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

It's possible it's related to solids but in my opinion I would say it was a separate development. The longer naps haven't always been when he's had solids before the nap. And the first ones he did were before we started solids at all.

DS recently started sleeping through without a nightfeed and if i'd started solids a little sooner I would of assumed it was because of this. Again, however, it was before we started solids at all.

Todays naps have indeed been excellent, unfortunately we have a disrupted day 2moro as we're visiting a friend who lives an hour away so DS will be napping in the car

Aaaarrrggghhh! Naps are much the same as always here (IE: crap) but at least she's going down for them a bit easier. They seem to be shorter which is a pain but she's raring to go once sge wakes so what am I supposed to do about that?

But I've had enough of seeing 05:30 on my clock in the morning. And indeed 20:00 when I'm still trying to get her to sleep at night and all I want is to eat my bloody dinner in peace.

She usually has a sleep around 4:30pm and after she's woken up from that she's miserable, so I was thinking about trying an earlier bedtime but it just never works because she fights so hard.

She's got her first tooth poking through so that's probably part of it but I'm so tired I can barely function. So grateful she's sleeping relatively well at night but 5:30am feels unfair considering her terrible daytime sleep and the fact that she won't go to bed. Bedtime seems to be getting later every day no matter what I do, and wakeups are getting earlier too.

Again: Aaaarrrggghhh!

Longer naps absolutely nothing to do with solid food here - he eats basically nothing anyway.

Also, he woke after 20 minutes and needed to be fed back to sleep as he wouldn't resettle so it's just pure chance what he'll do.

Desperate to lose the night feed/s now!!!

Been up since just after 5. She's asleep but the second I put her down she wakes up. Doesn't matter where I put her.

Had to leave the room to scream Losing my mind a bit now.

@coodlemoodle- mine does this too. I usually find it's because she's still a little more hungry so I offer her more milk wen she cries and then she stays asleep. Mine ended up sleeping until 8.15am today whereas usually wakes at 7am for the day. Should I hae woken her up or let her sleep? It not puts her next nap out of kilter :-(

Don't think it was milk as she didn't cry when put down, just woke up! And went straight back down as soon as I picked her up. Eventually got her to have 45mins in our bed but I didn't get any more sleep so I'm flagging already. It's not even 9am...

Can't offer you advice on the waking up later as I've been there and not known what to do either! Logic dictates that you let them sleep but like you say, naps get ruined and they're bad enough as it is!

DS is being a complete nightmare the last few days! Full on crying when put down for naps and spending the majority of wake-time whinging unless he's doing something different every 5 minutes.

Normally goes down great for bedtime, even had problems with that last night and he was acting full of beans despite being shattered.

Still got problems with pooing, he is going most days but its firm and he's struggling to pass sometimes, don't know if this is the source of our problems

He cried for 5-10 mins before first nap this morning and he's woken after 40 mins. He did an hour yesterday morning which I was pleased about even though it was only an extra 20 mins

I think he's making me suffer for the beautiful napping he did on Saturday!

DH managed to massively hype up the baby this morning and not get him dressed when I asked so he was completely wired and overtired when I tried to put him down for a nap this morning and lo and behold - woke up still madly rubbing his eyes after 30 minutes.

I tried feeding him and putting him back down but he just could not settle himself. Now we're on just two naps a day if the first nap is a disaster it really does throw the rest of my day off so I've had to feed him to sleep lying down with him in our bed.

He's sleeping soundly now thankfully. I'm so effing irritated though!

The DHs can really mess things up at times can't they! They just don't get the consequences I don't think.

There's definitely something going on with DS napping pattern. He seems to be transitioning to 2 naps. Yesterday he had 40 mins in the morning and was then happily awake for 3 hours and had a 1hr30min nap ending at 2.35pm and that was it until bedtime; surprisingly he made it!

He's down for a nap now so lets see if he does the same as yesterday..

and he's awake FML!!

mrsmugoo how do you get on with getting out and about during the day now your DS is having longer naps? Will he do more than a catnap when you're out of the house?

I feel like I'm dashing out of the house once he wakes up so I can get stuff done while hes awake so he can have his naps in his cot when we get home to give him chance to nap longer

Haha we have similar babies!

Hmm yeah - I haven't quite got my head around him napping on the go now we're in two naps. I mainly plan for doing things out and about between naps or we do three NAIA with one longer one at home and then two smaller ones for example Wednesdays we do waterbabies he napped in the morning at home (1hr 10) then 15 minutes in the car seat on the way back then we had lunch in town with friends then 45 minutes in pushchair in the way home.

If he doesn't least one proper length cot nap I can usually make it work.

NAIA? Naps. Stupid autocorrect

Not wanting to gloat but DS I think has finally cracked his naps - they seem to be at least an hour now, up to 1:45.

I can't state enough just how much this has improved the quality of both of our lives! I'm so jealous of babies that have done this all their lives when I've had to endure 6 months of 30-40 minute sleeps and all the stress that goes with a permanently grumpy baby. AND he's started to almost sleep through the night now too. It feels like it's finally all coming together.

Really pleased for you mrsmugoo I think we're slowly getting there too. We had a couple of days of pure catnapping then yesterday a random 2hr20 afternoon nap!

He's just waking up from a 1hr 20 min nap. I wish I'd accepted that we'd get there eventually from the start instead of continuously fretting about something that was out of my control.

Also well done on the sleeping through! It's like the fog is lifting

next thing to worry about.... the clocks changing!!

Yeah hindsight is a wonderful thing - even though I know that literally nothing can be done about the goddawful catnaps, all the obsessing is justified as it is so draining always having a tired baby and never any down time as they are always bloody awake!

I just hope number 2 is a sleeper!

And ugh to the dreaded clock change!

Such good news Mrs! Hope it continues for you.

Horrendous night here. Baby Coodle has two teeth poking through and was up pretty much every hour, including an awful stretch from 2:30am until almost 5am. Then up at 6, straight back to sleep after a cuddle and up for the day at 7:30am. I don't think I slept at all. No idea how we're going to get through the day!

Naps much the same, though bedtime has improved slightly. Weaning is a big fail on all counts as she just shakes her head at everything offered (also does this with the teething gel).

Really glad to see this thread. DD (8 months) has just spent AN HOUR fidgetting and crying in her cot, and I've gone in and soothed her in every way possible. She finally fell asleep on my shoulder and I popped her into the cot... such a stressful time for us both. Glad to see we're not the only ones :)

Hi Blue you're certainly not the only one with some sort of sleep issue! Feel free to rant away

Hi Blue! Unfortunately there's lots of us with terrible sleepers, but at least here people understand a bit better!

Last night an improvement. Slept from 7:30 until 5, half a bottle and back down until 7. That I can cope with! DH says she cried in the night but I didn't hear her so either I was unconscious, she wasn't very loud or he's dreaming. Whatever it was, I've felt like an actual human today!

Naps still the usual, and she wakes up crying after most of them. Teeth? Seperation anxiety (even when she's woken up next to me on the bed)? Hmm.

Hope everyone is getting some sleep, etc!

Thanks, Schmoop and CoodleMoodle - glad to know I'm not alone on this one!! DD finally fell asleep earlier this morning during her bottle - after an hour of not sleeping on cot!! I think I might be destined to walk the streets with the buggy - but I don't really want to do that twice a day, every day! Maybe I'm putting her in the cot too early? I do await for lots of signs of sleepiness ...

Definitely not alone Blue! Does your DD normally settle on her own? Are your sleep problems new or have they been going on awhile? I feel your pain about the signs of sleepiness - my DD has none that are 100% reliable because she's always tired, therefore she's always rubbing her eyes/pulling her hair and ears/yawning... and normally grumpy!

Having a bit of a crappy time atm. Not only is she waking up screaming several times in the night AND waking up at 4am (I actually miss 5am!), she's also doing rubbish naps. Instead of 4x45mins, we're down to 1x45 and 2x30 That's me not counting her going back to sleep after the 4:30am wake-up as a nap, though. Still, 30mins ffs! And waking up screaming the place down even if I'm right next to her. Poor thing, she's knackered. Got to say though, I put her down over two hours ago and haven't heard a peep. Going up to bed in a minute and then the fun will probably begin.

Oh, and she won't eat properly. Milk, solids, whatever. She's not having it. Hoping that's down to those bloody teeth which are STILL pushing their way through (she refuses to let me look).

Current angst: I've got a hospital appointment on Thurs at 9:45am. She's normally having - or just about to have - a nap then. Mum's coming over to look after her for the morning, but we can't decide whether they should stay here and Mum should try to rock her to sleep (or go out with the buggy, but that doesn't work so well atm) OR if we should all go in Mum's car and she can drive around to try and make her sleep! Neither sound good. I wouldn't be at all concerned about leaving them together if it wasn't for the sleep situation.

I'm so relaxed about everything else

Oh my goodness, CoodleMoodle, that's so much on your plate at once!! I hope tomorrow goes well for you at the hospital and with all your arrangements. I know what you mean about being anxious about other Elle being able to get her to sleep. In fact, I just walked DD round town in her buggy (in which she is now asleep! Woohoo!) so at my in-laws don't have to try the dreaded cot!

She's never been a big one for the cot in the day, but it gradually felt like I just wasn't getting anything done if she was always sleeping in the buggy or car - so I've been trying to reinstate the cot-nap! With, yesterday, absolutely zero success. She cried the minute I out her down in it - even when technically already asleep from her bottle!! So today I vowed to do buggy-sleeps, for my own sanity!

I must say she is fine at night, though - she slept last night from 730 to 630 without a peep, so I am trying to count my blessings!

I hope the food situation improves for you. We had a bit of that a couple of months ago but now her first tooth is poking through, she's back eating again....

Best wishes for tomorrow.

Coodle I've got 'angst' about leaving my DS at the moment too! I'm leaving him with my mum for about 3 hours next week while I go on a course. I think the longest I've been away from him before is an hour and I'm stressing at making sure he's had his morning nap before we need to leave the house.

With regards to cotnaps I used my bed as a transition. I used to rock DS in his bouncer to sleep until it stopped working. So I fed him to sleep on my bed with some sort of sleep toy that plays a song on in the back ground. Eventually I got to the point that I didn't need to feed him he would go to sleep just with the song on. One morning DH, lazy sod was still in bed when DS was due his first nap so I tried putting him in his cot with the tune on and it worked. Cotnaps when at home ever since.

Might not work for some but thought I would share my experience