30 min naps, very over tired baby

[user1480105008]

Hi there,
I have a 12 week old baby who can't seem to transition from her deep sleep to light sleep. So she ends up waking up after 25-30 min. I wouldn't have a problem with it, but by 2 pm she is so so overtired, nothing is good for her. I spend ages getting her to sleep, I end up feeding her every two hours (still). She sleeps a lot in the baby carrier at the moment, because she sleeps longer in there. But today for example she had 5 or 6 naps (lost track) and my back is killing me and I have a 2 year old who I can't play with, because i can't do a lot with a baby on me. I know some people will say that i should just go with the flow, but I can't. I feel like I'm dealing with the baby all day long and I don't give any attention to my 2 year old. Also if my baby was a happy girl, I wouldn't mind her having short naps. But our daily routine just goes straight out of the window because of these cat naps. I'm trying to do EASY with her, and I've just started doing pick up/put down in the evenings. I'm planning on putting her in her bed for naps too, but how should i get her to nap longer? shall i just do pick up and put down until she goes back to sleep? when she wakes she always looks wide awake but after 10 min she is grumpy-whingey... please help, I need this baby to have proper naps!

Half hour naps are usual at this age. I'm surprised you don't know that from EASY because the basis of the routine is frequent (shorter) naps and frequent feeds.

At 3 or 4 months I was doing EASY cycles of around 90m-2h with naps if 20-40 minutes and awake time of no more than an hour, more like 30 minutes.

Eat - note time
Awake Activity - 30-60m or as soon as tired signs shown.
Sleep - short naps are normal. 20-40m
You time

Have you tried daytime naps in a bouncy chair? Great to keep your hands free for the toddler.

I read the book nearly 2 years ago when my first born was a baby. I'm trying to read through it again, but it's obvious I'm missing out on some stuff. Thank you, for telling me how you did EASY with yours. I guess I could try doing 90min-2h EASY but after the second nap my baby seems so overtired that it takes so long to get her to sleep. I have a swing and occasionally she will sleep in it but she sleeps mainly in the carrier. When you did EASY with yours, how did you get him/her to sleep? Did you do pickup/put down in the day as well? Do you think I should try it?

When you did EASY with yours, how did you get him/her to sleep?

For daytime naps bouncy chair (Fisher Price one) and dummy.

I've got 4 children so I understand about needing to be there for other children aswel. I would just be relentless - dummy reinserts, hold dummy in when needed, bounce bounce bounce and just keep going until asleep.

If he's waking up tired (and you can't resettle with a dummy reinsert and bounce) then just shorten awake time. It is not unreasonable that awake time consists of 10 minutes to feed, 5 minutes to wind, nappy check and maybe 5 minutes floor time and then straight back into bouncy chair for 10 minutes bouncing with dummy to be back asleep. Total awake time = 30 minutes.

In that floor time after the feed, the very first grumble you get, that means it's sleep time. As she gets older and get sleep develops, she'll spend longer happy/awake. While she is unhappy, don't battle through it - get her to sleep asap.

Thank you, I'll definitely try your technique my only problem is that she doesn't take the dummy. I've been trying and trying for the past 12 weeks but no luck. She always pulls a face like if I was putting something bitter in her mouth.

After my 3 older 3 children all took to a dummy immediately when it was introduced, DC4 initially refused it.

I started trying her with a dummy at 3 weeks old and it took daily, all the time persistence until 7 weeks old for her to finally "get" that she needed to suck to get the benefit of the dummy. Before then it just sort of say limply in her mouth. However I have always known the immence value in a dummy to assist independant sleeping so I fully intended to keep on working until she finally accepted the dummy.

Hi OP, is your LO bf? I had difficulty getting DS2 to accept a dummy until a friend recommended the Super Soothie range of dummies, which apparently are more easily accepted my bf babies. DS2 was 4 months when he finally took a dummy and it's been a total game changer!

Yes my little on eis breast fed. I've tried 5 different types of dummies, she either spits them out straight away or if she takes it she can't keep it in for longer than a second. She has lip tie (she had tongue tie too but that was treated) and it seems that she just can't latch on the dummy.