getting past the 45 min nap

[puffling]

Every lunch time, it's a nightmare to get my 5 month old baby girl sleeping beyond 45 mins. She wakes like clockwork. If I get in there quick enough, I can stroke her head and she'll go off for another 15 mins to an hour. If not, she won't go back to sleep and not long after is in an overtired rage.
Has anyone had this problem and success with dealing with it. Any tips gratefully received.
Dawnx

Remember that baby sleep cycles are approx 45 mins at this stage so it's really important if poss to leave her so she learns to get herself over. It's happening because she's switching between light and deep sleep cycles. How long does she cry for if left? Maybe try timing it - I found that at its worst the screaming lasted 3 mins. Also, how long is she sleeping in the morning? Try to either cut that sleep to 45 mins or push lunchtime sleep 15 mins later. Other than that keep repeating mantra: it's just a phase! Sorry, not much help...

I have the same problem with my ds. He is only 7 weeks old, but this has just started - I can almost time it to the second !!
No idea how to deal....sorry that's unhelpful but thought I'd let you know !!

This seems like a common problem, I also have it with my 13/14 week old ds, but not the same nap and not every day he seems to pick and choose when he will wake up. I try to leave him to niggle it out and don't go in unless it really ramps up. This worked once today but only for another 20min sleep, but not the other time! Sorry can't be much more help, feel a bit confused about it myself!

I had exactly the same problem with my DD. I'm afraid I didn't have much success dealing with it, I used to find it exasperating! We just had to go with the flow. She gradually learned to sleep for longer stretches as she cut down on the number of daytime naps. At around 12-13 months she was down to one nap a day of around two hours, and is still doing this now at 17 months.

Hi, it was months before DD would do a daytime nap of more than 45 minutes. Eventually I found that watching her like a hawk for signs of tiredness plus the use of a extra lightweight sleeping bag (0.5 tog), a routine of a quick feed and a teddy to cuddle did the trick (the feed isn't essential these days). I just don't think some babes will do more than 45 minutes at a stretch in the daytime until they are ready. Some of my friends' kids went down for two or three hours like clockwork. Depends on your babe's temprament. Sorry that's not very encouraging. The other thing that helped a lot was once she was "up and about" crawling, rolling and standing i.e. being more physical made her more tired.

GL

A certain babycare book (not that one!) assured me that she must nap for one and a half hours twice a day from about 3 months. I just ended up feeling miserable and inadequate about it. 45 minutes doesn't allow a lot of "me" time or time to do housework. It won't go on forever.

helps to keep room dark/quiet as poss.
and don't let her get overtired before the nap, may lead to a more disturbed nap
the older babies get, the less likely they are to 'surface' after 45 mins (I noticed this with both of mine, their nap-sleep seemed to deepen somewhere around 6mths. I'm sure you're not far off it at 5 mths)

I had this problem early on with by son. I made him stay in bed for a full hour and a half for his morning and lunchtime nap, even if he wasn't asleep. I would keep going in if he cried and stroke his head, put his dummy in and tell him, "Its sleepy time", and leave the room. Got the basic idea from the Baby Whisperer book. It took about 2 weeks of it and was VERY frustrating but eventually he started sleeping longer and sometimes would do 2 or even 3 hours in the afternoon.
He has recently started waking after 45 mins again, both daytime naps and at night. I have managed to extend his daytime naps again to an hour to an hour and a half but have not had much luck with night time.
Hope this helps.

There is a method called "wake to sleep" (Tracy Hogg) You wait until they've been a sleep for 30min. then gently touch them until they stir and immediately leave them alone. It trggers them to go back into a deep sleep again. I was terrified to try it with ds as I was convinced he'll wake up, but it worked! Be prepared to try a few times!
HTH

I went through this with ds. Like you I would go in when he woke and pat him back to sleep for both his morning and afternoon nap. After a couple of weeks he did start to extend about 1 nap every other day. After another couple of weeks he generally managed to extend at least one nap each day. After another couple of weeks both his morning and his afternoon nap were both generally lasting 1.5hrs.

It is very inconvenient and time consuming but eventually we got there. Would he have done it as a natural development even if I hadn't perservered - don't know. However he was so grumpy when he woke after 45 minutes it was the lesser of 2 evils.

However pg with no2 at the mo and there will only be a 16month gap so won't be able to spend time patting this one back to sleep so desparately hoping that this one doesn't pull this trick.

Hi Puffling, and thanks for starting this thread. My dd is 5mths too and does exactly the same although its 30mins with her sleeps. Will eagly wait for more advice, let us know how you get on! The 'wake to sleep' sounds very scary!!!

Breakthrough today, didn't go in when she cried at 45 mins. Therefore, she resettled herself, cried a few more times and resettled again. I had to go in and wake her after 2 hours!
Also, we've just realised that we'd been slightly underfeeding LO since weaning and she's been starving for milk. So this was another reason she couldn't sleep. We've upped her milk intake and she's gone off much more happily. Hopefully today's good luck will continue.
Dawnx