I really, really, really need ideas to help him take a longer nap

[Voltige]

I'll start by saying I've read the No Cry Sleep Solution and we are working on it. I've read Sleepless in America and have applied some of those suggestions to our entire family. Here's the problem:

Baby is 5 1/2 months old. For the past several weeks he has been taking 20-30 minute naps, and I am not making any progress getting them longer. This means he's tried and cranky ALL day because he's simply exhausted.

Typical day:

Wake at 6am. Nap at 8:00 to 8:30, awake until 11am, nap until 11:20. Awake until 1:30 or 2:00, nap until 2:30, latest. Awake, miserable, until I put him to bed at 6:30pm. He NEEDS to sleep longer and I don't know what to do!! I've spent almost an entire week in the house just working on naps. Like every hour of every day seems like I am either trying to get him to sleep or to stay asleep. It sucks.

When I hover nearby at the 20 minute mark to "catch him before he fully wakes" it totally backfires. When he wakes, he just fully wakes- opens his eyes and grins and smiles at me. I don't make eye contact, just try to nurse him back down, but he starts blowing bubbles and cooing. Argh!!

So today I let him fully wake and didn't go to him immediately. I could hear him playing and talking. I was hoping against hope he would just go back to sleep. He didn't. I went to him when he started getting upset and tried to nurse him back down. He fought it, but eventually, like 40 minutes after the initial wake up, went back down for another 30 minutes. I thought it was progress.

The 2nd time, 2nd nap, I tried this again. It didn't work. He wouldn't go back to sleep and got VERY upset to the point where I couldn't easily calm him down. He refused to nurse and kept crying. I finally gave in and brought him back downstairs and walked outside to get him to calm down. He did, eventually. But then I had a tired and fussy baby again for the next 4 hours.

What can I do?

I have a short routine for naps, slightly longer for bedtime. At night I put him down and he stays down for about 2 hours before waking the first time. After that it's hit or miss, but I'll work on nighttime sleep after I get these naps figured out.

If I wear him, he will sometimes sleep longer. I will do this if I'm out and about at a park or playground with my other son. But baby is 22 pounds and it just hurts- since he won't sleep on my back (yet) and all that weight on my front is just too much. He won't tolerate the stroller. He will nap in the car, as long as I don't stop. This is not a sustainable napping routine!

Any suggestions? Please?

[Tee25]

Not much help here but I literally could have written your post for my almost 6 month old. She's been like that from day one. Although, she will sleep longer when she is tired like when we are out and about, then come home for a nap. But mainly when we are at home, it's 30-40 minutes...then WIDE awake. Tried the catching her when she wakes up method...it worked once or twice. Tried the nursing her back to sleep...but she would fuss and cry since she was really awake. When she didn't fuss and cry it would take her about 40 minutes of fiddling around to finally fall back asleep.

I dunno...for me I just said screw it. We do naps every hour to hour and a half here...she will get cranky so then she goes down. I have just been trying to work with her schedule at home and it's been much less stressful. It is a pain having a cranky baby every hour though. But at least when we're out and about she's the happiest baby in the world no matter how tired she is.

Sorry I'm not much help, but just wanted to say that you're baby isn't weird or anything

[iheartwren]

We also had a short napper. Swaddling helped quite a bit for naps-I still had to go in there and bounce her back to sleep but I think the swaddle helped her not wake up as much. Right around 6 months she all of a sudden started sleeping longer (she still wakes up after 40 minutes but I can almost always get her back down in less than 5 minutes for another hour or sometimes even more).

[GoGoGirl]

Have you tried napping with him? If I put DD down for a nap and then get up and do stuff, she sleeps for 40 minutes tops. But if I lay down with her (and sleep! It doesn't work if I read for some reason) she'll sleep at least twice as long.

[alegna]

Neither of mine would sleep longer at that age unless I was in bed with them or they were on me.

-Angela

[oolongtea]

Oh, I know what you mean. Here's what I have done:

At first, I really did use the car. For like a week, to try and get rid of the overtiredness and to get him used to sleeping in longer blocks. We started on a Saturday so DH could drive and I sat in the back, with the idea that we'd just drive and drive and see how long he slept, and wherever we were when the baby woke we'd hang out for two hours and play, and then drive back. We were living in the SW corner of CT and that first drive we crossed into Rhode Island and had turned back before the baby woke! It was a three hour nap. After that weekend I spent a few more days driving him for the afternoon nap. Generally I kept the drive to 1.5 hours and when we got home I'd sit in the car with him and wait for him to gradually wake up. Right away things were better at night -- fewer wakeups and longer overall time spent asleep, which in turn made naps better.

Then I started adding in lap naps... which for us are baby horizontally on boppy on my lap, at the breast, as I sit on a couch. The lights are low and there is NOTHING for him to look at, and his feet cannot be touching the arm of the couch or he'll kick it. He nurses, drifts off to sleep, and I don't move him. Then, at 35 minutes or whatever his mini wakeup time is, he stirs just the smallest bit and I get the breast back in his mouth so fast he doesn't fully wake up. Sometimes I use a paci instead. He sleeps for 1.5 hours this way. Oh, and I have found that sometimes his eyes pop open at that midpoint and he looks right at me, but he's actually asleep and if I get him relatched right away he is snoozing in seconds. That bed jiggling thing never worked for me.

After two weeks or so of the lap naps, I was able to make the early one (that one two hours after waking) into a bed nap where I sleep too. DS is almost 8 months and is just dropping the 3rd nap, so these days we've got the one bed nap and one lap nap and that's it. He sleeps from 7 or 8 pm till 5 or 6 am with only wakings for food, so he's well-rested.

I do feel like the lap naps are a bit of a compromise, because I'd love to get more stuff done, but actually it's nice for me to have an enforced break! I have an iphone and I write email and read websites while he sleeps. (I'd read books but the pages turn kind of noisily.) I wasn't able to turn them into bed naps because he's too wired during the day and he'll just roll around rather than fall asleep. By being on my lap and facing the back of the couch, he can't roll and there's nothing to see so he just accepts it.

For now! Knock wood, etc.

[Evie P.]

Now that I have baby number 2, I realize that a lot of that stuff is a total luxury, all the struggling for naps you can do when you have only one. I used to walk #1 for HOURS on my back. Mine is worst napper/sleeper ever, but most of the time she has to go with the rest of the flow of 4-year old brother. When I can give her more, I wil lie with her or wear her by walking but mostly she just kinda has to adjust and sleep as best she can. Everything seems to pass just when you either have something good down or think you can't go on with life if something bad doesn't change, so remember that!

I do think that even if a babe isn't ready for riding on back outside, you can strap them on inside and do housework til they fall asleep. That has helped me a lot.

[slimkins]

My son is just 4 months now and he does the typical 40 minute nap. There is one thing that usually works for us. I tend to walk around with him or rock him to sleep. This is so I don't have to nurse him to sleep. This allows me to nurse him when we wakes up at the 40 minute mark, and since he is hungry he will usually nurse and go back to sleep for another hour on me. Then when he wakes up, he is still pretty full. We play for an hour and a half of two and start the process over again I have also noticed that if he only sleeps the 40 minutes and doesn't go back down, sometimes he is ready for another nap at an hour- hour and fifteen.

[seafox]

DS just started occasionally taking a longer than 40 min nap - usually the first one *can* be 90min, but not always. we had a nice stretch of 5 days in a row with three naps - one 90min, the other two 40ish as usual, and that seemed to work well. When they are all 40ish its just not quite enough sleep - and not enough space really to do 4 naps anymore (a few months ago we did do 4 naps, but now he can stay awake longer)

I find if I nurse him down right before hand he will do the longer nap, and sometimes he also needs to really be up longer (more like 2.5 hours instead of 2) to do it.


like slimkins, when DS was 4 months that worked for us well - I rarely nursed him to sleep then, I'd always nurse when he awoke. Somehow though now, he wakes up SO awake he doesn't want to nurse when waking so that doesn't seem to work anymore!

[kamane18]

For us it seems that the first nap sets the rest of the day. And it seems that DS (6.5 months) needs about 2.5 hours awake in the morning to take a long first nap (at least an hour). Now that's not always possible because of dropping DD at pre-school, etc but it's ideal. If he sleeps at least an hour in the morning I try to keep him up about 2.5 hours again (give or take) before his next nap and go from there. If he only sleeps 35 minutes in the morning he usually needs his second nap closer to two hours awake. He definitely sleeps better/longer with white noise as well.

[Voltige]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions

A little more info: he's been sleeping swaddled for both naps and night, but am slowly weaning him from this. The naps went to crap before I changed anything, so I am just trying different things since it's SO BAD right now anyway. At the moment, he only has one arm left in the swaddle. Legs and right arm are loose. It's been like this for about 5 days now and it's no better or worse than a week ago

I can not walk this child to sleep to save my life, unless he's in the wrap. I can't unwrap him to set him down without fully waking him. Maybe I just need more practice, but he seems to rouse very easily.

We do use white noise and have since birth.

I particularly like the suggestion to get him to sleep without nursing, so I can FEED him when he wakes after 30 minutes, hopefully inducing more sleep. I'm at a bit of a loss how to do this though. He won't fall asleep in my arms while I walk around or bounce on the yoga ball. If I lie him down on the bed, he expects to nurse to sleep. My touch seems more rousing to him than settling.

I do have a 4 year old, so I have to be at least somewhat conscious I can distract him with TV, a snack, or art for about 30 minutes, but I can't pass out with the baby to see if it helps- not most days anyway. My husband will be home indefinitely after the holidays though, since he just lost his job. Maybe I can work on naps in earnest then.

I really appreciate the feedback. I keep hoping there's a tidbit here somewhere that will be magic for us If not, it's nice to know I'm not alone and that he will, at some point, get through this.

This morning he had his usual 30 minutes 2 hours after waking for the day. He woke up fussy so I tried to put him back down again after 45 minutes. He wanted nothing to do with sleeping again so soon though- so who knows? Maybe he's not tired but bored? He's playing happily on his play mat as I type this. I can't believe he's given me 10 minutes to myself, more or less. Unusual.

[kamane18]

It really sounds to me like he's undertired for that first nap but then becomes overtired as the day goes on from the short naps. Maybe slowly try to stretch him out to 2.5 hours awake at least in morning over the next week or so and see if that helps you get a longer first nap?

One thing that has helped DS sleep better is this (but it sounds a bit odd). If I put him in his stroller partially reclined with his blanket and teddy and read to him and sing to him and then tell him it's naptime I can get him to take a nap without me IF I have him in my dark bathroom with the hair dryer running. Once asleep I can move the stroller out of the bathroom and park it in my (still darkened but not as dark) bedroom and turn the dryer off in favor of less offensive white noise (sound machine). Often he'll sleep 1-1.5 hours this way!

Totally understand with having and older LO - my DD is 4 also (almost 4.5) and I can't just devote the whole day with getting DS to sleep...

[Pookietooth]

Yeah, ds was like that so I either had to sleep with him, wear him, or keep driving. Used up a lot of gas that way.

[Jayray]

So far for us, 20 or 30 minute naps means DS is overtired or teething. Do you ever put him down earlier than 6:30 for the night? He might be able to catch up on some sleep then. I would also just suggest trying to change the amount of time he's awake. I did that with DS around 5 months (started keeping him awake a little bit longer) and he started taking longer naps. He now USUALLY does two 1-1.5 hour naps and one 30 minute nap in the early evening. But every now and then everything goes to crap for a while. I don't know. The nap stuff makes me crazy.

[Voltige]

He is definitely teething. Drooling, chewing, two visible bumps on the lower gum...... been that way for a while though.

I almost put him down at 5:30 last night, but got nap instead that I woke him from after 15 minutes. Hellish bedtime after that. I could try putting him down earlier. I do believe he's overtired, chronically. He has a lot of night wakings. I'll try an earlier bedtime tonight, if I can. It can't hurt- it's already so bad I'm not afraid to mix things up

[Jayray]

We also have a lot of nightwakings!!! Argh!! But napping is good enough for us for now. I'm afraid to change anything!!

[ktmama]

Sounds exactly like my ds. Then, at 6 mo, things magically changed (literally) and he went from these "fake naps" to two good naps a day and one fake nap at the end of the day - you know, just to take the edge off! But, time was the only thing that helped - and, I believe - a very consistent sleep routine. Hang in there!

[RiverSky]

Do you have black out shades?

My babies always slept better in as pitch dark a room as we could get it.

[Voltige]

Originally Posted by RiverSky

Do you have black out shades?

My babies always slept better in as pitch dark a room as we could get it.

I do, but stopped using them during the day- as per No Cry Sleep Solution- trying to make a clear difference between day naps and night sleep. He wasn't napping well in a dark room, and letting a bit of natural light in during the day hasn't changed anything. My first son needed it dark all the time as well. Still does, actually.

Soooo, I tried the earlier bedtime. On a typical night we start bedtime at 6:30, after a bath and story time. So he's usually sleeping by 7pm. Tonight we were in bed at 6:03 and he was sleeping at 6:12. Then he startled awake and seemed COMPLETELY disoriented and whimpered this really pitiful sound I've rarely heard. I nursed him back down. He was awake again at 6:17. Then asleep again at 6:22. He slept until 7:00 and started wailing! I nursed him back down twice more. Very odd start to our night. I wonder what's going to happen

[NJStay@HomeDad]

I hear you !! also exactly same schedule... BUT i've gotten him to sleep through the night... I am seemingly becoming aware that i too... have a HIGH NEEDs baby boy whos is now 6 months as of 6 days ago... and starting to go out of my mind !! I have my Baby Boy All Day and My wife complaining and yelling @ my by Nite to quite him down ( family members: are too old or too busy to help ) SO, i do as much research as i can - before i burn-out try some of these: (i have many more) http://www.askdrsears.com/html/5/T051200.asp#T051201