12 week old naps

[Tryingno1]

My 12 week old who used to sleep fine as was a sleepy baby from start has over the last few weeks has progressively started causing problems in day time and also at night (no change in anything at home)

He only sleeps for 45 mins at a time in the day and night time is scattered with frequent wake ups

He’s fed nappy changed etc. Room dark and warmish. I swaddle him play white noise cuddle to sleep and rock and put down

Sometimes he’s wakes instantly sometimes he’s in a deep sleep and wakes after 45 mins

I know I’m supposed to put him awake drowsy not awake but we r nowhere near that.

He takes only minutes to fall asleep on me , he hysterically cries the Min it goes darks or if I even put him on my chest so he knows it’s bed time and then within 1 minute of crying he’s asleep

I’ve tried overtiring him he just gets more cranky and harder to put down

I’ve been sending To sleep once 2ish yawns
Which is usually 1-1.5 hours of active time

He sleeps great in the car.

Any advice I’m going mental! And when he wakes from sleep wot do I do?? I think I prob shouldn’t be picking him up as it just perputates the problem

As they get to this age, getting them to sleep one way and then putting them down becomes a problem. I'm nnot sure there's an easy answer, just time and getting them to fall asleep in the cot.

45 minute naps are totally normal - my dc3 will only sleep longer in a moving pram/car/sling.

So should he be having more frequent 45 Min naps? Coz after 30-45 min naps he’s not really that refreshed and activity time doesn’t seem to last as long?

He was having 1 to 1.5 hr naps until 2 weeks ago with only some being 45
Now they are all 30-45 (about 4 of them in a day)

I’m Dreading tonight!

Sometimes we have 5 naps a day

I try to ensure at least 1 hour+ nap a day by going out with the pram of putting her in the sling. Today we did 3-4.30 as a sling nap.

Thanks
Exhausting!

Anyone else? Thing is he’s a crank when he wakes after 45 mins, he’s really upset and fussy rubbing eyes and yawning so I know 45 isn’t enough for him. I just tired to accept it but then he’s just so upset

45 minutes is the length of the sleep cycle so he’ll be waking up naturally and doesn’t yet have the strategies to put himself back to sleep. Do you use a dummy? With my little one I would go in after 45 minutes no talking and pop his dummy in/stroke his head etc and leave him for a few minutes he learnt how to get himself back off then: basically treat it like a night waking. He now happily naps for 2.5 hours at lunchtime and can connect sleep cycles in the night. I really worked on the drowsy but awake from about 12 weeks and it will make al the difference once you can as otherwise he is used to falling asleep in your arms and is scared when he wakes in a different place.

Thanks a lot
Weirdly he’s only started doing this the last 4/5 day s before used to easily take 1.5-2 hour naps
Will try the dummy!

Try giving baby a dummy.

At this age I'd also do naps in the bouncy chair.

Then at first sign of stirring awake, start bouncing again and reinsert dummy. It's an easy way you get baby into a second sleep cycle.

Oh hi fate I posted to u on other thread

I actually did that on 2 sleeps
Dummy and rocking in Chair at 30 Mins so before cycle ended he woke up at 35 crying eyes wide open refusing to sleep again and so I picked him up .
My dh tried earlier too with dummy and stroking he fell asleep only to wake 5 Mins later crying. So we put him back on us as once he gets hysterical we can’t calm him down back to sleep

Options are
Be more persistent with rocking and dummy
To push him into next cycle

Accept short naps and give him
More of them in day

Complete Some more sleep after 45mins on me! As this has meant he’s happy and content during the day as he’s had enough sleep

It doesn't 'just happen' that baby learns to link sleep cycles.

At 12-16 weeks I would not expect any of the naps to get successfully extended. I would still try though. It's developmental, baby is still learning.

If you actively teach baby to link sleep cycles (by hands-off bouncing back to sleep for example) then it's reasonable to expect that by 5-6 months old baby would be better able to link cycles. And do so without any help.

It's a gradual process of learning though, and you are just starting.

Just reduce awake time between naps while ever naps are short (by short I mean under an hour). If baby is seeming tired and grumpy, it suggests you need to significantly reduce awake time. At this she it's not unreasonable to have only 40m awake time if baby is having a bad day. It might be 1h15m on a good day, 1h mostly though.