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

Well last night was a big improvement, still a few wake ups but the first one wasn't till 3 am so I got a block of a few hours under my belt first! Then when she finally settled, she slept till 7.50 - and so did I!

I've only got 2 baby groups I go to at the moment, one in my local village hall which stops for the summer soon, and one in a local sure start centre. I meet a friend at the village one as she takes her 3yo grand daughter and I'm slowly making a few friends to say hi to, but you're right they are clique! I meet ladies from my post natal health visitor group at the sure start group, we've all got babies about the same age so we can compare notes and have started meeting for lunch/coffee on other days which is nice.

Can I join in?

The only time DC sleeps properly and at any length is in the car or the pushchair. And funnily enough I can't sleep then myself so I think I might kill myself soon if I can't get any proper sleep.
He's a screamer too so if he's over tired or gets disturbed from a nap he absolutely screams the place down and I go from my heart breaking to wanting to jump out of a window.
I haven't had the bed to myself (and husband) for over a year (he's 13 months ish)

He seems to be a light sleeper. He wakes up if a car goes past the window or the cat meows. It's soul destroying. The only way to get him to sleep is to rock him whilst he screams. He's still bf but won't even nurse to sleep anymore.

During the night he wakes up every hour ish, wails and can't self settle.

I have no idea what to do anymore.

Frank that sounds much better, hope you feel a bit more rested,

Striped, welcome, no advice as my DS is just 18 weeks but it sounds exhausting, you have my sympathies.

AFM, we had a bad night, can't see any reason for it, maybe too hot? Have managed to get him off for morning nap in his crib though (despite "D"H being a knob) so that's good. Out and about for the rest of the day so this will be the only nap that we follow the "routine" for.

Hope everyone has a successful day.

awesome you wouldn't happen to be a teacher too? Not sure how exactly I'm going to manage my workload and actually teaching on 2-4 hours of sleep a night. I feel it's going to be a year of "miss, are you asleep?"

Difficult night. Slept til 4 which was amazing (his room is a sauna so I'm thinking that made him sleep longer) but was up from 5-620 as was starving (could actually hear his tmy rumble) but he wouldn't take a bottle. Thought "oh well, it means he'll drink when he wakes up". Nope. He's had no liquids since 10pm last night. Tried to sneak milk into his porridge. Cue massive tantrum -which was really, really funny-and now he's had a whole 25m nap.

He's screamed from the moment he's woken up today. Not sure what's wrong but he's certainly trying to communicate something. Too hot? Thirsty? Hungry? Teething? Who knows?? The screaming is just our usual soundtrack now.

Hope everyone had an ok night. I'm planning on starting CC in a few weeks. I know you're supposed to wait until you're sure they're not hungry during the night but short of sodding about with yogurts/fruit at 4am, DS will not eat, so I figure he needs to learn to sleep when he's hungry.

This is going to fall flat on its face.

Sorry, should have been awesome not awesome

I blame almost 6 months of sleep deprivation.

2 measily half hour sleeps in the cot so far today. One took a bit of crying to settle himself off, the other he fell asleep on the boob and I just laid him in.

I think I'm going to go for a long walk in a bit to see if he'll do another long pushchair nap.

3rd nap 40 minutes despite me walking for an hour and a half.

Bedtime routine now...

We only managed 3 lots of 45 minutes today MrsM, but she's down for the night now. I'm starting to think that if she's getting a decent amount of sleep at night maybe she just doesn't need long day time naps.

He's down now too. He seems to be doing 7:30-7:30 with a few minor wake ups and one feed.

DH is away for the night so I'm sleeping in the spare room with the monitor - treating it like a dress rehearsal for him going into his own room.

Hi all.

Striped, that sounds really bad. I know what it's like to be st the end of your tether as I had some bad phases with my first DC, most notably when I was heavily pregnant and up for hours every night. I found myself going psycho. What sleep tactics have you tried?

Hi all, catching up late again as we had visitors all day, and despite that DS surprised me by sleeping 90 mins in the morning, no idea why/how as we did nothing different to the usual routine.

Frankel, glad things are improving at night, what a relief even if it is a one off.

Pickle, yes, I'm a teacher too, but university. Starting in August on a project (and abroad, too... But that's another thread). How will we manage? This is indeed a mystery. I find I can do pretty much anything but not things that require protracted thinking. When do you go back?

Welcome striped

Will write more in the morning, good night everyone!

Awesome-I go back 5 weeks on Monday. I thought id be dreading it but-dare I say it-I'm actually looking forward to DS's nap/bottle refusal being someone else's (nursery) problem!

The child had a 20m tantrum in his high chair because he didn't approve of his dinner. Doesn't seen to register that he liked it yesterday, when he positively hoovered it up.

A 25m/50m/20m nap day here today. Went down with little fuss at 7 because he was shattered and will-fingers crossed-do until 3-4 when the shitstorm commences.

Sleep well!

Yes, striped as Popalina said, what methods have you tried?

I also knwk what it's like to feel at your wits' end. My first turning point was around 3 months when DS just wouldn't fall asleep whilst feeding or rocking anymore, so each day it took more and more rocking to get him to sleep. So then I figured it was time to get him to learn to self settle. Have you tried any of these techniques?

For night wake ups, no advice from me I'm afraid, as we are still dealing with two hourly wake ups (7 month old DS). Like pickle I'm thinking of doing some kind of cc for these. :(

Not too bad a night here-slept til 530 then up til 620 then back to sleep til 7. I could deal with this if it was a pattern but I know fine well that tonight will be an up-every-hour night to make up for feeling a bit rested today. I can see it in DS's eyes now...got to keep mummy on her toes.

awesome I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of CC but I've read/devoured every article I can find about it and I honestly think that it's the way forward for "highly strung" babies like ours. Softly softly clearly doesn't work for them (had a trained baby nurse try and settle DS to prove I wasn't exaggerating. It took almost 2 hours for her to get him to sleep for..11 minutes) so tough love it is. I rationalise it that we differentiate for learners as there no 'one size fits all" approach. DS is wired to the moon and needs to cry to get all the excess energy/frustration out.

Hope everyone had an ok night. At least the weather has cooled a bit.

Cc has been a massive game changer for us. No other method worked for him but cc worked so quickly. In the space of 3 days he was self settling, in the space of 10 days he's sleeping through the night because he can send himself back to sleep whenever he wakes.

This morning he's rolled over from his back to his front for the first time which obviously tired him out so much as I've just looked and he's fast asleep on his sheepskin!

This series of articles is brilliant

scienceofmom.com/2012/02/13/why-sleep-matters-to-babies-and-parents/

Does anyone else feel like their partner just doesn't "get" the importance of naps? My DH took DS for a bit this morning so I could have another hour in bed. DS had been awake for 2hours by this point, I said it wouldn't be long (ie no more than half an hour) before he needed a nap. I go downstairs 1hr later and DH hasn't even attempted to get him off, he cheerily tells me is been singing songs with him and playing on the playmat. I really do appreciate the time in bed this morning but guess who has to deal with cranky overtired baby now? Rant over.

Mrs-sounds like you've had a real breakthrough, long may it continue.

That's so encouraging to hear, mrs. My only concern is that he's definitely waking out of hunger and you're supposed to wait until you're sure it's habitual waking. Suppose I don't have much of a choice as DS is clearly never taking a bottle again.

earth my DH was exactly the same at the beginning. I spent a full week of hell trying to get DS into a loose nap routine, only for him to come in and stamp over it with his size 12s at the weekend. "But he'll sleep when he's tired" -Erm, no. He doesn't "get" that signal and needs helped along. Then he would toddle off to work on Monday leaving me with cranky DS who had to relearn napping, only for it to go up the shitter the next weekend.

I recommend getting out and letting DH see the product of no-naps. I ended up having to teach DH how to put DS down pretty much the moment I got back in the afternoon asDS had (apparently) been screaming since I'd left.

My ds is 16 m and still only catnaps on car journeys, waking when I stop. He also feeds a LOT in the night still (breastfeed), normally only going about 90-120 minutes between feeds.

To make me even more tired my dd who is 3.4 yrs still wakes up 2-3 times a night.

If it helps op, both of mine co-sleep and always have, but it clearly hasn't made them sleep any better sleepers.

Tried CC and ds just vomits within minutes. Couldn't manage it for more than 2 nights as dh and me found it so sole destroying.

I have been following the No Cry Sleep Solution book for about 6 wks now. We already did everything it suggests apart from having a social story about bedtime and a photo timeline of the bedtime routine. So far they are both taking a lot longer to settle and wake up just as much at night time.

However we have had some mild success with having a fan on during the evening. I have 5 dc and I think the fan just helps to cover the household noise until everyone has gone to bed.

Can I join in please ?

I have an almost eight month old who is a bit of a hopeless sleeper. She's not too bad really but we generally have a 1am til 4am...5am...once was 6am...awake thing. I've had to stop feeding her to sleep - her latch is appalling and is rather stick needles in my eyes than feed her and she won't take a bottle. Nothing seems to settle her and we've resorted to controlled crying.

It's almost 4am (in Oz) she's been crying on and off since half 1, I'm knackered and it's freezing!

Today we've had:
40 minutes sleep on his sheepskin
30 mins in the cot
25 mins on the bed next to me

Not a lot!

Welcome NAR!

Yes, the no cry solution is not a quick win. Fwiw I found it worked only if I figured out DS's wake times and did naptime and bedtime towards the end of the optimal wake time. If he was over tired it didn't work and it would just be tears.

I don't know what to think about Cc sometimes. The night wakings are just all over the map, and it's all because he can't resettle once awake at night and I don't know why. So cc may be a solution. Going to think more about it around 8-9 months as we have a big work trip coming up so all the going there and coming back will be too unsettling.

Welcome Scot! Gosh, that sounds tough :( in hope you are all holding up well.

Feel free to sound off any time. I can't help much with advice but we are all here for support.

mrs same here (Despite a long bap yesterday!) But at least you had a nap in the cot and that's great. I like the sound of the sheepskin. Do babies like it? Is it easy to wash?

earth here it wasn't DH but parents and PILs who tried to convince me that DS doesn't need to nap. Mil lives abroad and there were some comments along the lines of 'we came here all the way to see the baby and we never see him!' This was the early days when I had to feed him to sleep.

Right, got to go set up for the Germany game as DS is asleep, and we have friends coming over.

Hope everyone has an easy bedtime!

He loves his sheepskin, I have it under the playgym and he's played under there quite contentedly since about 6ish weeks old. In fact he's less interested in the playgym now because he's rolling and he loves the high chair toys that stick to the bumbo tray now.

You can get sheepskins professionally cleaned but I just mop up milky sick and dribble with a wet cloth, it seems to be holding up!