30 min naps & overtired/ upset baby at bedtime HELP!

[LadyH1986]

Hello all

I think I’ve worked out why DD (now 17 weeks) screams after bath time. I believe she’s overtired from not napping enough during the daytime...

She used to nap well, 45-2hrs a time, but since about 12/13 weeks she’s napping for bang on 30 mins, and only taking 4 naps (2hours maybe 2.5hrs total a day). This seems to result in a very unhappy baby after bath time and then the feed and bed is very upsetting and stressful for all.

I’ve tried everything to extend said naps!! Being there after 25 mins to help her connect sleep cycles, popping dummy back in, leaving her for 10 mins after she wakes to see if she’ll fall back asleep... but nothing is working. I should add - she’s waking up happy and just ‘awake’ from each nap. But the result come 7pm is horrible...so I’d really like to be able to extend one if not two of the day naps.

Any advice?? Or is this just part of the dreaded regression and I need to ride it out until it goes back...?

Xxx

Ah, I've been there and posted the same thing at that stage I think! Not much help but I didn't find anything to help so in the end just waited out the phase and dealt with the 30 min naps and grouchy baby. It does pass though, promise!

My DD is 5 months old and having very short naps. She was cranky and overtired so we decided to put her to bed early on bad nap days, which has helped. We are sticking to wake windows rather than fixed times for naps as it's too all over the place atm.

Do you have the huckleberry app? I find it helpful.

Ugh, babies 🤷🏻‍♀️ I would move bath time, they can sometimes be too over stimulating - my eldest was like this. And if you can't extend the nap, put your little one to bed earlier to compensate. Babies tend to do well with a 12hr day, 12hr night, so they need to be settling to bed before times up. I can't remember what ages they consolidate naps, it's all a sleep deprived blur, sorry. But I used to find working off wake time helpful. There are charts on line. I liked the baby sleep site. There's also an app these days I think it's called huckleberry. The 4 month sleep regression is tough, their sleep pattern becomes more mature and I don't think it magically fixes itself. I used to fantasise about punching anyone who said to put baby down drowsy but awake... But unfortunately it's true.

I've always found this diagram surprisingly accurate for solving nap problems. Seems like you need to push wake windows longer.

I'm also a big fan of white noise and a pitch black room for maximising naps.

Thank you that’s interesting!! A friend has just messaged - she also has a catnapped - but simply doesn’t attempt an early bedtime like we’re doing! Going to trial an earlier bath and bed tomorrow..: then depending on results, try a later bath and bed the night after and see how we get on!

Will def try push her wake windows tomorrow too 🙏

@Discoballs
That flowchart looks really helpful, thanks for sharing. Do you have a link for it please? It's just that the image on here is difficult to read (maybe the upload quality or something).

@NameChange30 I don't sorry. Someone sent it to me. The quality is readable on the copy I have, but comes up fuzzy when I upload it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

images.app.goo.gl/jng2oNvri13616wPA

Does this work? Xx

@LadyH1986
Yes thank you! I'd done a Google search but hadn't found it.

Have tried this technique for first two naps of the day, she went down lovely and snoozy - her still awake bang on 30 mins

I shall persist but it may just be the ‘regression’ and I need to ride it out!!