4 month old with 45 min naps.... any advice!!!!

[stheo]

I have a beautiful DD that started taking 45 min naps around 2.5 -3 months old.... A times are 2 hr... sometimes more sometimes less depending on her cues... I have tried W2S with little success and pat/ shh will get her back to sleep but she will wake up 5 -10 mins later.. I have her on a 3 hr EASY, tring to move to 3.5-4 hr but she wants to eat all of the time.. she sleeps anywhere fr 10-12 hrs a night, getting her to sleep is starting to be a problem or keeping her to sleep i should say... she wakes up at the 45 min mark and will pat/shh back to sleep but wakes up every 5-10 mins... the other night i ended up going in there 4-5 times (1hr 45min) to pat her back to sleep... she will wake up at anywhere from 1-5 to eat and then back down till 730-8... I dont dreamfeed because Im afraid that if I wake her up to eat that she will take forever to go back to sleep... any suggestions would be appreciated... this is her schedule so far..

E- up at 8-830 eat bottle
A
S- 1000-1045

E-1100-1130
A
S-1-145

E-300
A
S-400-445

E-500
A
S - 630 -book, bath, cuddle. bottle

Bed at 700

[Lizziebeth]

Hi there steph

Ok, a couple of things, yes think a DF would be a good idea.  You really try not to wake them at all, just go in around 10.30pm, pick her up as gently as you can and do the feed.  It's scary the first time but you might find that even if she does wake up, she will go back to sleep ok. She sounds like she takes this big long stretch of sleep at night cos she is sleepy so it might not be as bad as you think.   Takes a leap of faith! lol.

If you get as you get as many calories as poss into her during the day and poss do the DF, she should start to push back night feeds.  Entirely up to you of course.

Now if she is only taking 45 min naps during the day, she may not be able to make it 2 hrs to the next nap.  When she wakes from these 45 min naps, is she happy or crying?  If happy, she's had enough sleep and that's just her biorhythm.  Or is could mean she wasn't very tired at the start of the nap and didn't need more than 45 mins.   

If she wakes up crying, she is most likely still tired but can't make it into the next sleep cycle.  This often happens at 4 months for developmental reasons.  Your baby's brain sorted out night sleep at 0-3 months.  Between 3-6 months, it starts to sort daytime sleep and it makes things tricky.  Your baby wakes at 45 mins because her biological clock is maturing.  This will pass at around 5-6 months.  But in the meantime, you can teach her how to overcome the 45 min mark by patting to sleep and doing W2S.

I need to know a bit more about your day.  Can you let me know about this stuff?

Do you stick to her routine or is there a lot of variation in her day, you need to go out etc? 
Are you the only one who puts her to sleep or is she in daycare etc?
What kind of wind-down routine do you have?
What kind of sleepy cues does she show?
Is she swaddled?
Does she have a paci?
White noise?
Does she sleep in her own room?  Is it darkened?
Is she bottle fed?  If so, has she started to drain bottles?

[yaya]

TBH a nghitfeed at that age is very normal! 45 min naps can indicate overtiredness, try getting her down for her naps a bit earlier each time and see if that helps. Have u tried staying in the room while she naps aand catching the jolts as soon as they happen?

[Lizziebeth]

actually yeah yaya is absolutely right about night feeds being normal at this age.  I re-edited my original post a little in light of this!

[stheo]

Most of the time when she wakes from the nap she is smiling as soon as she sees me... even if she is tired at the 1 hr mark she still only sleeps 45 mins... it doesn't matter how short or long A times are... I will try the dreamfeed, very nervous about it.. I just dont see how she can not be getting enough calories to eat during the day.... Here is a little about our routine..

Do you stick to her routine or is there a lot of variation in her day, you need to go out etc?
 - pretty much stick to routine... If she wakes up early or later, change it up according to that. but I work sat and sun night and I am home with her mon-fri.... so I am available to work on naps, etc. 

Are you the only one who puts her to sleep or is she in daycare etc?
- I put put her to sleep mainly, my husband puts her down for morning naps and on the weekends my MIL keeps her... NO day care.

What kind of wind-down routine do you have?
- dim bedroom and read books

What kind of sleepy cues does she show?
cranky, rubbing eyes, yawning

Is she swaddled?
Never swaddled, even when newborn, she always sleeps with hands by head unless on side, even on 1st ultrasound she had hands up by head.

Does she have a paci?
She does have paci but not dependent, she spits it out half the time or I take it out when she lays down.. Sometimes she will get mad if you try to put it in her mouth and take it out herself.

White noise?
Humidifier, or ocean sounds in background

Does she sleep in her own room?  Is it darkened?
she does sleep in her own room and it is darkened

Is she bottle fed?  If so, has she started to drain bottles?
She is bottle fed, 7 oz formula,every 3 hours.... she drains it all plus on cereal 2x day.

I have watched her at naptime to catch the jolts but it doesn't work... She still wakes up and wont go back to sleep.. W2S has worked only once for me... I am wondering...I know that I need to switch her to 4 hr EASY but how would I work out her feeding schedule and cluster feed at night before bed and add cereal....

[Lizziebeth]

hello again, if she is draining bottles, this suggests she is hungry,  Add a couple more ounces to each bottle and see what happens.   Luckily this is one of the easiest things to fix!

Hunger could explain a lot.  Could also explain why she is waking earlier and earlier at night, whereas once she used to sleep through til 5am.   When she wakes in the night, how much is she taking and does she drain that bottle?   Also hunger will often cause short naps.  They can drink like crazy at this age.  DD was up to 40oz at one point!  lol.

I reckon give the DF a go, she is getting up a couple of hours after that time anyway so maybe not much to lose?   If it's a disaster after 2-3 nights, you can always revert back to what you were doing before and work on getting more calories in between 7am - 7pm.

Now if after 45 mins, she's waking happy, babbling and smiling this suggests she was undertired going into the nap.  Here I'm still a little confused about your A times.  In your routine, she seems to be getting over 2.25 A before some naps.  But othertimes you put her to bed at 1hr mark?    W2S won't work if she's not tired enough going into the nap.  She simply only needs 45 mins sleep and won't go into another sleep cycle.

If she wakes crying at first but then is smiling when she sees you, this doesn't necessarily mean undertired though ... just to confuse matters, lol!
 
HTH! 

[stheo]

she always drains 7 oz from every bottle even the ones she takes when she wakes up in the middle of the night... So how many oz should I try to give her....7 oz already seems like alot for a 4.5 month old to eat.. ( she was 5.5lbs when she was born, at 4 month check up she was 13lbs 14oz).. Should I feed her before naps to tide her over and how much... I will try the DF  and see what happens... i guess i am keeping her up 2.25 mins but even with shorter A times naps are still 45 min. sometimes I will put her to sleep earlier if she seems sleepy....i mainly go by cues....

[Lizziebeth]

Start by offering her a 9oz bottle at each feed. I know it seems an awful lot but everything you've told me suggests she is hungry.  If this is the problem, you are going to see progress very quickly!   I wouldn't offer her more feeds for now, just more quantity at each feed and take it from there.

Tell you something, my LO only weighed 4lbs 5oz when she was born (she was a few weeks early).  Now you'd think she would only eat small amounts but no, she ate like crazy, taking 8oz bottles at 4-5 months.  It was like she was on this constant catch up.  I've heard this can happen a lot with lower birthweigh babies. 

This exact same problem happened to me. You know I told you we had very similar problems as yours at this age.  I was sure she couldn't need more food but when I upped her feeds,  things started going much more smoothly.  Then we were able to work on extending A times and naps.

I don't think she can handle more than 2 hrs A time at the mo, even if she'd taken a full 1.5 hr nap previously which she doesn't do. 

I'd start a long calming wind-down at 1hr 40 hr A time and really try to aim for asleep by 2hrs A.  I know it's not easy but you might find with these extra feeds, she will settle more easily.  

If she only takes a 45 min nap and you've tried everything but she won't go back to sleep, then I'd start your next winddown at about 1hr 05 mins A time, aiming for sleep after 1 hr 20/25. 

It is possible that she's overtired from all these 45 min naps and is then crashing by the end of her day.  This makes her sleep fitful in the early part of the evening, causing her to wake after 10 mins, 15 mins and so on.  Can also affect her sleep through the night and cause more 45 min naps the next day.

Don't worry , this can be fixed by slowly adding A time and extending naps.   Let's try this extra milk thing first though and see how it goes.  Always best to try one thing at a time.

[yaya]

I agree with pp, if they drain a bottlem then they need more, they should always leave a few oz in bottom.
re: 45 min naps, its either udnertired or overtired as PP suggested, fiddle about with your routine till u work out what works best but to me 1 hr A time at 4.5mos isnt enough, maybe go for 2 hrs? then by the time she falls asleep then its just gone 2hrs A time
Have u checked out the sample routines for this age?
i would also sit in for a few naps and time exactly when she wakes and go and place your hand on her or pat or shh to ease the transition. When u ahve noted what time she wakes over a few naps, try w2s, it may be u need to tiem it differently, say going in at 30mins or 25mins

[stheo]

yaya... She usually does have at least 1.5 or 2 hr A time...the one hr is only if she is really showing signs of being tired....  but i will add more to the bottle and see if that helps...

Lizziebeth.... I will try the wind down like you suggested and let you know how that goes... today I tried to get her to take power nap in late afternoon and she refused by screaming as if someone was hurting her, but my MIL had her today bc my DH and I worked last night so she might have just wanted to spend time with us instead of sleep.. She is asleep now at 700, we'll see how many times she wakes up .... My MIL says she slept last night from 730 -0600 this morning without waking up... so depending on how tonight goes ... I will decide if I want to start DF tom night.... Thanks for the help...

[Lizziebeth]

Hey that's great she slept all night!  Was that with no changes at all to your routine?   Wow!

Do keep me posted about how tonight goes and good luck!

Yeah catnaps can be difficult.  DD hates them and they often throw off bedtime.

[stheo]

she woke up at 130 this morning, ate 7 oz, back to sleep and again at 615, ate and back asleep woke up at 900 this morning playing in crib. MIL had her half of day yesterday and didn't add any oz to bottle so Im going to start that today... should i try that a day before DF or go ahead and do it... i will try wind down like you suggested Lizziebeth and let you know how that goes....

[Lizziebeth]

If it was me, I would add both to your day bottles and do the df too all in the same day.  But if you don't want to do a DF, you don't have to ...lol.

If she woke at 1am and took 7oz, then your goal is to try and get 7oz more into her over the course of the day.  So that works out an extra ounce or two per daytime bottle.  In this way, she will require less and less food at night.  Probably won't happen immediately but over time you should notice her wake times in the night push back later and later til she's almost at 6amish.

[stheo]

1st nap was horrible... she woke up at 0900 so I started wind down at 1030 bc she started yawning, asleep by 1050, she woke up at 1125, pat//shh  didn't work, so I tried rocking and she started screaming like going back down to finish nap was the most horrible thing.. this last for 30 min, she was kicking, screaming to the point where I had to just lay her down in her crib to take a break.... finally fed up i took her to the living room and put her in her bouncy chair where she was smiling at me... so now what... do i put her down at 100-115 or wait... i was going to feed her at 100 and put down for 2nd nap at 200... i dont know just frustrated. I know 30 min naps are not sufficient but after a 30 min nap how long does her A time need to be or do I just watch cues

[Lizziebeth]

Ok, when she woke after 30 mins was she happy or did she wake up crying?  I know when you tried to put her back down she screamed like mad but when she initially woke from that 30 min nap, was she crying? 

Now I think all you can do is watch her cues and bear in mind those A times I said for short nap.  Yawns can be unreliable at this so all you can do is try and figure out when she's really tired.

She just came off this 14 hour chunk of night sleep.  14.5hrs max is about what she needs for her whole day and night so she's almost used up all her quota already.  This is probably gonna to mess up her naps today, kwim?

One thing that will really help you get on track is to choose a wake up time and stick to it for at least a couple of weeks til all is going smoothly again.  So let's say you go with 8am, then wake her for that every morning.   This will set her clock and allow you to space out that sleep quota across her day. You're aiming for something like 10.5 hrs at night and 4 in the day.