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Original poster

Catnappers and 'bad sleepers' support thread

525 replies

AwesomeSuperTasty · 06/07/2014 18:05

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 Wink

OP posts:
mrsmugoo · 08/09/2014 10:51

He woke up 10 minutes later. A 30 fucking minute nap.

Confused
Proudmummy2014 · 08/09/2014 10:55

I feel your pain! I used to complain about 45 min naps and now she's starting napping for only 30mins. Have done nothing different either!

mrsmugoo · 08/09/2014 11:47

I've just put him down early for another nap. He's been impossible all morning. He's crying but he's staying in that cot til he falls asleep regardless!

mrsmugoo · 08/09/2014 11:52

Asleep already ha!

Please god let him sleep long enough to be in a better mood when he wakes!

Schmoop · 08/09/2014 12:23

Are you glad to have your DH back Mrsmugoo? I was really looking forward to having DH at home this weekend to see the progress DS has made with naps and it all went completely wrong! He ended up having 1hr15mins in total yesterday, somehow made it until bed time!

I was going to 'teach' DH how to put him down for a nap this weekend so I might actually be able to go out for a couple of hours!

He's decided he'll have his lunchtime nap today and has been down for 10 minutes so far...

mrsmugoo · 08/09/2014 12:35

40 minutes!!!!!!

mrsmugoo · 08/09/2014 14:18

Yes super glad he's home! I went out on Saturday for a couple of hours for a bit of me time and left a sippy cup and some EBM (he's never drunk from a cup or a bottle before) and came home to find he'd drink some milk from his cup!!

There's light at the end of the tunnel!

Proudmummy2014 · 09/09/2014 10:01

40 min morning nap today! She still looked tired so put her back to sleep and she slept another 30 mins. From what I read the morning nap "should" be 45mins. Now have I let her sleep too much?!?

mrsmugoo · 09/09/2014 10:07

I don't think there's such thing as b official length a nap should be?

I know there are guidelines for how much total sleep for each age baby you should aim for, but each baby is different.

This one is an hour into his morning nap. I've decided no feeding in the bedroom now as he often feeds almost to sleep and I'm wondering if that isn't helping his naps.

Proudmummy2014 · 09/09/2014 22:06

Just from reading it seems to always say the morning nap should be shorter and then longer afternoon nap etc etc. Obviously babies aren't programmed to adhere to such times lol . So I spoke to my HV today about the catnaps who shrugged it off and blamed it on teething, and went on to say babies go on to nap for shorter lengths of time and known to nap for 20 mins!!!!! That's just plain ridiculous and would mean it would be considered "normal" for a 4 month baby to sleep 1.5 hours in the day!

mrsmugoo · 10/09/2014 10:19

Trouble is the babies can't read the articles, they don't know that "they" say the morning nap should be the shortest!

Mine is now semi regularly sleeping for 1:20 in the morning but still only doing 30-40 for the other two. There's no bloody way I'm waking him up after 45 minutes!!

It's frustrating when your baby won't stay asleep in the day and even though it's not "normal" there's really nothing you can do about it except grit your teeth and hope your next baby sleeps better in the day.

mrsmugoo · 10/09/2014 10:20

P.S stop reading articles online about what's "normal"!

Proudmummy2014 · 10/09/2014 10:41

Haha exactly my point- it's not like they know what they should or shouldn't be doing. That's greys yours is sleeping a little longer now for one of the naps. Did you do anything different at all?

Schmoop · 10/09/2014 10:55

I've come across quite a few mums that have catnappers and don't even realise/care so I don't know if we just overanalyse it all too much? My dream is that he naps for 1hr in the morning and 2 hrs at lunchtime which is what I had read was the 'norm'.

We had a 1hr20min nap on Monday at lunch and that's been it for the week so far, back down to 40ish mins. Theres no rhyme or reason when he does pull a long one, same place, same routine.

If I have another baby I'm making sure it reads the manual before it comes out!

Proudmummy2014 · 10/09/2014 11:10

That's my dream too!! Haha. Let's see if these little people get better with age :-)

Proudmummy2014 · 10/09/2014 13:04

Right so she napped for an hour so far. The only thing I've done differently is to put an extra blanket on her so she's a little more snug. Perhaps she was a little cold the other times. Or it could just be a fluke. Who knows .

CoodleMoodle · 10/09/2014 14:36

I'm guilty of being utterly obsessed with sleep. Everything else I'm relaxed as anything, but naps... As soon as she wakes up I find myself working out her timings for the day.

"If she goes down again at X she'll be awake at Y which means the next nap is Z..."

I drive myself batty with it, but that's how it is. One day it'll be better. It has to be!

Proudmummy2014 · 10/09/2014 15:07

@coodlemoodle- me too and feel sooo guilty! I have a year mat leave an hae spent 4 months just obsessing over sleep rather than actually enjoying each moment with her. Same as you but all I do all day is work out sleep times.

CoodleMoodle · 10/09/2014 16:31

I know how you feel. My DD was a beautiful sleeper, then she hit 3 months and something told her to forget all of that. She's 6 months tomorrow and I've spent so much time thinking, "okay so she only did 35mins there, now I'll have to try to get her down at..." etc. Though I've come to accept the 45mins thing. I don't think that'll be changing, and it works for the most part.

What really gets to me is the stress of going out. We had an appointment last week which was - of course - right in the middle of a nap for that day. She refused to sleep on the way and so had a later nap and was miserable come bedtime. Today we went shopping and had to dash around because she was edging closer to a nap time and refused to switch off in the buggy (too bloody nosey).

Currently sleeping earlier than expected as when she did go down she had 25mins and woke up in the car when we got home.

It's all so frustrating, especially as people don't get it. She can't just "catch up later" like non-catnapping babies!

Proudmummy2014 · 10/09/2014 20:05

Oh wow it's like we have identical lives- that's exactly my thought process for when we have to go out. Highly frustrating and stressful and quite restricting too :-( I just end up readjusting the nap times on those days

Schmoop · 11/09/2014 16:34

Somebody woke my baby 20 minutes into his lunchtime nap today - I actually cried!

CoodleMoodle · 11/09/2014 17:42

Schmoop - aaaarrrggghhh! That's awful, I really feel for you. Mine was awake for three hours because the sodding doctor was running an hour late. We both sobbed all the way home.

She's now asleep on my bed but I'll have to wake her soon or she'll be up all night. So that's three 35min naps and now this utterly crap 15-20 minuter. Great...

Schmoop · 12/09/2014 09:35

Appointments are the worst aren't they Coodle, you can't just not go if its inconvenient.
Well DS is having first nap earlyish today which I'm really pleased about because it means we'll be able to go to a baby group at 10.30 this morning. I haven't been to any recently because most weren't on over the school holidays. Haven't been to this one before so I'm hoping DS behaves Smile

mrsmugoo · 13/09/2014 10:02

Ugh, just ugh at naps at the moment!

This one has started to not go down for this morning nap until 3 hours awake. What is this all about??

I constantly hear people on here say that 2 hours awake in the morning is the maximum but he simply won't go down after 2 hours awake. The 1 hour 20 naps are few and far between now and on the advice of the HV we're dropping the third afternoon nap and shooting for straight through with an early bedtime if necessary to try to lengthen his other naps. It's only day 2 of this. First day went ok as my parents were visiting and they deployed every distraction technique possible to coax him from 2pm to 6:30pm bath. Yesterday didn't exactly work out because I was in the car at 4pm and he slept for 20 minutes. God knows what today will be like.

I just wish I could have a normal baby that slept in the day and wasn't a TOTAL NIGHTMARE because he was constantly overtired. Bored of it now.

Schmoop · 14/09/2014 10:28

Just a random observation, wondering if any of the other catnappers do this..
For a usual nap DS seems to stay in the same position once he's asleep, but I've noticed if he pulls a longer nap he tends to move abit early on in the nap.
E.g he's done just over an hour on the first nap this morning so far and about 5 minutes in he turned his head and then moved his arms at some point.
Don't know if its a coincidence or because its a different kind of sleep they go into?