NAPS FOR 14WK OLD

[gingernutlover]

Hi I am not sure if I really have a problem but ...

dd sleeps through at night at last yeah! But her daytime naps are really short, I don't mind this, I would rather have a nights sleep but she is tired and ratty all day and it is really wearing me down at the mo

her typical day is

wake between 7 and 7.30, has bottle and play

nap by 8.30/8.45 - she settles well for this one but wakes up after 30 minutes or so. I usually get her dressed then but she will then start screaming after about 40 minutes, I am sure she is still tired as I have tried feeding but she is not interested, take 1-2 ounces and then screams again.

I have tried getting her to have another nap before her midmorning feed but she does take a long time to settle - I really feel that she needs a longer nap but she will not listen

I ahve also tried to leave her in her cot once she has woken after her first morning nap, she plays happily for uup to 30 minutes but then starts crying, I am wondering if I should try to resettle her then rather than getting her up?

This continues all day, her naps are no longer than 20-30 minutes apart from maybe 40 minuites at lunchtime.

GNL, it is quite common for babies under 4-5 months old to only take short naps, it is someting to do with brain maturity. My DS who is now 9 months only started having longer naps once he reached that age. Up until then, I kept persevering with settling him whenever I thought he was tired, making sure there was no bigger gap than 2 hours between each sleep. After this, they get overly tired and are very difficult to settle.

It will come, just give it time. Oh and that he goes through the night already. My DS has only just started that in the past month and even now, only goes through until 5/5.30am.

I have just put her down for a second morning nap and she did settle in the end, has been down about 20 minutes so holping she will wake up in a better mood.

Just wondering how many naps she should be ahving, the HV says 2 but at the moment she is ahving about 5 some days feel like I am constantly putting her to bed poor thing

thanks busywizzy our messages must have crossed,

I think I will ignore HV and do my own thing with dd, snatch the moment when she is tired and just go with the flow.

You say that your son started having longer naps at about 4-5months, how many and for how long?

Glad to hear you are getting (a bit) more sleep now, can't believe dd does the nights so soon keep waiting for her to stop but has been 3 weeks so far so I am enjoying it while it lasts.

GNL - FWIW I think your HV isn't perhaps helping by saying your DD 'should' be having a certain number of naps a day. All babies are different, some have a few long sleeps, some several shorter ones, some survive on very little sleep, some need masses and masses. I know it's frustrating when YOU know your darling baby is knackered and needs to be asleep but they won't blooming do it!

GNL - when my DS was the same age as your DD, he was having about 4 naps a day, each one lasting between 30-45 minutes. By the time he was 20 weeks, he had dropped to 3 naps with the middle one being much longer and the last one, very short (20 minutes). By six months he had dropped the late afternoon nap and from then until now, he has two naps a day. One of them is about 30-45 minutes long the other is 1.5/2 hours. BUT he picks and chooses which way round he does this.

Having said that, I agree with mulledwine that all babies are different and this is only what mine does. I have friends with babies the same age and some do what mine does, some have 2/3 20 minute catnaps and one of them doesn't sleep at all !!

Don't worry what anyone else tells you. If you think your baba is tired, put her down for a sleep and if she seems rested when she wakes, let her get up until next time she is tired. She will eventually find a routine that suits her best.

Hope it works out OK for you.

Meant to add that if I thought my DS was still tired when he woke from his lunchtime nap (just as he was starting to have longer naps then as he sometimes used to still wake after 45 minutes and be really grumpy), I used to keep him in the dark room, wrap a blanket around him so he was all snuggly, and rock him back to sleep.

This is still how I deal with night wakings (not that you need advice on that, lucky you) and it works a treat for us.

HTH

My ds was very similar at 14 weeks. I used to try and re-settle him for about 10 minutes. If at the end of 10 minutes he was no closer to going back to sleep I would get him up. Gradually he seemed to get better at transitioning into the next sleep cycle and started doing 1.5 hours in the morning, 1.5 hours lunchtime and 1/2hour in the afternoon.

He is now 6 months and I can tell whether he has naturally finished his nap or whether he has just failed to transition to the next sleep cycle by his face when I go in. If he looks up and grins at me it is time to get up, if he looks grumpy I will try and help him back to sleep.

my ds is the same. grumpy in the daytime due to overtiredness.
She will sometimes sleep for an hour or 2 in the sling during the day. She can sleep very long when out and about in the pram. But I am exhausted of having to walk around london all day long to get her to sleep. I think one of he reasons she is overtired is that she will not settle for the night before 10pm...
How can I move her bedtime to be at around 7pm?

bidou - why not just try putting her to bed at 7pm or even earlier? My ds would go to sleep between 5.30pm and 6,30pm at this age. If she is overtired from not sleeping at night she may need some catchup time. You can always move her bedtime a bit later once she catches up.

Just go for it a couple of nights. You may find it is easier to get her to sleep before she is overtired. You will probably have to feed her after 7pm though as she still needs as many feeds. You might want to let her wake for these or wake her yourself - depends how easy she is to settle afterwards. With ds it was always better to let him wake when he wanted a feed even if that was a bit inconvenient for me - dreamfeeds never seemed to work with him.