Catnappers and 'bad sleepers' support thread

[AwesomeSuperTasty]

This is inspired by this napping thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/2123505-Any-advice-for-daytime-naps A user commented that they wanted to start a catnapping thread, but seeing as no one did, I thought I might start a 'support group' for all parents of catnapping babies and generally poor sleepers. (I hope the user who prompted this thought will come forward to claim the credit!)

Anyway, it's really just a place to vent and maybe share experiences.

So, I will start. My 7 month old son still catnaps 30 mins at a time, something he allegedly should have grown out of. He also wakes every 90 minutes at night, and wakes up at 5.30 in the mornings. He self settles to sleep and has an early bed time but can't resettle at night. Basically, since he was born, I've not slept longer than 2 hours at a stretch. I'm sure I'm pretty exhausted but stopped registering it.

I do have some questions for anyone who'd like to share.

• If you have an older catnapping baby, how long does she/he go between naps?

-Has anyone managed to sucessfully implement some kind of a napping schedule, for babies who sleep only 30 mins?

And please don't tell me to get a sling...or co-sleep

Will she get you up early though if she goes down a lot earlier?

Also - it occurred to me that I'm getting an extra hour in bed in the morning since he started sleeping through til 4/5am (getting up for the day at 7:30/7:45 instead of 6:30/6:45) and this is also when we dropped the 4th nap. Interesting.

This one actually went to bed later than usual tonight - 5 is definitely too late for him to nap for a 7:30 bedtime.

We missed the 4th nap today too. Last nap was 3.20 til 3.50. I fed DS before going up for bath at 7 and he completely conked out downstairs. Did bath and thought getting to sleep might of been messed up by the 10 min conk-out downstairs but he went down awake and was asleep within minutes. Hoping he manages a good stretch in the heat, its 25 degrees in our room so I don't blame him if he does get thirsty but hoping for his usual 8 hour stretch

She woke up crying about an hour after I put her down, she took 15 minutes to resettle but she's been asleep ever since. To be honest putting her to bed a bit earlier doesn't seem to make a difference to her wake up time these days. She was only in bed about half an hour earlier then normal in the end.

It's currently 29 degrees in the room according to the monitor

Yeah 27 mine is saying.

I've just got him in a sleeveless vest and 1 tog grobag. He could probably do without the grobag but he won't stop rolling over and sticking his legs through the cot bars and the grobag stops him a little bit. I think I'm going to buy a 0.5 tog one.

He's started doing these long stretches since the heat wave though so it's obviously not bothering him that much. He's always hot to the touch in the morning after a couple of hours in with me on our memory foam mattress but he sleeps so well that last stretch!

Currently she's just in a vest, I'll pop her in the 0.5 grobag when I go to bed. It's so tricky to know what to do with them in this heat!

I've ditched the grobag tonight and last night, he's just in a sleepsuit no vest and didn't have any problems last night

Aaarrrggghhhhh! Just need to vent. Finding it all too much on top of potty training. Baby been awake 3 hours and counting. FFs go to sleep!

Hugs popalina!

I had to distract him from 9am as I prefer him to go down closer to 10am. Gave in at 9:30 and tried to put him down and he wouldn't sleep!

Ended up feeding him to sleep practically at 10am.

Little monster!

Missed a few days as I'm in hell.

DS has now started refusing bed time bottle and dream feed (I didn't think that was possible). We've gone from managing to get 13/14oz in him -his only milk of the day-to perhaps maybe 7oz. The 7pm bottle takes almost an hour and DF last night took the best part of 90m as I had to wait until her was in deep sleep.

I could live with this. Honestly, I could. What I can't live with is that DS is waking up ravenous at 430am BUT WONT TAKE A SODDING BOTTLE!!!. His stomach was growling this morning but every time I offered the solution, he went mental. Was up from 430-6 until I caved and drugged him with calpol (he is teething, to be fair)

Bottle refusal is nothing new-this is week 14-and it's fine during the day but what on earth do I do about these hunger wake ups that I can't solve? It's the milk (he really doesn't like it) and the bottle.

suggestions on a postcard, preferably before I go back to work...in 4 weeks. Shoot me now.

Hugs all!

Yep, we had problems here too - da woke up at 9.00 pm last night and wouldn't go back to sleep till 11.30! He was rolling, babbling and cooing in the cot. He has never done that before so we put it down to the heat. I took his sleeveless vest off and he slept in the 0.5 tog gro bag.

I can definitely recommend the 0.5 grobag btw. Lovely light cotton. We have been using it for about two weeks now, for naps and some bedtimes.

Mrsmugoo, I'm going to have to read back to see how you did the night weaning. Resolved to start tonight. Starting work in ten days and can't go in with 2-hourly wake ups!

Pickle, what do you think is the problem? Is he like that with all bottle types/all milk? You will get trough it!

Awesome - I wouldn't say I've night weaned - but after I was confident he could self settle we just experimented with leaving him when he woke in the night instead of jumping to attention.

He's more than happy to self settle now until between 3-5am and then he'll whinge for food rather than drop back off himself.

Pickle- have you tried a sippy cup or a doidy cup? I guess you have tried the mam or medela bottles? Not sure what else to suggest. There are books that give you device on bottle refuses. My friend had one and she got her onto the bottle using some technique that was pretty tough loveish but only took 24 hours.

Very Muggy today. Not baby friendly weather.

My first baby was the worst catnapper and I never thought it would come to an end. It was as soon as she hit 8weeks she just refused to nap. Didn't self soothe at all.
I remember waiting for the 30minute stir and would hold her arms so she didn't flinch waking her up. It was just so unpractical and eventually I just accepted it. She is now 2.5yrs and sleeps fine in day and night. Her muslin is her comforter.
Now on my second I have slept her on her tummy since tiny and she sleeps so much better than my first. She has just begun to use the dummy too which was initially not a fan of but with a toddler running round I don't have time to rock to sleep for hours.

It will get better but I feel your pain it's exhausting and made me so obsessive about sleep.

DS did 35 mins in the cot this morning then we went to a family lunch and he slept about an hour in the car on the way there, half an hour pushchair nap while there and about 45 mins in the car on the way home.

Nini that's good to hear! Out of interest when did your DD settle into a decent nap routine?

Ladies were are ONE HOUR into a morning nap and counting.....

G

Good luck mrsm! Our morning nap was a whole 23 minutes We also had an hour and a half long wake up at 3.30am

We got an hour 20! His longest ever not in the pushchair!

What did we do differently?

He actually got drowsy tired not grizzly tired, so by the time I took him in the bedroom and laid him down to out him in his grobag he literally fell asleep on my bed so I decided to keep him where he was rather than try to transfer him into the cot.

My DH was sleeping in the bed so instead of the dream sheep lullaby music I tried the white noise which I kept on throughout his whole sleep.

I inadvertently did "wake to sleep" by accidentally moving my leg and disturbing him 20 minutes in.

Hi, not dropped in for a few days..

Sounds like some decent naps are happening today. Lots of sympathy to those that aren't having a good day.

Feels about like 2 steps forward, 1.95 back here. So we have had a couple of tiny successes getting DD down very nearly but not quite asleep - awake enough for a three second whinge and thumb to go in. Three times she's nodded off within about five minutes. So that's amazing that I'm not having to feed her completely off. But each time she's woken again about 6 or 7 mins later - aaggghhhh. She's then almost impossible to get off again. We've tried going in - she's all smiles and ready to play. Tried leaving her to it - she'll happily babble away for 15 minutes and then eventually cry, a proper upset cry and i think 4 months is too little for any kind of CC so we go in. Tried feeding and putting her down awake again - no joy. Yesterday we battled for 90 mins and she eventually settled for a whopping 20 mins while I cried in frustration. This morning after 30 mins and a failed attempt to get her back down, I sent DH out with her in the buggy. So. Any thoughts on getting her beyond 6 minutes nap time?!

Also, how long do you try getting them down in the cot/crib before you give in and try something else? I'm torn between sending a confused message or battling with her for ages resulting in tears all round - which is worse?!

Too early for a glass of wine?

It's a tricky one high love. I think with my first, if he woke 'early' I would stay up in the bedroom cuddling until eventually we hit his usual wakes time and then I would accept it wasn't going to happen.

I think this time round I don't bother as I know from experience it's not going to happen! So, I just get her up and watch for the next set of sleepy cues. Battling just ends in tears all round.

Also, remember 4 months is classic sleep disruption time. Dd is 16 weeks tomorrow and we are all over the shop with day and night.

highlove I'm also wondering how long to persevere with the cot before resorting to something else. I give it a max of 30 mins before giving up usually.
how have the rest of your naps gone Mrsmugoo?

It's a 30 minute rule here too. I either get him up and try later or if it's last nap then it's into the pushchair, snooze shade on and off we go...

2nd nap today was 20 minutes in the pushchair
3rd nap is currently in progress and he's in the cot. He's been down about 15 minutes so far.