Catnap Cure?

[UnityMom]

Hi Everyone!  I'm new to the boards, and have been reading tons of threads, and finding answers to so many of my questions!

I'm hoping for some help with our napping problem -- that being that my son can't seen to nap for longer than 45 minutes!

I've read enough threads to know, to start by posting basic info, and our schedule, so here goes:

Basic Info: 
DS is 3 months old, mostly Textbook Baby (with a wee bit of Angel and Spirited thrown in.)
He's been on EASY since we adopted him at 2 days old.  He can't seem to make up his mind whether he wants to be on a 3 hour easy, or a 4 hour easy.  mostly it's 3. he's bottle fed, similac advance.  for the most part,  he's very easy to soothe.  if he cries, it's usually for a good reason (hungry, diaper, cold, tired) and once you filled the need, he promptly stops crying.

Okay, here's our day for last couple days:
Monday
6am:  bottle
6:25am:  right back to sleep, as it's not yet "good morning" time.
8am:  wake up, played happily in his crib once i unswaddled his arms, then play in the swing

EAT:  9:15am bottle (5.5 oz)
ACTIVITY:  9:45am  (swing, songs, books, swing, playmat)
SLEEP:  11:30  naptime (transitioned very easily into nap.)

EAT:  1:20 woke up for bottle (5.5 oz) (so this nap proves to me he CAN sleep for almost 2 hours!)
ACTIVITY:  1:40pm  snuggle, playmat, music, swing in kitchen while Mom cooks)
               3:40pm start winding down for nap (wind down for us means: fresh diaper, clean clothes if we need them, swaddle, rock in rocking chair, sing a song or two.  when he hits stage 2 or 3 i put him in his crib)
SLEEP:  3:55 nap (easy transition to sleep)

EAT:  4:55 wake for bottle (7 oz)
ACTIVITY:  5:15pm  swing in kitchen while Mom cooks, sit at dining room table for dinnertime, playmat and songs with Dada, tummytime
EAT:  6:45pm (he self-demands cluster feed in evenings)  bottle (5.5 oz)
ACTIVITY:  play with Dada, bed time routine (same every night -- 2 stories, 2 prayers, 2 songs, snuggle/rock until stage 2 or 3, then into crib. swaddled.)
SLEEP:  8:10pm asleep for the night, though require frequent soothing for the first few hours.
           11:30pm lots of frantic crying, relieved by change of poopy diaper and clean clothes.
           2am -- woke crying, soothe with shushing, patting chest, holding, and binkie.
(EAT):  5:45am bottle (5 oz) then right back to sleep
SLEEP:  slept a couple hours more

Tuesday
ACTIVITY:  woke at 8:15am, not yet hungry, so played happily in crib for a bit
EAT:  9am bottle (7oz)
ACTIVITY:  9:45am  play, tummytime, songs, read books
SLEEP:  10:45 winddown
            10:55 asleep
            11:45 woke, i soothed, and had to keep re-soothing every 5 minutes until i gave up at 12:15pm

EAT:  12:15pm bottle (7 oz)
ACTIVITY:  1:00pm play
SLEEP:  1:55 winddown when i saw first/second yawn
           2:15 asleep

EAT:  3:05pm woke, bottle (7 oz)
(ACTIVITY):  skipped it, and put him right back to sleep, as last nap was under an hour
SLEEP:  3:25pm right back to bed
            4pm, still awake, contentedly looking around while laying in crib
           4:15pm asleep
ACTIVITY:  woke at 5:10pm, not interested in more sleep, or food, so we played

EAT:  6:30 bottle (6.75oz)
ACTIVITY:  trip to friends' house for devotional gathering and (6:30 bottle took place right when we arrived at friend's house)  returned home at 8:30 pm, with a short snooze in car.
EAT:  8:50pm bottle (7 oz)
SLEEP:  to tired for play, so we went right to bed, winddown at 9:20, asleep by 9:40pm  (tired swaddling with one arm out this time.)
        10:55 -- shushing, patting chest, soothing, picking up once every minute for 5 minutes.
        11pm -- reswaddle with both arms in, slept solid until 4:30am

EAT:  4:30am -- bottle (7oz), then right back to sleep
SLEEP:  fell asleep again very easily.

Wednesday
8am:  wake for the day.  play for a little bit

EAT:  8:30 bottle (7oz)
ACTIVITY:  8:50am play, snuggle, songs
SLEEP:  winddown at sleepy signs, 9:35am
           lay contentedly in crib looking around for a while
           10:10 asleep

ACTIVITY:  10:55am, woke, would not go back to sleep for anything, but not hungry yet either, so sat in swing
EAT:  11:30am  bottle (7oz)
ACTIVITY:  11:50  (swing, playmat, tummy time, songs, books, massage)
SLEEP:  1:05pm winddown
           1:15pm re-soothe
           1:30pm asleep
             2:20p woke, and i soothed (pick up, shush, pat, hold, binkie) at 2:20, 2:25, 2:35, 2:40 with him falling asleep each time.
EAT:  feeling fairly confident that hunger kept waking him, so a i did a bottle,
        2:45pm bottle (7 oz)
SLEEP:  3:00pm right back to bed, to try to finish nap.
           3:10 asleep again (fairly simple transition into sleep)

it's 3:55pm now, as i type, and he's still asleep.  of course, it's been 45 minutes since he fell asleep again, so i expect to hear him any minute!

basically, i know a "sleep cycle" is about 45 minutes, and he seems to get thru one cycle during naps, but can rarely transition himself into a second cycle, to create a nice satisfying nap.     then again, by the time i get him asleep for nap, 45 minutes also marks when he's likely to get hungry next.  i've tried putting him down earlier -- he just either keeps fussing, or lays contentedly looking around.

How do i help him develop the skills for those nice, satisfying 1.5 to 2 hour naps that he's supposed to be taking?

thanks!

[UnityMom]

Anyone? 
Are we a mystery to confound the masses?
Or just not interesting at all . . .

[*Natasha*]

Sorry i have had problems getting on to the site over the last 24hrs.
So it looks like your awake time is 2hrs sometimes alittle more which is to long for a LO at this age. At 3months most babies are on 3hr EASY and 1.5hrs awake and 1.5hrs sleep. So you could try:

8am:  Wake and eat
8.30am - activity
9.30am - Sleep 1.5hrs
11am - wake eat
11.30am - activity
12.30pm - Sleep 1.5hrs
2pm - wake eat
2.30pm - activity
4.30pm - Sleep 1.5hrs
6pm - wake eat
6.30pm - activity bath
7.30pm - eat,bedtime routine then sleep for the night.
Rather than the early feed at 5/6am have you though about a Dreamfeed at around 10.30pm to get through to the morning?

[UnityMom]

Hi Natasha!  Thanks for the feed back!  Nice to have a place to start.  I'll aim for moving into the sleep phase earlier.  so half of every cycle should be sleep. 

for the dream feed -- haven't tried it yet, but have been thinking about it.  basically we make a bottle, and then quietly pick him up, asleep, in his dark room, and feed him the bottle.  what if he doesn't take it when we put it in his mouth?  do we try and wake him up a bit to eat?
and how do we time the dream feed -- 3 hours after last bottle?  or whenever we're ready to go to bed?

and what do i do when he wakes up, but isn't hungry?  try to feed him anyway?  let him play till Eat time?  just keep trying to make him go back to sleep?  even if he's wide awake?

thank you so much for the help!!

[*Natasha*]

With the dreamfeed questions i will ask the bottle feeding Moderators to pop in to answer your questions on that as i never did a dreamfeed with my DD.
If he wakes and isn't hungry and not ready for a feed or in the middle of the night just try resettling with Shh/Patt and if you find it isn't working during the day get him up for quiet time before the next feed.

[UnityMom]

well, yesterday went pretty smoothly for a first try at the changes.  first nap -- went down right when he was supposed to, halfway thru the 3 hour easy.  slept for 45 minutes, and woke.  it took lots and lots of going back in, but he did go back to (fitful) sleep for the rest of the nap period.  second nap didn't go as smooth -- but that was my fault, as we had to go out for an appt.

DH gave a dream feed last night -- worked like a charm!  he drank the whole bottle, and never really woke up!     didn't hear from him again until 4:30am -- his swaddle had come all undone.  i reswaddled, and he fell right back to sleep.  then up at 6:45am, ready for the day to start.

definitely on the right track here.  looking forward to seeing what several days of consistency with this will accomplish!

thanks again for the help!

[* Paula *]

Sounds like the DF went well.  That is fantastic.

for the dream feed -- haven't tried it yet, but have been thinking about it.  basically we make a bottle, and then quietly pick him up, asleep, in his dark room, and feed him the bottle.  what if he doesn't take it when we put it in his mouth?  do we try and wake him up a bit to eat?
and how do we time the dream feed -- 3 hours after last bottle?  or whenever we're ready to go to bed?

If your lo does not take the bottle when you offer him the DF, you can always rub his cheek to try and encourage him to drink - this usually does the trick.

With regards to the timings of the DF, it is usually done between 10:00pm and 11:00pm.  They do suggest doing it as close to 10pm as possible, as giving the DF later can interfere with their night time sleep and start causing more night wakings.

HTH's let us know if you have any questions.

Paula

[*Natasha*]

That is fantastic news keep us posted

[tara72]

I've got a 12-week-old who also takes 45 minute naps. the advice that has been given already in this thread has been very good (and I am trying to use it to my advantage as well!).

I'm no expert, but your LO (who has such cute little feet!) is probably awake too long, like Natasha said. I am working to extend our awake time from 1-1.25 hours to 1.25-1.5 hours. also, today we will try the wake-to-sleep method (that I think Paula pointed out in a separate post I made). here is a thread about w2s: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64168.0

keep us posted! I'll be curious to see how things work out, since I'm in a similar predicament.

 --tara

[UnityMom]

I don't have too much of an update -- as weekends go, ours has been all over the board with an out of town baby shower wreaking havoc on the saturday schedule, and then today my mom had him all afternoon while DH and i went out for a much needed date.
i gave Mom our easy routine and walked her thru the basics.  DS ate like a champ for her, but was way too excited to play with her and the dogs, and look at all the exciting things in Grammy's house, etc, that he just wouldn't sleep much for her at all.  by the time we got home, he was so tired he couldn't even focus long enough to have his last bottle before bedtime!  DH and i struggled and struggled to get him thru most the bottle, and then truncated the bedtime routine.  we hadn't even finished swaddling him, and he was asleep.  that was 7:45pm.  haven't heard from him since, and it's now 9:30pm!  DH will try the DF between 10:30 and 11pm.  hoping the DF will hold him thru to a decent hour of the morning.

i've cleared our schedule for most of the week, so we can focus on napping skills without schedule interruptions.  i'd rather get the napping skills down first, then go on to learn the adaptations necessary for schedule variations.

as for wake-to-sleep -- i read part of the thread Tara linked (thanks by the way!) . . . . . i dunno.  my mother's instinct tells me in no-uncertain-terms that this just is not the method for us . . . then again, we'll see how long this lasts.

[tara72]

it's tough when something throws a day off! we'll be leaving our LO with a sitter in a week, and I hate the thought of it, since it WILL throw things off! but I guess that's just part of life and hopefully it won't effect too much more than just that one day.

I know what you mean about it maybe not being the method for you. that's what I thought, too, when I first started reading about it on this board several weeks ago. I thought, naa, I don't need to do that! but now, finally, I decided that maybe I would try it. heck, I don't think it can make anything worse! yesterday, I tried it three times. the first time, she slept for 1.5 hours (it may have been her long nap anyway), then she only slept for 25 minutes (so I didn't get a chance to get in there and do it), then we got in there a minute too late and she as already stirring. so I'll just try again today. I understand it takes some time.

anyway, mother's instinct is most often the best method for just about anything, so follow it. our babies will thank us when they are older.