Waking during naps

[evilkensmum]

My dd is 16 weeks old and has finally started having her day time naps in her cot. Prior to this week she would only sleep during the day in the sling.
She initially settles to sleep very well, she moans and protests for a minute or 2 then drops off. If she is properly crying then I go in and soothe her and she then settles herself to sleep. However she then wakes about 40 minutes later and although still very tired will not go back to sleep herself. I have tried leaving her to see if she self-settles but she only gets more worked up. So I have tried going in for a cuddle and/or a top-up feed but then she screams when I leave and won't settle on her own. I have had to get her up and she is fine for a bit but then very grumpy about half hour later as she is over tired!

Any ideas on how I can get her to either a) stay asleep, or b) resettle herself when she wakes mid cycle.

I wouldn't call that waking during naps, I would call that the end of the nap! 40-45 minutes is one sleep-cycle. You may find that all day time naps are about this length for a while longer - both my DCs used to do 90 minutes awake, 45 minutes asleep all day. At some point she'll start going for more than one cycle but it may not be for a little while.

Yup, my DD only did 45 minute naps at that age.

I used to sort of use the EASY routine from the Baby Listener book. Basically eat, activity, sleep, you. So as long as she has a sleep and a bit of a play/activity between each feed, I wouldn't worry too much.

I disagree with the BW insofar as it's nearly always more effective to put them down immediately after a feed. Otherwise their empty tummy wakes them up! I'm always suspicious of childcare recommendations based on acronyms.

Some children only nap for 45 minutes, some do that even till they're nearly a year. Others just get the hang of it at some point.

In theory if they can self-settle at the start of the nap, they can go back to sleep at the end of each cycle, but IME that doesn't always work. DS stopped having long naps when he had a brief spell of self-settling.

Many babies will feed back to sleep when they wake. That's what I always did with DS, and he started routinely taking longer naps on his own at about 11/12 months, which is later than many babies. I feed him to sleep. Interestingly, now at 19 m.o. he will stay asleep for a long nap if I feed him to sleep, but if I rock him or if he kind of self-settles, I'll have to resettle him once or twice during the nap.

I agree with Octavia, I think the BW is largely rubbish.

I did say sort of use it!! In all fairness DD fell into that routine by herself and I found the book useful to work out what was going on. Each baby is different though. Sorry OP, we''re not really giving you very practical tips, are we?

That's true, they do sort out their own routines if you let them.

One other thing that often causes short naps is developmental leaps - there's a big one at around 19 weeks and sleep is usually messed up in the weeks before it (the 4 month sleep regression). If that's the cause, there's nothing you can do about it but it should improve on its own.

My DD has only just started sleeping for longer than 45 mins at nearly 9 months. I stressed so much about it, but looking back, I wish I had just gone with it. I feel like I have so much time on my hands now she has two lots of an hour and a half! And I'm not sure about the self-settling theory, she can do that at night with no problem and has slept through 7-7 from a young age except when teething or ill.

I don't like the BW either TBH. I tried her PU/PD with ds2 and it made things worse as it overstimulated him.

I get that 40-45mins is 1 sleep cycle, the thing is when she wakes she is still tired and really could do with continuing her sleep, as it is when I do get her up she gets cranky shortly afterwards as she is overtired, which then means getting her to nap later is harder.

I'm not overally bothered about routines - we kinda go with the flow here. Its just I don't want a whingy tired baby if I can avoid it :-)

I guess I should be glad she is having 40 minutes, ds2 would only ever nap for 20 twice a day from about 12 weeks onwards. He didn't need more than that though and never got grumpy with tiredness.