4mo catnapper- all advice welcome!

[Proudmummy2014]

Hey ladies,

I'm after some advice please for my 4mo little catnapper. I'm so isolated and feel that I can't get out with her as she is very cranky and cries as she is tired. I've paid for some baby yoga and swimming classes and end up leaving half way through as she's screaming because of tiredness (even though she's only been awake for an hour).

Our day currently looks like this:

7am- wake up and feed
9am-9.45am- self settles for nap
11am- feed
12am-12.35am- self settles for nap then I have to go straight to her and rock her to sleep. She then sleep for another 40mins

3pm- feed
4.15pm- 5pm- nap
5.45pm- bath and massage and feed
7pm- in bed

I just cannot understand why she is so tired after her morning nap and why i have to rock her back to sleep in the afternoon. She completely self settles.

Could someone please help me. I'm sorry of this has been covered but as it's such a long thread i haven't had a chance to read it all yet.

Thank you :-)

I think 40 min sleep cycles are the norm at that age (although totally rubbish). With my DD she only started doing the much longer nap without assistance really reliably post 10-11 months. There is also a 4 month sleep regression which threw everything up in the air here. I'm
Now expecting dc2 and wondering how I'm going to do all this again!

OP sounds like you're doing a great job and I promise you will be able to leave the house and 'do stuff' properly soon

Luckily she has always slept well at night though from 7pm-4am, feed then back down until 7am-ish. However the past 2 weeks she's now waking up at 1-2am and I have no idea why. She completely self soothes for all her sleep so I wouldn't have thought this would be the sleep regression?!

I don't think the ability to self soothe has any bearing on a sleep regression. Posters on other threads in on have gone through 4 month regression big time even though their babies we're going down awake. It generally passes in a few weeks. Mine lasted about 3 weeks.

@mrsmugoo- oh I didn't realise. I was speaking to a sleep expert who said this normally happens in her experience when babies can't self soothe. Was LO sleeping longer stretches at night until the sleep regression? And then started sleeping again longest stretches again after the 3 weeks? I was worried that in my quest to help her sleep longer in the day naps I may have now disrupte her night sleep

In my experience, getting the day time sleeps right really helped with the nighttime sleeps.

That's the thing, regardless of her catnaps she was still sleeping 9 hour stretches at night. So this may well be a sleep regression now. Day time naps are just such a lost cause. Literally trying everything and she is still so cranky half hour after her morning nap

DS2 has been able to self-soothe - properly self-soothe rather than cry himself to sleep - and he was still a 40 minute napper and was hit by the 4 month sleep regression.

@hollie84- same as mine. She doesn't cry and just chatters away until she's asleep. How long did the regression last for? Did the night sleep return to normal after that or was your LO sleeping for a longer stretch? Jst feel like I'm now trying to combat 3 things all at once ( catnaps, sleep regression and massively fussy while drinking milk) . Arrrghhh! Ha.

He's never slept a longer stretch at night really. It mainly meant he was harder to get to sleep, so I think I spent a couple of weeks rocking him to sleep and then he went back to self-settling. He's 6 months now and for the last month maybe he's been increasingly having 60-90 minute naps and has recently settled into a short morning nap, 1.5-2 hours after lunch and a short afternoon nap. At night he's sleeping roughly 7-10/11-4/5-and then into bed with me til 7.

Sorry, I haven't read the full thread yet but just wanted to let you know that my little one was a chronic catnapper, ie: no more than 30 or 40 minute naps 3 times a day from about 3 months to 7ish months. Although nights were fantastic so I couldn't complain. Anyhow, I tried EVERYTHING to extend the naps and was very jealous of all my mummy friends who had babies who would nap for 1 hour plus. It seemed like such bliss. Then overnight the lunch time nap lasted 90 minutes. Since that day his lunch time naps (only sleeps for 30 mins in the morning) can last anywhere between 90 mins and 2 hours. I really think it is a developmental thing so don't be too hard on yourself, your baby will get there. I wish someone had told me this earlier as it was really stressing me out and utterly exhausting to have no real break in the day.

@feelinghungry- that's brilliant it happened overnight! I think it's all the books I read and other mums saying "afternoon nap should be 2 hours" then I think why isn't it happening. Also I can see myself she is still tired so I have to rock her back to sleep in the afternoon so she sleeps 1.5 hours in two separate bursts. I guess she will go longer in her own time. Was your LO also cranky after his naps as if he hadn't slept enough? My one is soooo irritable after her morning nap and that's what stresses me out the most