How do you get past those blasted 45 minutes?

[Mafiti]

DD (10 weeks) is crap at napping during the day (see separate thread here). On the odd occasion where I have managed to put her down, she gets to the magic 45 minutes and I then can't get her back to sleep. She seems to go from sleeping to screaming (and I do mean screaming, not sleepy noises or grumbling) within a matter of seconds so she's proper awake. What do you do to get your bub to carry on sleeping? Will she eventually learn to sleep longer without my help?

My dd (5 months) always naps for 30 or 40 minutes and never any longer. To be honest, I consider that to be a full nap so I don't bother trying to get her to go back to sleep until her next nap. If I did, she would be absolutely furious. Do you think your little one needs more sleep when waking after 45 minutes?

They do eventually sleep longer but there is somethig called Wake to Sleep which I used. I would put dd to sleep in her buggy and after 30/35 mins would go and gently push the buggy back and forth. The motion would stir her but then put her straight back over for another 45mins.

45 mins is fine for morning and afternoon naps but she needs one longer one somewhere, doesn't she? Otherwise there's not enough hours in the day for her to get as much daytime sleep as she needs so she's not over tired at night? Not sure buggy will work as she hates being put in it and it now takes longer and longer for her to drop off once in it. Worth a try though!

And obviously the same conundrum applies at night. At the moment we swaddle her so she can't startle herself awake but we can't do that much longer so how do I get her back to sleep when she wakes after 45 mins at night???

Aw, I just posted on your other thread.

Neither of mine napped longer than this until about 9 months unless on me, in the buggy, curled up in bed with me or possibly in the car.

My advice is to stop stressing about duration of naps and just put her down as often as you think she's tired.

At night time, what are you doing to get her back to sleep?

It's definitely a difficult one. My Dr has 4 or 5 naps a day. She basically stays awake for approximately 90 minutes between each and naps are around 40 minutes. This is the routine she naturally fell into around 8 weeks. I would guess if she's waking after 45 minutes, she's probably has enough sleep. Sort naps are difficult though because you can't really get anything don't. I always find its enough time to make a cup of tea, but not enough to drink it.

The nights are a different matter! I haven't tried the wake to

wake to sleep, but I've heard it can fee very effective. Do you have a bedtime routine?

A dummy works for our 14wo DD. It seems to soothe her just enough to get her back to sleep (if she won't go back to sleep that normally means she's hungry).

Mine Napped longer in the sling st that age. Dd, my champion napper, started napping for 2 hours plus from 5 months once I put her on her tummy. Before that, no way, she'd never nap more than 45 mins unless in the sling.

At night, the feed takes an hour and then I rock her back to sleep, swaddle and hope for the best. That second stint is often much shorter but I can't complain as she mostly does one stint of 3 or four hours. I'd hoped if we can get better at daytime naps I could catch some zzzzs at the same time...

Bedtime routine - I'd love to have one but am very confused about where to sstart. Before DD was born I thought I'd be all about strict routines but quickly realised this wasn't going to work for us. So I'm trying very hard to go with the flow. That means I can't predict feeds or when she might sleep so how do I do a bedtime routine at roughly the same time every day? No point in doing bath, story, feed, bed from say 5pm if she sleeps till 5 or fed at 4. Confused!

Oh, ok, you gave the impression she was waking every 45 minutes at night.

One 3-4 hour stint and then more frequent wakings is common at this age. Sorry, but it is. Books lie!

As for bedtime routine, I wouldn't go too early. You want the big stretch of sleep to overlap with you as much as possible. I just wouldn't let her sleep too late in the day, then start a bedtime routine for whatever bedtime you set. If it means keeping her awake, so be it. Or it you need to start early some days, go with that.

Have you tried co-sleeping for naps. She might go longer?

I would stop worrying about this as it could go on for a looong time...I waited months for him to start doing these. Months. I was convinced he would start sleeping longer any day now...

Actually, 45mins is a pretty normal nap at this age, they just need lots of them. DS started taking longer naps around 9 months. Until then he had to be on me or moving in the buggy to longer. I co-slept for a long nap if I needed a snooze, it was the only way.

I have a 9 week old doing exactly the same - 45 minutes maximum for a daytime nap. Very occasionally he might settle back off again and sleep longer, but this is rare! So he just has plenty of 45 minute naps at the moment.

My experience with my two older DC is that it's completely normal and in all probability will resolve itself as baby gets older. By about 8/9 months, both my older two were sleeping a good 2 hours after lunch and resettling themselves no problem. I didn't do anything, other than make sure they were able to self-settle for naps from the early days. I found that once they were eating a good protein meal at lunchtime, and moving around more (rolling/crawling etc), they quite naturally started to sleep longer and got through that 45 minute thing without any help from me.

Totally normal nap length for that age and I'm not convinced there is much that you can do to manipulate the situation. I spent ages waiting for the sacred 1.5 - 2 hour lunch time nap and DD eventually started doing this around 16 months.

She will just start doing it at some point. For dd she started having longer naps around 7 or 8mo, some babies will be sooner, some later. I eventually learnt to just put her down to sleep when tired! As for the bedtime routine, I know what you mean about when you're doing stuff on demand it's hard to have a routine, but actually at that age I think it's quite surprising how close their last nap can be to their bedtime. At that age dd could wake up from her last nap at 4:30 and I'd start bedtime routine (with bath and then lots of feeding to sleep) at 5:30 and she'd be asleep by 7.

DS is 17wo today and is doing exactly the same thing, OP. he has 4 or 5 naps a day....a good one is 45 mins, sometimes they are as short as 30 mins.

he can only really stay awake for 90 mins tops in between naps...sometimes he can do 2 hours, if we're out and he is being stimulated (at baby group, for example). I spent about a month really worrying about this but now realise that this is just what he does atm, and will probably grow out of it when he's more active (rolling.sitting.crawling etc) Just put your DD down when she looks tired even if it means you spend the whole sodding day getting her up and putting her down!

That's what babies are supposed to do though! 90 minutes is about right and if your baby is staying awake for more than an absolute maximum of 2 hours at this stage then chances are you have a sleep problem.

DS (now 3) slept brilliantly from about 10 weeks with 1-2 hour naps. DD (now 1), rarely napped for longer than 30-40 mins. I did nothing different, she's just a different baby. The routine of weaning (I mean when she dropped bottles for full meals, rather than when she started) seems to have made most difference as she's now having one short and one longer nap (1-1 1/2 hours).

There are things you can try, but that's more in the long term: pick a nap time routine and stick to it, give baby a comforting toy or dummy to sleep with, use a swaddle bag, do sleep training of some sort. But these are more for older babies at least 6 months + For now, just go with it as best you can and know it won't last forever - even if it feels like it!