5 month old not napping well at all HELP

[jcsmom]

My almost 5 month old is a terrible napper and I think is very overtired and we can't seem to break the cycle. He used to sleep for long periods of time, then that went out the window and we got 45 minute naps. Then I extended his A time and we got 1.5 hour naps for about a week. This was a month ago and now I get a morning nap of anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours (this happend once!) and an afternoon nap of 28 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes and a third nap of 30. His naps are almost always broken in 30+40 if I am lucky meaning he awakens after 30 cries for 5-15 minutes (he hates shh/pat and pu/pd doesn't work AT ALL) then sleeps for 30 to one hour if I am lucky. Currently his A times are 1.5 hours in the morning and 2 between each nap which I just scaled back from 2 in the morning and 2.5 in the afternoon. I thought keeping him up longer would extend our day, but I realize now that it just made him overtired.
We had several weeks where he was waking at 11, 2, 4, 5 and 7 and I think now that started the cycle. We have worked on nights and for the most part he is only waking once or twice and crying out for less than 10 minutes with 2 dreamfeeds. Here is our EASY (on a good day)

6:30 wake up
8:00 sleep until 9-9:30
11-11:30 sleep until 12-1
3 pm cat nap 30 minutes
6:30 bedtime

I have to wake him at 6:30 most days. Is he getting too much night sleep to sleep well in the day or is the cycle just going and going with the bad naps? How do I fix this?THe other problem is the long period before bed. Sometimes if his naps are bad we do a forth in the carriage but his night is still bad where he screams from 5:45 onwards. Help! I am falling apart!

[malialeanne]

Hey there. Your lo is adorable.

If you suspect overtired, why not let him sleep later in the morning instead of waking him at 6:30? You're correct that the many night wakings could be caused by overtiredness, and an earlier bedtime is a great way to combat the overtiredness, but if he can get some extra sleep in the a.m. with no extra effort on your part, even better!

Your morning A time is quite short. If you pushed his A time there closer to 9 a.m. it would help to even out your other A times, eliminate the extra-long A time before bed, and could help get a longer a.m. nap too.

[jcsmom]

Thanks for the advice. He shows signs of tiredness in the morning really quickly. The few times I let him sleep later we had bad naps. I just can't seem to find the balance. If I cut his A times he still has short naps but 45 minutes. How long should I cut them before I would find a balance?2-3 days? A week? He used to be a 45 minute napper then we extended A times to 2 hours and we got great naps for about 2 weeks then it has all gone down hill. We had about 3 weeks of crazy nights and the same of really bad naps. The nights are much better but his naps are terrible. I am afraid that if I cut his A times that his last nap will start way too early and we'll have to put him to bed at 6!
What are typical A times for almost 5 month old? He will be on August 9th. He shows tired signs after 1 hour and 30-45 but sometimes sooner but I often keep him up for 2+ as I am afraid of having no naps left at the end of the day. When I put him down too soon, he cries and cries, too late I get short naps. Will we ever be able to iron this out or are we in a vicious cycle of overtiredness?
I am also afraid that 12 hours at night may be too long and thus him not being able to nap longer? Can this happen? On the days where he has had 3 good naps, we have had weird wake ups at night. Argh

[malialeanne]

Average A times for 5 months would be around 2.25-2.5 hours. I will say my dd always shows tired signs 1 hour to 1.5 hours after waking, but she gets a second wind a bit later. If you were having goods naps when A times were at 2 hours, do you think he may have now moved beyond the 2 hour point and be ready for more? The first few days of extending A times will be tough. But once he starts napping for longer periods and sleeping more soundly at night as a result, he will be able to stay up for longer more easilly. It takes a baby anywhere from few days to a week or two to adjust to a new routine.

A lot of babies at this age do around 11 hours at night--if they do 12 hours per night and they only need (for example) 14-15 hours of sleep total, then there's not much sleep left to distribute out over three naps! So you may have shorter naps until he can be up for longer and you move to 2 naps, probably around 7 months or so.

Don't be afraid of an early bedtime. We have often put dd to bed at 6 and still do when she is overtired and waking at night. It actually makes her wake later in the a.m.

[bethanys mummy]

JC'sMom

Hi there, I am no expert, have a short napper myself but I would say that your lo is just over tired at the moment and you do need to break the cycle , not nice I KNOW because my lo has been the same. Even if I got a good morning nap in all the following naps were 30 mins, cried hard before each nap,  terrible at night, etc. On Sat and Sun nights she cried so hard to sleep, she was sooo over cumulatively overtired. I have spent the last 2 days cramming sleep into her every which way but loose - late starts, early bed times, extending naps, putting her down 1 hr after getting up, lots of AP in the car and pushchair

And today I think she has caught up, I could stretch her A times to "normal" levels again and start to re introduce a routine, I hope......

The other thing I would say is that I have learnt that when they short nap, and you really cant extend, then you really have to focus on getting more sleep in quickly (eg try again in 1hr - 1.5 hrs, sorry but you have to experiment to find out). My lo would stay awake like this and fool me into thinking that she could cope for 2 hrs on 30 mins, but she is a big fibber!!!