Another sleep question from me!! :)

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Sorry I know I post so many questions about sleep and always get told I'm over thinking!! ;)
Will try to keep this brief. DD 16 weeks. Only sleeps 30 mins during day. Takes 15-30 mins to get her to sleep. After at least one nap I try to get her back to sleep, has only worked once! She will either end up having 3 or 4 30 min naps in a day, or 1 or 2 30 min naps plus up to 2 hours if I'm out and about and she's in sling. So max nap time tends to be 3 hours total but most days are 2 hours. Sometimes 1.5 as she often resists her late afternoon nap.
I start bedtime at 6.30 unless she has resisted afternoon nap in which case I start at 6. She usually is asleep 1 hour later, then always wakes and has to be comforted back to sleep (can take 5 mins but can take an hour, 2 hours if she really works herself up!). Then tends to sleep in 2/3 hour chunks until 4/5 when she gets v restless and I basically bringer her into bed and let her sleep on the boob. She is always awake by 7/7.30 when we start our day.
My question is... As she has very little nap time should I try bringing her bedtime even earlier, like 5.30/6?! I just don't think I could cope if she then started starting her day an hour early. Also, it takes so long to get her to sleep that her last nap tends to finish around 5/5.30 so I might have to drop the last nap in which case is there any point?!
Sorry that wasn't so short after all baby is generally happy and VERY alert, just is so wound up every single bed time and I worry about accumulative effects of always ending up overtired. Also struggles to feed when overtired and she is tiny anyway so I'm keen to fatten her up

Instead of monitoring time asleep, watch time awake instead.

Try to limit the time between naps. At this age 120 minutes awake between one nap and the next would be pushing it. I'd ideally aim for 60 minutes between naps but certainly keep it in the bracket of 40-120 mins from waking until going back to sleep.

If it takes you up to 30 mins to get baby to sleep then that might mean baby waking, having a feed and then just 10 or 15 minutes awake/happy time before working on getting baby back to sleep.

The reason baby is resisting later afternoon naps is because he is over tired. An over-tired baby is very hard to get to sleep, a just-tired baby (ie going to sleep before obvious tired signs are shown) is much easier to get to sleep.

If baby is not getting frequent naps (ie limited awake time between naps) through the whole day then by the afternoon he will be wired with overtiredness. Sleep is one of those things where more sleep leads to better sleep - so the more naps baby gets the easier those naps will be. Then conversely the more over-tired baby gets the harder it is to get them to sleep - so its a downward spiral.

That 120 should be 80 by the way.

80 minutes awake would be pushing it, aim for 40-80 minutes awake time.

Yeah I try to start putting her to sleep around the 90 min mark... Earlier if she's obviously tired. It's just so hard to get anything done when it feels like I'm constantly getting her to sleep! And if we go out anywhere it's even harder to get her to sleep but if we don't go out I start to go slightly crazy...

Thanks btw :)

Yeah - the early months of babyhood are mostly spend either getting baby to sleep or getting baby to feed. 'Tis just the way of things.

Really you just need to accept that you don't have big chunks of time to do stuff in, so jobs will get done in mini bursts of 5 or 10 minutes when you get the opportunity.

How quickly would you think I'd see an improvement if I did a few hardcore dats of no more than 60 mins awake time?

Improvement in what way?

• Short (20-40 minute) naps are normal at this age.
• Limited awake time (40-80 minutes) is normal at this age.
• Spending most of your time getting baby to sleep and eat is normal at this age (and you will revisit this same feeling at around 6-9 months early weaning)

Longer, less frequent daytime naps develop somewhere around 5-9 months old, depending on the baby. Until then short, frequent naps are usual.

Waking in the night is linked to several things - lack of calories, help needed to get to sleep, light sleeping, occasional pain, over-tiredness frustration - and there will be ups and downs. Sleep development isn't linear.

I mean when might the overtiredness improve, assuming that may be what is causing her to fight her naps so much?

I would say within a week of diligent focus on lots and lots frequent sleep will tackle over tiredness.

Talk about not being linear... feels like we are going backwards at the moment!!! We had got to a point of naps taking ten mins to put down and I could put her down half awake win no crying, then the last few days it's been taking an hour with loads of crying! Accompanied by about a gazillion wake ups last night! I've been really really trying to get her to nap after every hour awake, hard if I have to go out etc but really trying. I just feel like I'm failing her by not getting her enough sleep

Have you tried a dummy?

Also increasing the frequency and size/length of feeds

Yup trying dummy at every nap and bedtime. Sometimes works sometimes doesn't, although when it does work she seems to sleep for longer. Been trying to offer feeds every 2 hours but she's quite fussy at the moment. I thought it was as she has a snuffly nose but I gave her a bottle tonight and she guzzled it and then had a breast feed too! Today she's had about 1.5 hours of naps and I'm struggling to get her to bed now. Feel like a complete failure and dreading how many times she's going to wake tonight :(