14 weeks sleep DISASTER

[porpentine]

DS has always been a reasonable sleeper, not so keen on naps but pretty reliable on the whole of a night. End of last week, after weeks, I finally got him up to taking 1 hr sometimes 1hr and a bit naps, and he was sleeping a good 8 hours from 730pm and then back to sleep for another 3-4 hours post feed.

Yesterday, I thought (WHAT AN IDIOT), he's always been so good at self-settling for bedtime and now naps are a bit easier, let's see if he'll do it for naps (usually I pat to sleep). Well, he did go to sleep on his own and without tears, but it took him so long to drop off that he was properly overtired by the time he fell asleep and slept only 45 mins. For the rest of the day he was impossible: 2 more 45 min naps and one 25 minuter - dreadful. Last night he woke up every 90 minutes, on the dot, and so far this am (since 6) he hasn't slept for more than 45 minutes.

I know this is a bad period for development-related sleep problems, but I literally cannot believe that ONE bad nap could cause such devastation. Any ideas on what to do/how to cope? No co-sleeping, please, because it doesn't work: his problem isn't that he can't settle separately from me (he won't even sleep on me unless exhausted; never falls asleep after being fed) but that he's so horrifically overtired he can't sleep at all. Help!

Yikes, who knew that one bad nap could wreak such havoc?!

But your DS can self-settle so the basis for a swift return to good sleep is there. Just put a few days aside to focus on getting him to nap, I guess - it might take a bit to return to the schedule you had before but you know he can do it!

actually i think he's teething... thanks, though!

45 min naps are quite common at this age & can just be a developmental thing. However it can also be a sign your baby needs a little more time awake before his nap. Similarly taking a long time to settle to sleep at nap time is also a sign he may not be tired enough. B/c he is used to napping at a certain time of day, he will still go to sleep, but he won't be tired enough to sleep for longer than 1 sleep cycle IYSWIM? The trouble is if you get one 45min nap, then baby might not last the distance until the next naptime without getting overtired. And then you end up with a day full of short naps & lots of nightwakings through overtiredness.

Can you post your routine so we can see it?

Between 3-4 months old the amount of time a baby can stay awake before needing to nap can jump quite a bit. At 3 months typically 1h 20-30 and at 4 months 1.75-2hrs. So if your baby is awake for less than 1.5hrs before his morning nap, I'd say he might not be tired enough.

So....if the 45min naps continue for the next few days, I would probably try nudging his nap a little later. Perhaps by 5mins every few days, until he starts to take a longer nap again. I think once you've nailed that first nap, the rest of the day should fall into place. HTH.x

Well partly it definitely is that he's teething (the night after the day I described he woke up every 90 minutes on the dot, awful), which is making it difficult for him to sleep, but I think the routine definitely needs tweaking since he clearly can stay awake for longer than he used to.

At the beginning of this week it was something like this:
750ish up
nap 850-950
nap 11-12/1 (in optimum conditions this is 2 or 2 and a bit hours but I can rarely get him to sleep for that long, he's clearly happier for it when he does though)

afternoon naps v. variable: either 2-2.30 to anywhere between 3 and 4. If this nap was short sometimes I can persuade him to take a quick nap 5-545, but it's been increasingly difficult to get him to take this one - happy to drop it, but then bedtime has to be so dreadfully early and by 2.5 hours awake he's definitely overtired and grumpy.

I think I need a three nap system but hard to know where to place them, esp as in the past his naps have generally gone better the earlier I put him down for them - generally an hour after waking, 45 mins in the morning - so a bit dubious about extending his awake time as overtiredness used to be our big problem. Would really appreciate any suggestions for a better nap schedule though.