Question about connecting sleep cycles 6m

[Rowlie]

My LO is six months, nearly seven. Fully FF for the last month. He can self settle for both naps and bedtime. Night sleep is fine (very good on some nights). He usually wakes once for a bottle after 7-8 hours but has occasionally gone for 10 hours. He is put down awake after night feed.

Since 8 weeks he has done 40 min naps. Over the past few months his first nap started extending to 1hr 20 - 1hr 30. Then his second/lunch nap started also extending occasionally. However for the past week we have gone back to only 40 minutes for every nap (one sleep cycle). But if I resettle him by picking him up and holding him and shushing in his ear (don’t even need to rock but sometimes pace around room) he will sleep for another sleep cycle or sometimes up to 2 hours. I’ve been doing this because I know he’s tired and needs more sleep and having 4/5 nap days of 40 mins make it a lot more difficult for me!

Anyway, am I ‘making a rod’ for my own back by resettling him in this way. Will he need it from now on to get back to sleep between sleep cycles? Will it make night sleep go to sh**!? I know some might suggest resettling in the cot but that doesn’t work or would take a LOT longer, when picking him up it literally takes minutes.

Could it be the fact he has a cold or his teeth hurting him? But surely this would be affecting night sleep too…

Its usual to need to resettle baby in order for them to consistently learn to link daytime sleep cycles

Resettling isn't a problem. The tod girls your back comes from the fact that your picking baby up to do that resetting.

Better to have the baby sleeping in something that moves, until consistently linking cycles without help. Bouncy chair for example, or stationary pram. Then when disturbed between cycles, move the sleep surface rather than the baby. The movement lulls back to sleep without waking baby fully.

Give it a few weeks and baby will need less and less resettling until none is needed. Then move naps to a stationary cot.

@FATEdestiny thank you for your reply. In all honesty, I don’t think moving to pram or bouncy chair would help at this stage as I’ve been doing majority of naps in his cot with black out and white noise since he was about 3 months old, so it would be a big change for him to move to either pram or chair for naps.

What about trying to get him to resettle by patting and shushing in the cot, instead of picking him up and doing it?

And he can do it himself he seems at times as today has done a 2hr lunch nap and I heard him stir and resettle himself at 1hr20.

If you want to keep naps in the cot, then swap your resettle method to patting and swishing in the cot, without lifting baby. A dummy reinsert will help too.

Without movement, resettling is harder work and more labour intensive, so expect to need to out in effort.

Also important to respond to resettle baby at the very first, initial signs of stirring. This might be babys facd screwing up or a limb moving - definitely before baby makes a noise or opens eyes. The idea is to resettle back to a deep sleep without baby waking. If baby wakes, it's a whole lot harder. So be sure you're nearby in order to notice the early signs.

(And if you have a second/third child, consider keeping naps in pram/bouncer until through this phase)

@Rowlie

And he can do it himself he seems at times as today has done a 2hr lunch nap and I heard him stir and resettle himself at 1hr20.

It's a process of learning. The mirror he practices,the quicker he learns.

Its usual that babies find some sleeps "easier" than others - so sometimes sleep through without stirring, sometimes stir but resettle without input, sometimes need extra help.

It depends on sleep pressure, being overtired, calories, illness, allsorts of things.

Thanks. So one more question that has been pestering me… what is worse a) Allowing 40 min naps to happen and I guess just offering more, but with a higher chance he will be overtired or, b) Getting him to connect sleep cycles but with a prop for naps (i.e. picking up out of cot and shushing) …

Well, it's part of normal development to do both, rather either/or.

40 minute naps are developmentally normal post-4-months. Baby needs frequent naps to avoid being over tired. A reasonable approximation for awake time is:

• Wake window double previous nap length
• Plus or minus 15 minutes
• Include settling time in awake time
• Not more than 2h awake unless naps are consistently over 1.5h

Then try to extend the nap every time. Sometimes this nap extending won't work. Initially it went work most of the time. But as parents/babies practice more it will be more successful in lengthening the nap the more you practice. But don't beat yourself up if a nap doesn't extend, just readjust awake window. Extending the nap does need practice though.

So for 40 minute naps, you get cycles of:

• Wake, note the time
• Full feed & possibly solids meal
• 65 minutes from waking (80m minus 15 mins), start settling to sleep. This allows for up to minutes to get baby to sleep within awake window. Expectation is 15 minutes settling time.
• 80 minutes from waking, baby asleep
• 40 mins later, stirring from sleep - work on resettle
• if wake - restart the while cycle again (and keep repeating throughout the day)
• if resettle works, you may need to keep the shush patting going for a good half hour to keep baby asleep.

If you never bother to teach extending naps, baby will eventually learn but will take much longer. Its reasonable to expect about 2 months of consistent practice to see the long term change. Without that practice, it's not unusual for 12 month plus year olds to still be having short naps.

To make life easier (should you have more children) easiest to put baby in bouncer at your feet as you sit on sofa. Then use your foot to bounce to sleep at start of nap. Restart bouncing when you notice slight movement (because your right there with baby, much quicker to notice and respond). All while watching a box set and drinking tea. Move to cot naps once they consistently extend.

As it is, I'd suggest you park yourself in babys room for the duration of the nap. Maybe get a comfy chair and scroll on your phone? You need to be there to respond to lengthen the nap as soon as you get the initial, small movement out of a deep sleep.

@FATEdestiny thank you for your detailed reply. This all makes sense. But I assume picking him up out of the cot to resettle by holding him close and shushing him (takes minutes for him to drop back off) is the wrong type of practise?

Your aim is independent resettling - that means staying asleep where he is already asleep.

If you're picking him up, he's not learning independent resettling. He's learning to be dependant on you in order to sleep longer stretches.

Actually - maybe you're not looking for independent sleep? My answer comes from the assumption you are.

Lifting baby to resettle ultimately ends with baby still having longer naps, but naps on you (ie in your arms). This is the end result for many families, who keep baby daytime napping in their arms through to the toddler years when they drop the nap.

Theres nothing wrong with that, if you're happy with it and have the capacity to keep it going for 2 or 3 years (say, if you don't intend to go to work). Its just about setting expectations.

Definitely looking for independent settling - I’m already back at work part-time. I put him back in the cot though after a few minutes or holding him.