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

Awesome, I get similar comments. It can be hard to be firm but we know our babies best.

Toddler still awake chatting away in bed due to an impromptu afternoon snooze and baby on second attempt at put down. Is it just me or does it take a few goes at getting one's baby down in the eve? I don't put her down awake, but asleep on me. She wakes after 20 minutes every time and we have to start the process again.

If I try awake we just get hysteria after an hour of her trying to go to sleep and I don't want to wake up toddler. She woke him the other night at 1 am and he was awake until 4 am, hence today's snooze. Neeeeeetmare.

Also, baby been rocked to sleep a lot this last week due to family helping so now she won't go down without rocking...just what I was trying to avoid, although I am grateful for the help.

In a right royal mess now.

Ugh that sounds horrific Popalina! Remind me how old your DC is?

I have to say, for all his sleeping faults he is a trooper for going down at bedtime. Now he's a bit older he's done in by bedtime, there's no chance of him not going to sleep. Tonight I did half of his feed in his nappy so that I could dress him after one boob and he wouldn't fall asleep before drinking enough!

I do remember the early days of not knowing when he'd finally finish cluster feeding and conk out though.

Hi all. Highlove I totally know what you mean about the startling awake thing; dd can also be resettled once or twice but then does a massive one and it's game over. My solution? I put her on her front... sorts out the startling, and with ds it also kept his thumb close to his mouth for reinsertion!

We had 12 week jabs today and after the last scream fest I wasn't looking forward to it. But she was asleep in the sling so the nurse jabbed her in that and, apart from a brief indignant scream after the second one, she stayed asleep! Amazing.

We did manage one short stint in the pram this morning, hooray! Other than that, it's sling napping and my back is knackered.

I am thinking of starting a proper bedtime routine soon as she seems to have stopped cluster feeding so much. When did others start this? She's asleep next to me in the crib and tends to do the first long stretch at night in this. Progress!

I did bedtime routine from 8 weeks - it used to take from 7-8:30 to get him down due to long feeds. Now he'll be down for the night within half an hour of his bath.

Mrsmugoo, remind me how old your little one is? Sounds like you're making good progress with him.

Our naps yesterday were 25, 35, 35. Buggy, car, buggy. I had one of those days where the nap thing really got me down - just so frustrated and feel like I'm doing something wrong. Do others get a bit down about it sometimes? Not helped by the previously mentioned relatives ("she doesn't look tired") and a text from a friend thanking me for the snooze shade recommendation - she'd taken her DS out in it and he's slept over two hours in it. Confess to a few frustrated tears.

Thing is, she had such a good night last night (not tonight, been up since four) with more than an hours extra sleep and in the morning she was such a delight. She did a few new things and it really brought home to me the impact of her being constantly a bit over-tired and really upset me, just feel like I'm not doing a good enough job with her.

Anyway. Fingers crossed she goes back to sleep soon because I'm in for a loooong day otherwise.

Been away in sleep hell so just catching up.

DS is now completely refusing a bottle, meaning he had the grand total of...5oz all day yesterday (what I could sneak into his food). As such, napping/sleep has been al over the shop as he's hungry but won't eat.

After a full week of extended wake ups (up between 2-4 and not going back down til 5-6 OR 8am on one occasion) I've started CC. I know it's not technically the right thing to do as he's waking out of hunger but I don't know what else to do. He started stirring (aka thudding his feet on his mattress) at 4, was fully awake by 5 and he's only just given up and dozed off again at 630. Feel like a right bitch but I don't know what else to do-if he's not going to eat then he has to learn to sleep when he's hungry.

Hope he still likes me when he wakes up :(

Inapickle. Have you read any books about bottle refusing?

I seem to remember you saying he eats well so, assuming he is eating as much as you can give him in the day - ignoring the three meals a day advice - I would give him porridge in the night instead of a bottle or a ready made Ella sachet. I would also Keep putting milk in a cup on his tray always, even if he doesn't touch it so its there if he wants to play with it, explore it etc. make everything as sloppy as poss too. Have you tried putting any other liquid in the bottle? Like water with a tsp of orange juice?

Sorry if that sounds really obvious ( you are probably rolling your eyes at me) I am just thinking out loud and without really knowing your circs, it's the best I can come up with. I haven't had a bottle refuser so not sure what else to advise.

Mine is 16 weeks and took 3 bedtime attempts. We have a routine of sorts although we aren't at home at the mo and it works around toddler. She has to sleep in the day wherever, outside, in front of TV, people talking etc so she doesn't have it easy I suppose.

Sorry, pickle, whe. You say he won't eat, do you mean food or bottle? If former, then my post is irrelevant

highlove - most days get me down because of napping just recently. I don't know if he's getting worse or I'm just over analysing it more and more.

Stupid little micro nap at 11 in the car, managed to get him back to sleep in the carseat on the pram at my mums now but its thrown everything out

The 'perhaps he'll have a big sleep this afternoon' comment from my mum nearly tipped me over the edge!

Hullo thread, it's been well over a week since my last vent. We've had good nights, bad nights and tonight is panning out to be a bloody awful night. Put her down at 7 and she settled fine, woke at 10 and we're still awake. It's been two and a half hours now and I'm resorting to a bit of controlled crying [hmmm].

Seriously, I wonder if I'm getting it very wrong somewhere . She's a super kid but just does not do sleeping.

He's had 4 sleeps today because we've been out in the pushchair all afternoon.

His first sleep of the day was in yeah cot though and we managed a Herculean hour and a half! We managed this with white noise and me diving in and placing a firm hand on his chest just as he started to stir from his first sleep cycle and he just transitioned through.

It's not really sustainable that I'll watch over him for every nap and dive in but I may just work on the first nap of the day and see if we can get this one consistently longer as it really sets the tone for the rest of the day.

He's still full of beans at the moment after not waking up until 5:45 so it'll be a late bedtime tonight although I'm aiming for no later than 8.

Popalina it's complete bottle/liquid refusal. He had terrible reflux and, since 12 weeks, has been gradually cutting down on the number of bottles/ounces he would take. It wasn't so bad in the beginning but now it's just bloody horrific.

I have tried every milk going (including flavoured-don't judge!), juice, water, nesquik, oj/apple etc. all in his old bottles, new bottles, all manner of sippy cup...the boy will not drink anything.

I've not read any books but I've trawled the web and tried everything that has been suggested.

At the moment we're lacing his breakfast porridge with 4-5oz of milk and lots of fruit puree( he won't eat it if he so much senses that we've tainted it) and he has a huge bowl. Then a mid-morning snack (usually a fruit pot); lunch is usually a full stage one pot (he won't eat anything I make) plus fruit. Afternoon snack is fruit/yogurt and dinner is baby rice/ veg or pot plus fruit. He also has jelly throughout the day to keep his fluids up. I'm currently trying to get him to take a milk laced ice lolly. Been a resounding failure!!!

Trying to push dinner later (545-6) so that he's going to bed (7ish) with a full tummy.

He's now down and I'm going to wait til 830/9 and super deep sleep and try and give him his rejected bottle.

On the upside, the CC experiment of last night worked for his mid-morning nap. He went down after a story, cuddle and 3m of crying (didn't even get the chance to go in and comfort him!) and he slept for 90m. I can't remember the last time he slept for more than 45m during the day.

Inapickle - I know this sounds bonkers because it's so hot, but will he eat soup? It might help keep fluids up.

MrsMugoo - I did exactly this with my DS. He now naps 90mins in the morning almost all the time, I had to 'intervene' at the 35min mark for about 2 weeks before he started doing it on his own consistently. He still naps 35mins for afternoon naps though, so next step is to work on those.
OH tried it on his afternoon nap yesterday and managed to get 1hr45mins out of him.

That's good to know Ellie!

Can't quite believe it-DS slept from 730-515 without a wake up (I did dream feed him a yogurt at 11pm). Quick pop in of the dummy and out again. He started crying at around 545 but left him and he went back to sleep on his own!!! On his flipping own!!!

Please don't let it be a fluke!

Hope everyone else had a good night. Now we start the onslaught of nap fighting.

Managed to get an hour first nap this morning using same method as yesterday. Could have got longer but the sodding white noise app crashed and the change in volume disturbed him.

we're still on first nap here due to babymassage group at 10.30.
I have no chance of setting up a nap routine if life keeps getting in the way....

Lunch time nap was only 35 minding the cot

Afternoon nap currently in progress and we are over an hour into it! I did the intervention thing after first sleep cycle transition. I thought he'd completely woken up but I just left him and back off he drifted.

I'm seeing light at the end of this catnapping tunnel...

We are currently 1:50mins into this nap!!

White noise I think I love you. It never had any effect on him before but I think it comes into it's own when babies self soothe as it really zones them out.

He's stirred / woken about 4 times but just drifted right back off again just how he does in the night.

WOW.

We've had the grand total of 2 hours sleep today and she's been awake since 11am, so I've gone for broke and tried a bedtime! Bath with her brother, sleep suit on and feed to sleep with lullabies on the ipad app (sleepy sounds, recommend it). Just put her down and so far so good, though she's jiffling a bit so not counting my chickens just yet.

Well he lasted 2 flipping hours this afternoon - I'm blown away!

He's just gone down to sleep - it's sooooo hot in our room. I've got the fan on in there but obviously can't have it pointing at him so it's not making much difference. Room thermometer is saying 27!

Hi all - glad to hear some good naps are happening lately!

We haven't been as lucky so back to the usual 30 min naps for us :( DS is eight months soon and still catnapping - I have no idea how this will progress.

I started a hybrid night weaning programme, but he's still waking every 2 - 2.5 hours, quite reliably.

Naps - this wake to sleep thing never worked for us but I may just give it a go and see.

Mrsmugoo yes, I also thought the white noise/Ewan are just aids but that they have no real effect on my DS since we keep going in to reset the damn thing so its on all the time but he wakes up anyway.

I regularly put the Sheep on when I want to block out the noisy neighbours and have an early(ish) night.

Pickle, I hope the naps and good sleep continue! Impressed that you managed to dream feed with yogurt?!

We had 2 x 90minute naps today, plus a 20m power nap on the way home from swimming.

DS has NEVER (and I'm not exaggerating here) ever managed 2 naps of such Herculean length. Weird thing was he woke up from his second long nap in a total grump which lasted the entire afternoon.

Down without a fight at 730 and-so far-no wake ups.

Off to get the yogurt ready for the dream feed. Once again, DS is showing his true freak-like nature.