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

Yesterday's 90 min morning nap followed today by a 30 min catnap.... Sob!!! :( it's maddening I've not done anything differently! Makes me want to cry sometimes!

Awesome-ds has been sleeping on his front since around 7 months, I'm assuming its safe as he can roll back. Popalina-my dh is terrible for not noticing tired signs or putting ds down for naps. I was away for half a day recently and when I got home ds had missed two naps, and was a total bear that evening.

15min nap, this just gets better and better

Has anyone tried the PU/PD method for naps? I'm contemplating it at the moment?

Today we've done 45 minutes for nap #1 and then a whole hour for #2. I put her down for her second nap only 90 mins after she woke up from her first as she was yawning, maybe that made a difference? I'm currently sat in my bedroom with DD still in her cot, hoping in vain that she might decide to drop back off again!

Earth, I had a crappy nap day too. Last nap was At 13.00 and DS is in his cot playing with the cot bars instead of sleeping. Looks like early bedtime today. Gah! Just after I had one 7am wake up instead of 5am....

Frankel, I've tried pu/pd but it worked for us only once or twice. DS was often even more annoyed after pd than he was before. It just depends on the baby I think.

Horrific night which has resulted in a crappy, crappy day.

DS has discovered that banging his legs on his mattress not only makes a pleasing "thud" sound which reverberates around the house, but it also keeps him awake which clearly is his overarching aim. He woke himself up 6 times and got up for the day at 620 in a total grump.

First nap was a whole 40m, second nap (in the pram) about an hour (with wake ups), third nap...a record breaking 9 minutes. He point blank refused to nap after 3pm so was positively hysterical by bath time, which I had to do early because of his shrill screaming.

So I'm off to bed now at 8pm because I got a grand total of 3h and 20m sleep last night. All ring well (and DH not falling asleep) I should get until midnight. Then the shitfest begins again.

Sorry to be so grumpy. Met up with a friend who has an 8 week old baby that has already started sleeping through. She looked so relaxed and refreshed-hair perfect, make-up perfect, clothes immaculate. I, on the other hand, haven't had a hair cut since I was 6 months pregnant and am a lovely shade of mousy brown/grey, my skin is a riot because of my exclusive diet of cereal bars and eyebrows are taking over my face and the only pair of jeans that currently fit me are covered in vomit/snot and smell tellingly of forest fresh febreeze.

I just don't know how to get it together. Every day is such a struggle. Love DS to bits but I am so tired.

Crap naps here today - basically just 3 x 30 mins in the pushchair. Last nap ended at 3:15pm so had to do a slightly early bedtime because of overtiredness meltdown!

Can I join in please? Dd is nearly 13 weeks and will only sleep in the bloody sling. She'll do 3 hours in that, but if I don't put her in it then she'll go all day without a nap surely that's not normal, or healthy, at this age?!

She likes a boob nap and will sleep on me, but I've got a toddler ds to shout at run around after too, so that's not practical. She won't sleep in the pram or car seat and my back can't take hours of baby wearing every day.

Nights aren't usually too bad, though she was up from 2-4 last night. Yawn.

Ah! So all of us had a wobbly day yesterday :( was it the heat, do you think?

Pickle, I know what you mean exactly. When you are dealing with a sleepless baby, it doesn't help to see fresh faced and neatly dresses other parents :( could you do some quick pick me ups, if you feel down about skin etc? Like a tinted moisturiser and a skin vitamin supplement? Keep almonds etc in the pram? I know, all minor in the grand scheme of sleep deprivation... But these were the things that helped me cope, sometimes you also have to go for the small wins :)

Welcome misty! Sling naps are totally normal at that age, as far as I know!

I think a few of us commented up thread about the 3-4 month mark being a bit of a turning point for some babies where they will finally start sleeping in the pram, which you can use as a foundation to build to self settling in the cot eventually.

I can only imagine how tough it is with a toddler as well! But anyway, feel free to offload here in this thread :)

sympathies to fellow catnapper mums. my ds is 18 weeks and he's a serious catnapper! I literally can't remember the last time he slept more than 30 mins, even in the pram!
I had decided to just go with it for now as at least we had some relatively consistent flow (wouldnt quite call it a routine) to the day. But the last couple of weeks its become a battle just to get his 30 min naps in, he woke at 8.45 this morning and I battled from 10:15 to 11:15 for him to nap. I feel like I need to do something about it but I know he's at a funny age (4 month sleep regression, growth spurt, teething) but there's only so long I can keep using these excuses

Mrsmugoo, when did you do CIO? Did you have a sleep
Nanny or anything or just do it yourselves? I feel awful complaining as my DD is only 14 weeks but I'm spending an hour each time getting her to sleep and then only get 45 mins asleep max. She won't fall asleep without rocking / bouncing so it's either full days in the house or no naps. Hmmm. Today we've had 1 x 30 mins and 1 x 45 and she's now asleep on me at last so I'm not moving and getting sweatier by the minute.

I'm so so envious of people that put their babies in their cots at nap times and off they go. I'd definitely consider PUPD or cc at four months but she's not a whimperer, she's an all-out screamer so not sure if it would work. Plus I don't know if I'd be able to see it through!

We've had 2 x 40min and 1 x 1hr20 today, which took me totally by surprise! Of course the long nap was her late afternoon one so I ended up waking her otherwise she won't go down at bedtime I don't know if it made a difference to her naps, or was just a coincidence, but she was awake for 3.5 hours between her first and second naps as we were out and about and she refused to nap in the pram/car seat.

We did sleep training at 16 weeks after 4 month regression started at 14 weeks and almost broke me.

We were co-sleeping so I was always squashed and uncomfortable and doing all day time naps in arms and something needed to give so I just said "right, COT for all sleeps full stop"

I couldn't lift him into the cot asleep so he needed to learn to self settle. I tried pick up/put down but it made him go into a mad rage so I thought it couldn't hurt to just put him down drowsy and see what would happen.

He cried for about half an hour but it wasn't a full blown rage it was a frustrated "I'm tired" cry. Eventually he started sucking his fingers and within 5 minutes he was sound asleep. I was next to him the whole time.

After that, once I knew he could do it, that was it - into the cot and self settle every time. No more rocking, bouncing, jiggling etc...absolute cold turkey on that. No more sleep props I just started a clear nap time routine with sleep cues. We already had an established bedtime routine.

After a week of sleeping in the cot night and day self settling I decided to experiment with ignoring night wakings until at least 1am to see if they actually were genuine hunger. I slept in the spare room and my DH stayed up and manned the monitor. He woke up 5-6 times but each time took 2-15 minutes to self settle with no crying. He want lifted out at all. He didn't wake and whinge for food until gone 3am. Since then it's been 6 nights in a row of going straight through from 7pm feed to between 3-5am and each night the waking/self settling has reduced. Last night it was just a couple of times before waking for good at 4:30am.

I know cc is controversial especially at 4 months but something had to be done I was losing my mind from sleep deprivation and the "gentle methods" seemed to distress him more than just giving him some space to work it out for himself.

Best thing I ever did.

Today's naps
45 mins in cot
25 mins pushchair
16 mins (ugh, really?!) pushchair
40 mins pushchair

I've done a lot of walking today!

Shmoop - if your DS woke at 8:45 was he tired by 10:15?

My 18 week old DS is going down 2 hours after waking now, sometimes 2 hrs 15

Yes maybe he wasn't tired enough mrsmugoo (he yawned once and I thought I needed to leap onto getting him to sleep). In the end it was 2hrs30mins by the time he was asleep. I was trying to follow putting him down 90 minutes after wake-up but I think I need to stop googling and watch his cues more to crack this. He never seems drowsy so i'm still bouncing him to sleep, I normally go for when he's starting to look sleepy around the 2 hour mark for the rest of his naps. More trial and error I guess

I was doing the 90 mins thing too but I think you need to watch your baby not the clock.

Really interesting mrsmugoo. I think I'm going to go cold turkey on the bouncing too. I just can't continue like this! Will try massively toning it down to a little cuddle / rock and try PUPD for a couple of weeks to see how that goes. Im not sure it will work as DD is a screamer (with serious stamina). And we live in a flat... ??

Sorry if this has been said before but does anybody have a naptime routine? I feel like I am totally back to square one with napping at the moment. I'm going to take ds on a walk in the pram soon to get another nap in (I hope). Does anybody follow their bedtime routine for naps? I'm VERY hesitant to use the same routine as bedtime because he goes down like a dream at bedtime and the last thing I want to do is confuse him into thinking its bedtime?

Our nap time routine / wind down is

Nappy change
Into darkened bedroom - whispers only
Grobag on & lay on double bed
Lullaby music
Play with one quiet toy for 5-10 mins
Feed
Down in the cot drowsy
Shut the door

Sounds like you have a great routine set up there. Always wondered about the light/dark room thing as I've read conflicting advice. I've tried both and both result in 30 min nap. Met another catnapper at a baby group this morning, she didn't seem the slightest bit bothered about it though. I've just fed him before we were about to head out in the pram (wasn't really due a feed but wanted to make sure he was hydrated before we go out in this heat) and he was really drowsy so I've laid him next to me and he's gone to sleep. I think I practically fed him to sleep so i'm not counting this as progress!

Catching up late on the thread! Too wiped out by this heat and sleepless nights to type much right now but just to say hi and hope everyone's doing well with naps and sleeps.

Nap routine. Mrsmugoo has a good one, we do something similar (dark room, white noise on, nappy change, into grobag, singing, into the cot). I think some people suggest a darkened room, others don't. Fwiw, I found it helpful as the dark room acts like a sleep cue and helps to separate playtime from sleep time.

definitelysometime there is such a thing as a sleep nanny?

Yep, I was super jealous of people whose babies just slept in the cot.

But, just what mrsmugoo said - when I started to teach DS to sleep in the cot alone I expected hours of tears. Instead it was something like half an hour the first time and very quickly reduced from there. I was very skeptical that it would work because he was a very clingy baby, but it worked after a week or so for the first nap and a few more weeks for all other naps.

Tired cues - yeah, I still get super confused here. It's only when DS was about 6 months that his sleepy cues were more consistent.

Also, I found self settling works much better when he is not over tired.

Today we've had
10am - 35 mins in cot
1pm - 35 mind in cot
Both we're a bit of a stretch in terms of wake times and required a bit of distraction when he got grizzly.

Then I took him to get his 3rd jabs and we left the surgery at 3:15 arrived home just before 4 and I assumed he would drop off on that journey having been awake since 1:35 but nope!

He refused to go down in his cot when we got home so I resorted to putting him back in the pushchair with the snooze shade on and he slept 30 mins from 5. Little sod!

We had only 2 40 minute naps today, at 9.30 and 1.30. I think the heat was keeping her awake this afternoon, despite my best efforts to try and get her to nap from about 3.30 onwards, so rather than let her have a late cat nap I've given her an early bath and she's in bed. She was asleep within minutes so was obviously shattered poor thing. I don't know how I'm going to sleep in this heat though!