transition to 3.5/4 hr EASY with short naps?

[tylersmommy]

I just can't understand how to move Mackenzie to 3.5/4 hr EASY with these awful short naps. Help! She's 4 mo and her day looks something like this:
745 - E
915-10 - S
10-1045 - A
1045 - E
1130-12 - S
12-1 - A
1 - E
130-330 - S (usually short nap, but I kill myself trying to extend this one b/c older LO is napping too)
330-4 - A
4 - E
5-530 - catnap ***has started to refuse this!
645 - E, bedtime

I understand how to increase A times every 3 days and stretch time between feeds. What I don't understand is how to do this with a short napper. She'll have no trouble going longer between feeds, but I imagine she's gotta be overtired as it is! How will we ever get there?!

[* Paula *]

Hi Melissa,

Do you think that with her extending her A time, she might go down longer, or has she always been a 45 minute napper?

Have you tried using wake to sleep to extend her naps?

Paula

[tylersmommy]

Paula - She started with the 30-45 min naps around 11 wks. At first, it was occasional, then got more and more frequent until we got to where we are now...every single nap is short. I'm not sure if extending her A time will help or hurt. I know that short napping is partly a developmental thing, but morbid curiosity makes me want to try longer A time. Her naps can't get much shorter!

I've done W2S for about a week for at least 1 nap each day. It worked the first time I did it and not since. Beginner's luck?

[* Paula *]

I would start and try and transistion her.  She may not be quiet ready for the 4 hour EASY, so would probably go for the 3.5 hour first and see how she goes.

If you think that she is not going to handle the extra A time too well, you could always try and extend it by 10-15 minutes every few days.

Like you said, it is worth a try, I cannot see her naps getting any shorter.

If W2S is not working then she probably isn't tired enough to be taking a longer nap.  Would definitely go with extending her A time a bit.

Good luck.  Let us know how she gets on.

[cadensmum]

Hi Tylersmommy,

My DD is a few weeks younger than yours and I have just begun the transition to 3 naps. I find if she has a short morning nap like 45min-1hour, she will sleep about 2hours for her second. Then we do a third for 45 minutes. So our day looks like this:

E:7:30
S:9-10
E: 10:45
S:12-2/2:15
E:2:15
S: 4:15-5
E:5:15
E:7 (top-up)
7bed

We are really only doing one feed at 3.5 hours.

Now, she is an easy baby and doesn't get wigged out being awake for two hours but....she has started waking every 3.5 hours in the night! She has never slpet through but we were getting 5-6 hour stretches. How is night sleep for you? I think you have to make the transition at some point and just bear it until they get used to it. I waited so long with my ds and he was the worst napper until 6month. Nothing worked to extend them.

Let me know how you are getting on!

[tylersmommy]

Alicia-

Mackenzie had been doing the same thing...short AM nap then nice long one in the afternoon. It worked great, since that's when my older kiddo naps, but those days are gone! Mackenzie does well with a lot of awake time too, so that part's easy, but I just hate how messy the day gets with short naps! Our night sleep is pretty hit or miss. She usually only wakes once around 4 or 5 to eat, but every so often, she gets up twice. It's all over the place...2 nights ago, up at 2 and 4, clearly starving. Last night, up at 5. I don't get it!

We'll see what happens!

[* Paula *]

Please let us know how you get on Melissa.

[bubbasmomma]

I tried the wake to sleep too, but it didn't work for me either.  Kahlen is almost 3 1/2 mo, and nights have been weird.  For a week straight she slept from 8 till at least 4, and just the other day slept from 8 till 7:30, ate and went right back to sleep till 10:30 am (I think she was getting sick) and now last night she was up every 3 hours wanting to eat.  Her naps are usually only 45 min.  When I tried wake to sleep, it just ended up with her smiling at me!
Her schedule seems kindof crazy to me...let me know what anyone thinks!

Day 1
7:00 E
7:30 S
10:30 E
11:45-12:30 S
1:00 E
1:30-2:30 S
3:00 E
3:30-6 S
6:00 E
8:30 E
9:30-1:30 S
1:30 E
4:30 E

Day 2
7:30 E
10:30-11:15 S
11:15 E
2:00-3:00 S
3:30 E
5:00-5:45 S
7:30 Night routine and 8:00 Sleep
up every 3 hours until 7:30 on Day 3

Day 3
7:30 E
8:30-10 S
10:15 E
12-12:45 S
12:45 E
3:00-4:00 S
4:00 E
5:15-5:45 S
6:00 E
7:15 E
7:45 S
This is where we are now...is it just me or is it way out of wack?  Sorry it is such a long post!

[bubbasmomma]

By awake tiimes, do you mean how long they are playing?  Is there  a general timeline for how long an infant 3-4 months will stay awake?  Does the awake time include eating time, or does it start after she finishes eating? 

[tylersmommy]

Kaleb was a professional short napper from birth up! Really he deserved an award lol. 

I have a baaaaaad feeling we're heading in that direction too...

Bubbasmomma - How are you deciding when to put her down for a nap? There are some reeeeally long A times in there. I'm not saying you need to be a clock watcher, but having A times that are around the same for each cycle can help set their body's sleep rhythms. That's how it went with my older kiddo anyway...remains to be seen this time around. I'm all for following cues, but my experience with both my kids has been that around a certain age, they really don't show tired cues until it's too late.

To answer your questions, awake time is just that...how long they're doing anything other than sleeping, including time spent eating and playing. In general, a 3-4 mo old is awake 1.25-2 hrs.

Still working on transitioning to 3.5 hr EASY here. Keeping her awake longer hasn't been a problem, she's going longer between feeds, but the naps still suck. I'm starting to suspect a paci addiction.

[bubbasmomma]

I have been following cues completly.  I actaully just got this book from the library the other day, way into her life and bad habits.  there is just so much that I don't know.  I get frustrated because I only had the What to expect book at the beginning, and it said to hold your baby until 10-20 minutes after they fell asleep, which we did, so we have kindof created a monster!  She is a little sick right now, so I will probably wait to do too much till she gets better, but I have always doubted her being sleepy because she gets really upset when we swaddle her for a few minutes, so in the past I gave in and did something else like activity, which just sent her deeper into a meltdown.  Now I give her a few minutes of resisting and she does do down.  I will just start trying to take her regularly and getting her down sooner.  I feel like such a novice!  I really appreciate this site and everyones helpand advice!