Poor lunch nap - grumpy baby

[TiredAllTime]

My 4 month old daughter won't sleep for anything longer than 45 mins at lunch time. She never has. She also has a nap of about 45 mins in the morning (both naps in cot. She won't sleep properly in buggy). It's always 45 mins, exactly. She's going down within 1/2 of feeding, feeding well but wakes still tired and grumpy causing her to nod off and have a poor breast feed at about 2pm. She's on solids 2 times a day as she is a really hungry baby but is still waking more than once (frequently about every 1 1/2hrs from 1am - she also has formula at 10:30pm). GF doesn't help. Any suggestions???

Hi..

I have been having exactly the same problem with my 4 month old DD.

45 minute naps are V.V. common in babies - they are waking from theor deep sleep and if they don't know how to resettle themselves then they will wake up properly.

I have been trying to extend my DD's naps so that she wakes refreshed. I have read loads of stuff about how to do it and am still working on it.

Elizabeth Pantley suggests that you go in just before she wakens and pat back / soothe etc.. to prevent waking up. Or you put her back to sleep with rocking / feeding etc.. In theory DD should then 'realise' they are meant to nap longer. This sometimes works for me but not always. Also, gives certain associations with sleep.

I got myself in a real state about DD's napping but have no come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how she gets to sleep as long as she gets a decent sleep - so I have been feeding her back to sleep if she wakes up from her nap early.

I would recommend Elizabeth Pantley's book.

Also - if DD wakes up happy from 45 minute nap I do not try and extend it. She has been taking longer ones more consistently recently.

Sorry to waffle but I completely symapthise.

Hi,
My dd had trouble getting over the 45 minute "barrier" round about 3-4 months old. Like Ellasmum said, I felt I had to get her to learn that she could go on sleeping longer. I used to set the monitor with the volume turned right up and as soon as I heard her stirring, I would creep into her room, hide behind her cot so she couldn't see me, and just shush her back to sleep. I'd then do the same again 45 minutes later ! I think after about 2 or 3 days of doing that she would settle herself back to sleep after 45 mins.
You could also try making sure that she does lots of kicking about under her play gym in the morning. Then in the afternoon we would do more laid back activities.
You could also see if cutting back slightly on her morning nap to about 35 mins made any difference.
Good luck, hope this helps.

Thanks for both of your replies. Sorry I've taken a while to get back to you, we've been rather busy lately. I've tried both of what you've suggested and have persisted for weeks and weeks but to no avail. She is a very active baby anyway and doesn't stop rolling around and now at 21 weeks is desperately trying to crawl (apparently I was the same and was walking at 10 months).

She's also taken to not accepting a dummy to go to sleep (we don't give her a dummy at bed time) and now wants my boob - which I'm not giving in to as I would like to wind down breastfeeding.

She's now on 3 solids an day and certainly has an appetite.

She sleeps so lightly at night and wakes up several times but won't go back to sleep without help - and still wakes up at 5am chatting. God, I'm knackered (and I know she is too).

I don't know what else to do now - I think I've finally given up and will just leave her to be grumpy. Sorry for the essay.

Tiredallthetime...

Since my last message things have changed with my DD (also 21 weeks).

I gave up on trying to extend naps and now take her for a massive walk every lunchtime to give her about 1.5 hours sleep. This works, but I am knackered from all the walking.

She sleeps in her cot for 3/4 hour in the morning and I don't bother trying to extend.

Re. night sleep, we are still not sleeping through but are getting there. I have refused to feed her after 11.00pm if she wakes and she is jusr about getting the message.

Hope things get better for you (and me).