Question on waking baby up from a nap

[katiush]

My DD takes a couple of good naps during the mornings, ie settles herself down to sleep and sleeps for about  1 1/2 to 2 hours. THen, in the afternoon, if she is taking an exceedingly long nap, I wake her up, in order to make sure she doesn't nap for more than 2 hours. However, then she is cranky from the moment I wake her, and then won't settle down for the next nap. She keeps waking and crying. I tried to shorten the A after waking her to see if it helps, and it doesn't really help. She is 5 weeks today. I was thinking that she is being gassy, which could still be part of the problem, but I seem to see a trend that when I wake her from a nap, she has these problems.
Any thoughts?

Katia

[katiush]

Just wanted to add some more 
Also, for tanking up, she is miserable for the catnaps because I keep waking her. HOwever, once she does go down in the evening, she sleeps well in the night.

[malialeanne]

Congratulations on your new baby and welcome to the boards.

Five weeks is very young, so your "routine" will probably be quite loose. The point of a routine at this point is to help them distinguish night from day and establish sleep/wake patterns, and you wake them for feeds to help establish their internal "clock".

How much A time is she getting between naps?

[katiush]

Well, this morning, she woke up at 6 AM (a very pleasant surprise for us, except that DS woke up at 5 AM)
A: none, she fell asleep right after feed
E: 9 AM
A: sat in her seat until she started making tired sounds
S: around 10 AM
E: 12 PM.  I woke her here.
A: around 20-30 minutes. Did not settle. Kept crying
S: She cat napped with me finally for about 40 minutes when I took her into my arms, and lay down with her in bed
E: 3:15 PM.
A: was short, but didn't fall asleep for a long time
S: 30-40 minutes
E: 5:30 PM first cluster feed
A: bath
S: put her down at 6:15, and she didn't fall asleep at all. She just quietly lay in bed the whole time
E: 7:00 PM second cluster feed
S: put her down at 7:40 PM, and now she's crying....

Is her A time still too long? I really watch her cues, and if she's still not showing any signs, I start putting her down, and by the time I am sitting with her before putting her down, she is yawning.

Katia

[malialeanne]

Some babies have A times of around 45 minutes at that age. And the first A period of the day is often shortest. You can try shortening the first A period of the day to around 45 minutes and see how it goes...

P.S. It's OK if you don't make 3 hour EASY at this age. A lot of moms do a 2.5/3 hour routine until more regular naps are established.

[katiush]

What do I do if I do the 4S wind down routine, and put her down when she is calm and seems to be drifting off to sleep, then leave her to fall asleep....I come back at 20 minute intervals, and she is still lying wide awake, calmly looking around. Then about an hour later, she starts fussing and crying; I am assuming because now she is exhausted.
I am at a loss. Why doesn't she fall asleep?! Her A time was already 45 min to an hour long.

[malialeanne]

Hi. Establishing a routine involves lots of tweaking. Also, your baby is a newborn and her body isn't on a schedule yet.

Is this happening for her a.m. nap or a different nap?

[katiush]

Yesterday it happened for her AM nap.
In the past it sometimes happened when we put her down for the night....although those times she eventually would fall asleep without crying

[malialeanne]

Hi. The behavior you're describing sounds like undertiredness. That's pretty rare for a 5 week old, so I went back and looked at your routine. If she goes down around 7:30 and sleeps until 9 a.m., she is getting an exceptional amount of nighttime sleep. She likely only needs around 15-16 hours total sleep (and that would be a high average). If you add 13 ish hours nighttime sleep and her short scattered naps throughout the day, I'll bet you'll find that she's sleeping 15 hours or more.

Babies need daytime sleep as well as nighttime sleep. They are flexible with how they distribute that sleep thoughout the day. If they sleep 13.5 hours at night, you are not going to be able to get 4-5 hours of naps from in the daytime. You cannot force too much sleep on a baby, it just does not work. It's up to parents to make sure sleep distribution is appropriate, which is a big part of the reasoning behind BW and a routine.

I would aim for an 11 hour night with 4-5 hours of naps during the day. If you want her to go down by 7:30 - 8, you need to start your day by 7. However, many people do a later bedtime of 9 or so until longer naps develop, and do 5-6 short naps during the day. Very little babies need such short A times that much of their sleep will be distributed throughout the day. As los can be awake longer and drop naps, bedtime naturally moves up and nighttime sleep gets longer.

HTH,
Malia

[katiush]

Uuugh, now I'm totally confused...I was sure that her fussiness was being overtired by the end of the day, and now I ahve to look to see if she is undertired?
Today was a bit better...she didn't miss any naps, but she did have a bit of a bad time during her 12:15 nap...she woke with gas after about 30-40 minutes of sleep and wouldn't settle until the next feed, which I did at 2 1/2 hours. She actually napped after that for a long time, and settled nicely for her catnap. I put her down at 7 pm, so I will try to make sure she is up after 11 hours of sleep tomorrow...

Katia

[malialeanne]

Hi, sorry to be confusing. I think she does sound overtired by the end of the day, but the behavior you're describing for her a.m. nap sounds like undertiredness due to the very long nighttime sleep. If she was agitated and crying and acting "wired" I would suspect overtiredness. Of course, I'm not there and you are, you know you lo best!

I would definitely try and stick to your set wake-up time, and from there your naps and bedtime will become more consistent. Although it might take a while! She's only a newborn after all. Sounds like you're doing great!