - {{{HUGS}}} hon, I know how hard sleep training is.

You're lo is 3mo, so you'd want to aim at 3hr EASY. Having said that, as you mentioned your lo is having short naps so EASY may/won't look like it until he learns to sleep past the 1st sleep cycle. What I used to do with my lo after wind-down is lay her down and if she started crying, start shh/pat. She would usually fall asleep within 20 mins. Once asleep, if she woke up after 45 mins, I'd attempt to shh/pat for another 20mins and if she wasn't going down again, then I'd pick her up and go on with our day. Give her some more A time until she would show me tired signs (which could be in 40mins). Then back to the cot for another nap. If she was due for a feed, then I'd feed and put to bed. Don't worry about feeding before a nap as long as he is not falling asleep at the breast/bottle. It does throw your day off in regards to following EASY but 45 mins naps are very common and I know with us, we were battling with short naps until around 5 months.

His ability to self-soothe will gradually happen and usually around 3/4 months, they learn to self-settle, this no longer needing your assistance. You should try to be consistent with naps and when sleep training but don't worry about occasional AP. If your lo is exhausted and just getting more and more worked up, its ok to pick him up and help him fall asleep. I used AP with #2 until she was 4mo, and even after helping her every single nap, she learnt indep slep after only 1-2 weeks of training. So don't beat yourself up about it  .

I could only do 20-30 mins of shh/pat as well so I know there are others that do it for the duration of the whole nap (like 1.5 hrs) but to me it seemed pointless to stand over a crying baby for that long just for the sake of a nap. If she would fall asleep, it would be out of pure exhaustion, so I always limited it to 20 mins and if not asleep, went on about my day.....

Mine always cried a little before falling asleep - it was a mantra cry so I didn't intervene.
Just wanted to give my 2 cents
HTH
Layla 

[RegMum]

Typically, my LO had been crying for a few minutes before falling asleep at each nap (about 5 min). I noticed something interesting yesterday - after my LO had managed to catch up on some of her sleep due to the accelerated nap routine, she didn't cry at all when going to sleep, no whining no nothing.  This happend for the first first naps yesterday, and she slept all the way through them.  For the third nap yesterday she was (I think) overtired because she did do a whiny cry for a few minutes when I put her down, and 45 min she was awake and crying.

[ailan]

Regmum  Good work with your lo!  No more tears.  What a feeling that must be.  I will try really hard to follow in your footsteps.  Yesterday was awful though, we had company and there was nothing I could do to put lo to sleep in the afternoon.  He was really fighting, not even closing his eyes while crying just to make sure he would stay awake.  So last night we suffered for it...he was on a 3 hour easy all night long!!! (minus the a and y time was sleep for me.)  Anyway, the week looks quiet until THursday so I'll perservere.

Layla  Only 1-2 weeks to sleep train your lo after 4 mos. of AP?!  Wow, I must be doing just about everything wrong.  I think the first thing is that I slip back into AP when I know he's exhausted...maybe I'll be a bit more rigid on things this week and make sure I'm not doing any AP and see if we get any better at independent sleep.

[Layla]

You are not doing anything wrong! When I missed my lo's sleep window, I went back to the occasional AP as well. Just try to put him to bed before he is overtired so that its easier for him to respond to the shh/pating and therefore fall asleep. At 3 months, the A time is roughly 1hr20-30mins so if it takes you 20mins of shh/pat, you want him in the crip by the end of that A time (you also want to have him fed, burbed, diaper, etc all within the A time). Don't keep awake for 1.5 hrs and then start wind-down. That was something that I had to get a concept of cause I would like keep mine awake for too long and start shh/pat at the end of the A time and she would take forever to fall asleep. Keep at it, it will get better.

Good luck, you're doing a great job 
Layla

[ailan]

lo is desperately trying to suck his thumb/hand, but if I leave one hand partially unswaddled (hand up by the face) he gets it out and it swings wildly around his body.  I try to give him a pacifier so he can suck, but he just chews it and ends up staying awake without winding down until he's overtired.  He's only successfully sucked the paci a few times other times he just bites it.  So during winddown (I've been doing the tail end of A time in bedroom then into bed) he ends up more worked up.  Should I just forget the hand and the paci and wrap him tightly???  In the past two weeks I only had him go quitely to sleep once.  That nap he was aussie swaddled with the pacifier...amazing.  Every other time he kicks and fights his arms out like he's on fire or something.  Wow this is tough.  I keep trying the shh/pat after the 45 minute sleep and have had no luck today.  He won't even drift in and out.  Perhaps he's still way overstimulated from the weekend and the middle of the week will be better.  Not even picking him up can I get him to calm/go back to sleep. 

Thanks again for the words of encouragement Layla, I'll just try to remember that things should get better!!
Ailan (Zozo's mommy)