Nine week old napping only one sleep cycle

[Lemondrop99]

So my nine week old went from napping well to 3 days of basically refusing to nap and ending up hysterical by the end of the day. As of yesterday, he's started napping again but won't go more than one sleep cycle (40 mins on the dot). He won't be resettled. Even my trusty sling has let me down. He's not hungry as I feed him well before his naps.

He has most his naps in his bedside crib, with white noise on, in a dimmed room, with a dummy and swaddled.

As he still struggles to stay awake longer than 1.5hrs, we're having constant cat naps.

Since the nap refusals, he's suddenly started self settling (?) in the cot. As in, if we catch him at the right time, he'll close his eyes and go straight to sleep in his cot with no fuss.

I know there's some development leaps around now, but I didn't expect the cat napping to start until the 4 month sleep regression.

Is there any way to tackle this? He's tired and he really needs more sleep. He only got 3 hrs yesterday, when last week he was doing 5-6!

Just to add, he's breastfed. Goes to bed at 7pm and gets up 6.30-7.30am. I do a dreamfeed at 11pm and he tends to wake around 2am and 5am to feed but is currently very good at going straight back to sleep.

No advice really, but my DD was very similar. From about the same age, she would only take 3 daytime naps of 30-45 minutes. Longer naps only happened a couple of times a week or during a growth spurt.

I think it might be related to being a good night sleeper - she generally did 12 hours with a dreamfeed at 11pm (bottlefed).

Naps didn't improve til she dropped to two naps at 7-8 months. Then she would do 1 hour 15-30 mins in the morning and at least 30 mins in PM. Now she is 15 months and tends to do a 2 hour nap after lunch.

You might want to look into the wake to sleep technique - where you rouse them gently just before the end of a sleep cycle to get them to nap longer. I was always too scared to risk waking her tho!

Separating feeding and sleeping will help baby learn to link sleep cycles, so feeding upon waking rather than when going to sleep.

You may then need to actively resettle baby if he stirs. That might involve a dummy reinsert and domestic patting. Or it sometimes helps to have the nap in something that moves (bouncy chair) so you can lull back to sleep by movement.

DS2 never slept for longer than 45 mins at a time. It didn’t change until I stopped bf when he was 2.5, when he instantly slept through in his own bed. Some just don’t sleep very well.

Fate, I don't tend to feed directly before the nap, usually about 30 mins before. Or if he does eat before, he is awake and fully winded before being put down. We don't feed to sleep.

I've tried to resettle him but he simply won't. Have tried putting dummy in, patting, shushing etc. Cranking up the white noise slightly. The usual fail safe is bouncing on a yoga ball but even that isn't working. He just gets fed up and escalates his crying.

Today he wouldn't resettle and ended up back in bed within 30 mins as he was clearly still shattered.

He's also recently started waking up within 30 mins of going to bed and needing resettling and I don't know why. He's always clearly ready for bed at 7pm.

Also he's never fallen asleep in his bouncer or swing. He gets fed up after 5-10 mins in them and starts crying. He doesn't even nap very well on me. The only place he sleeps well is the sling, second best is swaddled in his crib.

So normal, my 3 month old is exactly the same. If I'm walking with the pram and get her past the first 40 minutes she'll sleep 1.5 hours but generally she settles herself in her cot and sleeps 40 minutes, won't be resettled. She does have 4-5 naps a day though, goes to bed about 10pm.

I seem to remember my older two started doing long naps about 6-7 months.

My oldest also did that waking/resettling thing 30 minutes after bedtime

Can you do anything to help a baby learn to link sleep cycles? Or is it an entirely developmental phase which they have to work out for themselves?

Ergh. Woke up exactly 30 mins into lunchtime nap. He's struggling to resettle. Today he wants to but can't get into a deep sleep. Eyes have been flicking open and close for the last 15 mins. Overtired? Undertired?! Wish I knew why he's fighting going back to sleep when he clearly wants to.

Ds now 5 months but was exactly the same at 8 weeks . At about 5 months I managed to extend his lunch nap by going in and starting to pat before he went into the light sleep. This worked much better than waiting for him to cry and trying to resettle. He usually wakes at 30 minutes so I pat just before 30 and see him twitch and sometimes cry out but he generally stays asleep now and he can do 90 minutrs. But I do stay patting for a good 20 minutes. Today I didn't sneak in to pat and he did 90 minutes on his own. Finally. He's the most inconsistent baby ever though so who knows what he will do
tomorrow!

My 15 week old is the same - typically sleeps for 45 mins max in the day. Very hard to get him down too.

And he doesn't sleep well at night either 😴

Sometimes you just have to accept it and power through.

But he's so miserable He wants to sleep more but really struggles. He's so tired and gets worse as the day goes on. He woke up literally whimpering from his last nap and now, even in a sling, keeps stirring. I'm having problems that by the end of the day, he's too exhausted to breastfeed and then doesn't sleep properly because he's hungry 😒 I can't express enough to give him regular bottles at that time and formula really seems to disagree with him. I feel so stuck and so sorry for him. He clearly needs more sleep.

To update the lunch nap I talk about above. He slept about 20 mins, woke up crying. I did everything to resettle him but he couldn't get into a deep sleep for a whole 45 mins! I held him and he tried to sleep but just stirred constantly. When he finally did get to sleep properly, he woke up again after 20 mins! So 1.5 hrs of crap napping and still one exhausted baby.

Well we finally managed to get a 2 hr nap in the sling (5-7pm), although it still took him a long time to get into a deep sleep. I kept him up for an hour and then put him to bed later than usual, at 8pm. To try and keep him calm (the last week he's started crying after his bath and struggled to feed), I fed one breast and his ranitidine before the bath, and one breast after the bath. He remained calm and when I lay him in his crib, he went to sleep within a few minutes by himself. Now to see whether he wakes up again after 30-40 mins and how hard he is to resettle (last night ended in hysterics despite lots of hugs/swaying/bouncing/singing before he finally gave in a second time)

He sounds very similar to my girl who has been having half-hour naps since about 6 weeks (she's 14 weeks now) and would also struggle to feed well when overtired. You mention ranitidine so I assume yours also has reflux? I haven't got any advice on extending the naps really but just wanted to say both of us have been a lot happier since I stopped obsessing over sleep cycles and just accepted this is how she is at the moment. Just do what is easiest to get you all through the day and don't stress if some of his naps go tits up. I feel like i have tried everything so I know it's not something I'm doing wrong. Mine is actually pretty happy between catnaps and now she's on ranitidine she feeds better at bedtime. I also find that bedtime is much easier if she has a nap at about 5pm - during the week this coincides with collecting my older daughter so I pop her in the sling and she gets the nap without fuss. Good luck!

Thanks. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't affecting him but he's VERY tired and miserable in between.

Yesterday was a new low of 25 min naps 😕 He only slept 2 hrs in total during the whole day

Today I've been trying to get him to sleep in the sling. I've been walking over 2 hrs 😩 He slept 30 mins, awake for 1 hour (including exhausted meltdown) and is currently asleep. I think I just patted him through a 40 min cycle but I'm scared to stop walking. My back is killing me and I'm not very fit from a HG pregnancy

I walked for ages with the pram yesterday but no good. Just two 25 mins sleeps with 1 hr awake in between as he wouldn't resettle

Again today, two naps, both awake after 25 minutes. He's going to be exhausted. I'm so frustrated that he won't even do a full sleep cycle so isn't getting any restorative sleep.

Please, I'm getting desperate here! Any advice????

Sorry, I wish I knew how to help you, as we're having the same issue. DS is 12 weeks old and for the past couple of weeks his naps last 25-35 minutes, no matter what I do.

He's never liked the bouncy chair as mechanical rocking makes him feel like falling I guess, he looks frightened and twitchy and starts crying after a few minutes.

Even in the sling he doesn't go past 40 minutes at most, and that's if we're lucky.

Sometimes he takes the dummy, sometimes he won't have it, it's entirely up to him.

I don't feed to sleep simply because it doesn't seem to work anymore, he nods off for up to 10 minutes, then gets wide awake again. We have to bounce on the gym ball to get him to sleep.

I think it's a development phase and as annoying as it is I don't think there's anything I can do except trying to get him to sleep as often as possible and hope at some point he starts stringing those cycles again.

Thanks for your support Ven! You have basically described our situation to a T!!

Mine won't sit longer than 5-10 mins in a bouncer or swing and certainly won't sleep in it. The sling used to work wonders, now only 40 mins max (aside from yesterday which we didn't manage to repeat today). We also spend a lot of time on a yoga ball.

Weirdly he seems to settle best in his cot wearing his swaddle. He settled himself to sleep beautifully 70/80% of the time. He just can't settle himself to link cycles (mind you, I can't settle him either!!). I'm hoping his currently settling skills will help later. I'm terrified of the 4 month sleep regression, especially if I can't settle him back to sleep 😕

Today he did
20 min cot nap
Lunch nap - 25 mins, wake and resettle (took 20 mins), 10 min, wake, feed and resettle and then he actually manage 1hr 10 mins. He was fed before being put down in the first place so he wasn't hungry so who knows.
10 min pram nap
40 min sling nap and refused to resettle. He drifted in and out for 30 mins - snooze, wake, cry, repeat until we have up.

He's now in bed and I'm waiting for the inevitable overtired 40 minute wake. Sigh

I'm sure this is developmental. He has obviously matured lately. He's so interested in the world, suddenly into toys, gripping things etc.

I just wish I knew if he'll grow out of cat napping (if so, I'll stop stressing and just squeeze in as many cat naps as possible) or if I need to help him learn how to link his cycles some how.

He's going to be exhausted

Short naps do not cause baby to be exhausted.

Total amount if sleep baby has (over 12/24 hours) is what gives you an over tired baby.

What you need to do is reduce awake time between naps. Significantly reduce awake time. At this 2-3 month age I would expect awake time between naps being in the range of 30-60 minutes.

The range is there to allow for different nap lengths. So if you get a long (1h plus) nap, then baby may manage an awake time of 50-60 mins. If baby has an 'average' 30-45m nap then 45 min awake time would get expected. Any nap less than 30 mins and I'd be expecting only 30-40 minutes of awake time before her next nap.

There us no reason to equate short naps with exhaustion.

Exhaustion comes from too long awake in one go.