help - 45 minute nap hell

[westlondonmumof2]

has anyone else experienced LOs waking from naps after 45mins on a regular basis? this has been slowly developing from about 10 weeks(now at 12 weeks) to point where every nap she now wakes like clockwork whereas before she was easily doing an hour to 90 or even 120 mins. Its leaving her exhausted and grumpy and I am going crazy as i have 2.5 DD1 as well and its really hard to make time for her...

thanks in advance!

Hi there, sounds like mine. LOADS of sympathy! I sort-of follow the BW techniques, and spent a long time helping my lo to extend his naps. But usually 45 min naps means she is either too tired or not tired enough. or she might be going through a growth spurt. Any case, if possible, use any tehcnique to extend her naps, and play around with the length of times she is awake before going down for a nap. At that age my lo just managed to be awake 1hr 20 mins, eating included, sp try putting her down for a nap after 1hr 10 mins. Good luck!

Exactly the same happened to my DS at that age. Then I discovered static radio and from the first day of using it DS's naps increased from 45-60 mins to 2 hours min (and I wake him).

Turn it on when you settle them for a nap and leave on throughout, it needs to be quite loud, so they can still hear it when they are crying for example.

I know it sounds crazy but it works and now I have 2 hours every lunchtime (bar a few shorter ones due to wind/teething) to cook/clean/iron or nap and it makes all the difference.

DS is now 8 months and we just weaned him off the static radio last week (by gradually turning the volume down).

HTH!

thanks for the suggestions/comiserations. Will give white noise a go. Starlight, the reason is DD is clearly still tired when waking and increasingly overtired throughout the day - not to mention it makes carving out some time for my other daughter a challenge.

thanks again, all.

DS has very rarely ever napped more than 45 mins/1 hr and he is now 12 months. Just the way he is I guess

Wow. I would feel lucky. My 10 week old barely did more than 30 mins at a time. It was exhausting. Don't stress too much.

starlight - perhaps you've been lucky to have babies who just nod off when tired and who were happy on 45 minute naps? My 3-month DS needs help to fall and stay asleep - if he's tired but I don't help him then he goes from whingeing to crying to screaming uncontrollably. I don't do routines, he can sleep when he wants, but he still needs a bit of help. My DD was the same.

What I do is carry DS in a sling all day. When I can tell he needs to sleep, I need to jiggle around. Sometimes this is quick, sometimes takes ages - depends a bit on how loud DD (4) is being! His little eyes generally pop open at 45 mins but I give him another jiggle and he will sometimes go back off and I can get back to playing with DD.

It's not ideal for DD because I play with a baby strapped to me the whole time which can sometimes be a bit restricting. But I figure it's better then me disappearing to settle/re-settle him all the time and I like having him close and carrying him everywhere.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to want your kids to get enough sleep AND to want to spend quality time with your older children. My DS is ratty if he doesn't sleep and my DD is ratty if I don't get time to play with her. So I try to meet both their needs.

I hope you find some way of cracking the 45-minute nap thing OP. I think that some m'netters have had success with the wake-to-sleep thing (do a search if you don't know what I'm on about!).

If not, then maybe try a sling?

WestLondonMum - you totally have my sympathy. I have had this problem for what seems like forever with my now 18 week old. Like you, I know that my DD needs more sleep than 45 mins because she's waking up tired and grumpy and within half an hour this escalates to full on over tired wailing. I don't have any magic answers I'm afraid! White noise doesn't work for me although I know it has helped some people. Wake to sleep I have to say was a complete disaster - it just made DD even more grumpy. What I do find sometimes though is that if I don't rush in to DD as soon as she makes waking up noises, she will sometimes resettle herself and go back to sleep for another 45 mins, after which she wakes up a happy smiley girl. I have learnt to give it about 10 mins after she wakes before going in to her, even if she is mildly grizzling. If she's doing full on wailing, I don't leave her to scream, I am absolutely not a CC person. But just leaving her for a while as long as the crying is more towards the mild grizzly end of the spectrum does sometimes work - more often than not recently.

Good luck - if nothing else, know that you are not alone ... x

My DS (5mths yesterday) is the same and has been since about 3mths (prior to that he was doing 1-2hrs everytime).

Thing is, he wakes up happy and is fine for about hr and half, then wants to sleep again. I'm not too bothered about it because my DD(3.9yrs) was a COMPLETE nightmare, screamed everytime she needed sleep (went from happy to miserable within seconds - no discernable sleep clues that I could see) and that went on for about 15mths more or less, when she decided to give up napping (much to the relief of all concerned).

You really do have my sympathys (and I was reading the thread in the hope that someone would have a good idea on how to make naps last longer - purely for my purposes, I would quite like a cpl of hours off in the day!).

Mine does this too - 40 minute naps like clockwork. 3 per day. She is seven months and it has been this way since she was teeny. It's better now. She used to sleep 20 minutes at a time.

I'm always so jealous of my friends who can do the washing or watch tv while LO naps. I generally get to do a de-pants sweep of the house and sit down with some tea before DD is up again.

I don't have any suggestions for extending naps beyond the hour mark, but as far as still being tired this is what we did:

If baby wakes up and is clearly still tired, rock her back to sleep. Repeat at each waking until baby wakes up happy, then she can come out of the bed (DD sleeps in a swinging hammock so this wasn't that hard for me). It took a couple days of long slog naps, but now she generally sleeps straight through the time she needs and wakes up a happy camper. I think she may have just needed help setting that sleep pattern.

Good luck!