I think I have a permanently overtired baby, help?!

[Naschkatze]

I'm going a little bit insane over DS' sleep and feeling very guilty that my baby often seems tired all day. He is 5 1/2 months old. We had a period of time from about 8/9 weeks where he was sleeping from about 9pm - 2/3am, waking once for a feed (breastfed) and going back down until about 7am. It was bliss! After some advice on this board from @FATEdestiny (shameless name drop ) and others, I felt like I had cracked naps too by not keeping him awake too long.

Then the 4 month sleep regression hit and it all, well, regressed! He now seems to only be able to be awake for an hour at a time in the day (start to see tired signs) but only naps for 30-45 mins and it is hard to get him to go to sleep for those naps, sometimes taking half an hour or more. He wakes 2/3 times in the night, feeds and sometimes will not go back to sleep for an hour or so, happy to play/babble. He is quite often exhausted and ready for bed by 5:30/6pm, which seems very early and doesn't really suit us! Especially as we're weaning soon and I'd like him to be part of our mealtimes.

The nighttime wakings as they are I can cope with (every hour like a few weeks ago, I cannot) but I'm really concerned that he just isn't getting enough sleep because he seems so tired. I'd also like a bit more structure to my day, as it seems lots of babies are having 2/3 longer naps by now. As it is, I'm still always either feeding him or trying to get him to sleep and I can't get anything done plus going a little bit crazy.

So I suppose my main questions are: Should he not be having extended naps by now?
Is there anything I can do to extend them and create something maybe slightly resembling a routine to our day? (I should say, a few weeks ago, he would occasionally have longer naps in his crib and I thought we were on to something!)
I'm hoping that sorting out daytime sleep will also help him sleep better at night. Last night he screamed on and off from 6:30-9pm after I put him to bed and I think it was down to overtiredness.

Sorry for the mega post. Help!

I officially hate naps! I've got 7 month old twins and until recently they were napping separately, eating/feeding separately, getting up at different times and sleeping for different lengths of time. Any naps were for 20-30 minutes and they'd be constantly tired.

I started weaning at 6 months and over this last 2 weeks, I've now got a routine!!! People kept asked me what my routine was, then looked at me like I was crazy when I said I didn't have one. The food times add structure to your day. They have a good hour and a half nap in the morning, 40mins or so in the afternoon, then 30 mins late afternoon.

Looking back the things that seem to work for us include lullabies playing quietly before they nap, putting their sleeping bags on, white noise, sleeping in the cot where possible, having set times (give or take an hour) at which they nap, as they then anticipate the sleep. I find if they sleep well at the first nap (usually in the cot), they nap well at the other times. I'm also better at dealing with their sleepy queues. As if I put them down too early it takes ages for them to settle, which might be happening with you. If it was taking too long to settle a baby for a nap, I'd have to stop trying and give it another go 10-15 mins later, as I couldn't leave the other baby unattended.

I completely feel your pain over the early starts and early bedtimes, but I remember my eldest was like that at the start, then as he got older, bedtime got later as he lasted longer between naps.

I'm certainly no expert but to put your mind at rest, it gets better!!

Should he not be having extended naps by now?

5 1/2 months and having short, frequent naps is perfectly ok. Some very generally-speaking averages are:

• Up to 3-4 months, long passive (relatively speaking very essy) sleep
• From 3-4 months until 5-12 months short, frequent naps that are harder work

Some babies have reached the developmental leap to link sleep cycles at 5 months, but most aren't. Just as some babies are walking at 7 months but most aren't.

Is there anything I can do to extend them

You can help baby learn, but it's not going to happen until baby is ready. Settling methods become important in this. Primarily:

• baby wants to stay asleep where he goes to sleep.
• it is useful to have a settling method that's as effective (ie quick) for daytime naps. Or you end up spending all day doing it. I favour foot bouncing the bouncy chair from the sofa with dummy for baby.
• you want a settling method that you can apply at the end of baby's sleep, to encourage baby to stay asleep instead of waking up. Movement is useful for this (which takes me back to bouncy chair and dummy)

create something maybe slightly resembling a routine to our day?

Absolutely you can!

Your routine will come from awake time and form from cycles, rather than the clock. You mention 1h awake time and that's all good, it's fine if that's what baby needs.

So your day may be 1h awake > 30/45m nap > 1h awake > 30/45m nap > 1h awake > 30/45m nap > repeat all day long. From the moment you get up until through to bedtime just keep up the cycles.

That is predictable. Predictable means it's a routine and a structure to your day. You can work out when is best to go to the supermarket/park/coffee shop on the basis of if you want to go while baby is awake or asleep.

As naps extend, continue following your awake time routine. You'll find that fewer naps physically for fit into your day as the naps get longer until you are down to 3, predictable (baby led) naps. Then you have a by the clock routine.

I'm still always either feeding him or trying to get him to sleep and I can't get anything done

Wait until early weaning starts, then it really is like going back to newborn days when baby spends literally all of their day eating and sleeping.

Imagine fitting in one meal time (30 mins?) plus one milk feed (15 mins?) plus settling to sleep time (15 mins?) into your 60-90 min awake time. It is relentless. But once weaning establish and milk feeds reduce, it does get better. Plus awake times naturally extend with age.

Getting stuff done - do it when baby is happy, awake and laying would be my advise. Use baby's nap times as time for you to rest and keeping baby asleep as long as possible, rather than doing stuff.

Buy the Baby Whisperer book and then go on their excellent forum. They're really into getting a good nap rhythm going. I found the whole nap thing very stressful too!
babywhispererforums.com/

Chunky Hats off to you, I've read a lot of threads complaining about what people say to parents of twins, so apologies, but now I've got DS I think that all parents of multiples are superheroes! Thank you for the reassurance.*

Fate* Thank you. I moved away from bouncy chair naps because I thought he 'should' be having 'proper', in cot/crib naps, by around 6 months. Also wondered if being downstairs was stopping him from sleeping properly and causing more tiredness.
The pattern of timing awake time is what I've been doing up to now, from reading your advice to others and on my previous thread. It's now just SO much harder to get him to sleep (even in the chair) and if we go out, practically impossible, hence overtired baby. He no longer goes straight to sleep in the car or pushchair and wakes up as soon as we get anywhere!
I can imagine how fitting in mealtimes as well leaves very little time for anything else. Quite glad he's not interested in food yet.
I will persevere with 1hr awake times and hope it settles soon.

Biscuit Will look into the Baby Whisperer. Thank you. I've given up on books so far because my baby doesn't seem to have read any of them

Woah, major bold fail.

I thought he 'should' be having 'proper', in cot/crib naps

I moved to cot naps once they had extended. Rather than moving to cot naps and hoping they extend. Resettling at the end of one sleep cycle must be significantly more difficult when baby is static. I'd say this would delay naps extending, not help it.

Stop worrying what you 'should' be doing. Your baby is the only person who should be telling you what you should be doing.

It's now just SO much harder to get him to sleep

Conversely to the entire tone of your post, but this could be baby being undertired, needing more awake time.

It could also be insufficient help being given to get baby to sleep, you do often need to put a decent amount of effort into getting baby to sleep. More than you would have as a 2-3 month old, for example.

It could also be hunger related and not sleep. A hungry baby is always going to struggle going to sleep regardless of how overtired or undertired he is. A baby who's calorie intake is on the low side compared to calorie need is equally going to struggle to sleep. Either bigger feeds or more frequent feeds solved this.

He no longer goes straight to sleep in the car or pushchair

Mine did that around this age too. It's a bastard, really restricts your to nap times at home. It just means you have to be organised to get out the house as quickly as possible after waking to get done whatever you need to do.

This won't be forever. You won't always be so tied to the house with little awake time. But you are for now, it would seem. No benefit in fighting against that. In a few short months time you'll only be tied to the house for 3 or 2 nap times a day. And being a slave to naptime will continue for 3 or so years. Welcome to parenthood!

Get the baby whisperer book! I think my lo was around that age and I was still following his tired signs but he was actually under tired and so only sleeping one sleep cycle (40 mins). I had to work really hard at keeping him going a bit longer and it did the trick. The baby whisperer book tells you the awake times appropriate for age and I found them spot on and had a lot of success following them. Good luck!

Just to add: one of the main themes of the Baby Whisperer stuff is learning to read your baby's cues, so you know when to put them to nap, feed, etc.

I've spent an hour so far this morning bouncing the chair and he slept for 15 minutes...
Unless I'm very much mistaken he was definitely tired. Started with grizzling on his play mat, about an hour after he woke up. I offered him more milk, he'd had a 'full feed' when he woke up this morning so he declined. Went in the chair, yawning, eye rubbing. He eventually dropped off but not into a deep sleep, when he stirred after 15 minutes another 30 mins of bouncing had no effect.
He is eye rubbing and ear pulling now about 30 minutes since I gave up bouncing (probably waited too long but I had to get dressed sometime!) I'm feeding him and will try again. Unfortunately he doesn't ever feed to sleep any more!

Do people really stay at home for all naps?! Do you not go out for the day ever?

Aria Do you recall the recommended awake time at 5/6 months? I have tried keeping him awake longer, but it seems to end in tears...

Today:
Woke at 7am. Feed. Play. Seemed tired around 8. Offered 'top up'. In bouncy chair by 8:25am.
Slept from just before 8:45 - 9am. I gave up at about 9:30am.
Then slept, on me (this is unusual, he doesn't normally want to anymore) from 11am until 11:45am.
Had another nap on me, from 1pm to 2:15pm. I put him down for the last 20 mins of that.
Went out for a walk at 4pm. It took 50 mins until he fell asleep. Slept from 4:50pm - 5:20pm.
Tired again by 6 so I started bedtime routine. He's was asleep in his crib by 6:45pm.

Despite actually a fair amount of sleep today (compared to recent days) he has still seemed tired and grumpy between naps... if anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be grateful!

The good thing about his sleep is that he now settles in his (side sleeper) crib quite easily at bedtime. I realised upon reading the debates about sleep training today we have probably inadvertently 'sleep trained' him. (Before anyone jumps on that, he has never been left to cry for any length of time.)

Do people really stay at home for all naps?! Do you not go out for the day ever?

I've got 4 children and am a SAHM with a very busy household. It would be largely impossible for me not to go every day. It is possible to work naps around when you need to go out.

Im confused as to why you kept on bouncing for an hour if you knew baby wasn't tired this morning?

I have a school run every (term time) day at 8.30-9am. If baby woke at 7am baby would be in the bouncer by 8am but I'd have too much to crack on with to be bouncing. If baby slept, great but it could only be for 30m. If baby didn't fall asleep then we'd be out the door at 8.30. Baby could either nap in car seat/pushchair or wait until 9am when we're home.

To be honest you seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill. If baby is tired, clear the diary and be relentless about getting baby sleeping. If baby is not tired, get on with doing stuff.

Naps on you are not good for the cause if your plan is independant naps. If baby goes to sleep in your arms you might as well keep him there though. He'll probably dkerp longer in your arms and putting an already asleep baby down is never a good idea for sleep hygiene. Baby wants to go to sleep where he will stay asleep.

We go out everyday. It's easier when we're out as they find everything fascinating. We have the school runs term time. Generally the morning nap is in the cot, I get my stuff together then on waking we go out.

Then when they are ready for another nap 2-3 hours later, they're in the pram or might be in the car.

The last nap of the day is usually in the cot, as tea needs sorting for everyone. If they're in the pram I put the shades down so they can't see anything otherwise they won't sleep. I originally used an app tracking feeds and sleep to find their natural rhythm. Then I fit going out round them where possible. I would have thought a baby of 5-6 months could manage 2 hours of awake time, perhaps wait longer before putting down for a nap

Fate
I'm confused as to why you kept on bouncing for an hour if you knew baby wasn't tired this morning.
Because I didn't know he wasn't tired! He certainly seemed tired even after the 15 minute cat nap.

To be honest you seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill.
Ok, maybe so. The reason for this though is I have a baby who is sleeping maybe 12-14 hours in a 24 hour period on a good day and regularly seems grumpy and tired. So I'm trying to find ways to improve it.

Chunky
Thanks. I would expect longer awake time too, but that wasn't working for us. Usually the day ending with hysterical screaming. After a terrible weekend I decided he needed more sleep. I'd given up using the sunshade on the pram recently because the weather didn't call for it and he got upset when he couldn't see me, but I will give it another go. Thanks for reminding me.

I would try for cot naps for morning and lunchtime nap and then a catnap at around 4pm in the pram with snoozeshade if necessary.
At 5.5 months we were doing
Nap 9-10
Nap 12.30-2.30
Nap 4.45-5.15
Bed 7pm
However sometimes the naps were shorter esp the lunchtime one

Have you started weaning yet? (Apologies if you've covered this!) My two started getting grumpy a lot around 5 1/2 months, and their sleep went downhill. I think they must've been hungry, as I started them on BLW (baby led weaning) and their sleep improved a lot.

We went through a stage exactly as you describe at that age with our now 10 month old. It was almost as if she needed longer naps and, but just wasn't quite able to do so yet. But lots of short naps wasn't quite working either, leading to constant tiredness!

I don't think I ever really found the answer - just persevered on muddling together whatever sleep I could until she eventually started napping longer about 9 months. I think at about 6 months she was doing roughly 1 hr 45 awake and then would sleep 35-40 mins.

I did find once she was ready for longer naps at first I had to battle to keep her awake for long enough that she would go down for a longer nap, so would take her out and about lots to distract her. Once she was used to it was fine though. I think actually she was probably ready for longer naps a month earlier, but I didn't realise because she still had really short gaps between naps so then wouldn't nap that long...if that makes sense! It isn't perfect now but (at least for the time being!) is better, and I really don't think that was down to anything I did - other than being patient. Another thing I have noticed is when her teeth are bothering her she can give the impression of tiredness (lots of grumpiness/face rubbing) when she's not so it's worth bearing in mind something else could be bothering him and just giving the impression of tiredness.

What LapinR0se said.

I hate the baby whisperer. Did not work for me (with twins) at all and felt utterly let down by it! Her baby categories are bizarre.

Regarding mealtimes, I often give the DC their tea (dinner for any southerners around!) at 4:30 as they're so hungry after school. I fit the bath in this routine. (Holidays mean Routine is currently out of the window).You may need an earlier mealtime than you're used to.

Lapin Did you do anything to help them extend naps (lunchtime one) or did they just do it when they were ready?

Whats Not yet - I've tried a few things but he isn't interested. I even tried some purée this week, despite wanting to take a more BLW approach, and he just pushed it out of his mouth. He isn't that co-ordinated with his hands yet so I don't think he's quite ready.

Octopus I'm so glad it's not just me and to hear it can get better without me doing anything radical. Will bear in mind teeth etc.

My DS is 5 months old and naps have been a battle.

He can be awake for 1.5-2 hours so I wonder if yours isn't actually tired yet after just 1 hour?

DS also goes to bed later than yours (around 8.30-9pm) despite our efforts to bring it forward, he just doesn't fall asleep for the night until then! The Gentle Sleep Book says that the average bedtime for their age is about 8pm.

I've just bought a Snoozeshade for the pushchair in the hope that it helps when we're out and about.

If I'm home I will just take him to our bedroom, close curtains, put on white noise, rock him to sleep, wait 5-10mins and then put him down. I know that's not what you advise FATEdestiny but it's working for us (better than the bouncy chair) and he's falling asleep much more quickly now.

I've also started using a muslin comfort blanket which seems to have helped.

Don't know if any of that is useful OP but thought I'd share just in case it helps to know that you're not the only one struggling!

I am another who would try some simple earl weaning foods. Just because the guidelines say six months doesn't mean some babies might not get there a couple of weeks early.

My DD was a changed child and much happier when she started getting some food around that age (about a month ago).

Oops x posted

Nothing wrong with rocking baby to sleep if that's what works for you. My LO has never let me put her down drowsy, EVER. She just fully wakes up. It's tough as mine won't take long naps unless I stay by her side, if I leave her she'll nap 20/30 mins max. There could be many reasons baby is grumpy such as going through a developmental leap. To counteract PP mine has been sleeping much worse since starting solids. She trumps all night and is very uncomfortable - but all babies are different so it might work for you x

"Last night he screamed on and off from 6:30-9pm after I put him to bed and I think it was down to overtiredness."

Maybe he wasn't ready for bed at 6.30pm?

HT85 i could have written your post - putting down sleepy never worked for either of mine beyond 4 months! They would wake up fully and get very irate! Now I have an older one and a babywe can't plan our day around naps or the older one would have a holiday entirely indoors. Try not to beat yourself up OP, babies are learning - they all struggle with different things and for some it's sleep. Do what you can to help if the tiredness is making baby unhappy but don't beat yourself up if you don't have a routine or your baby isn't doing what the books say.