Success with a schedule? - Page 2

[Plummeting]

It's very, very normal for a baby that age to wake up at around the 40 minute mark. If you nurse at all or if she takes a pacifier, what will often work is to go in the room a few minutes before she wakes up and nurse her or put the pacifier in her mouth. They hit a light sleep stage around that time and need help staying asleep. They're not really ready to wake up yet; they just don't know how to get back to sleep. If you can't nurse or do a pacifier, just try being there to pat her on the back or whatever it is she likes to fall asleep, but don't do it until you see she's starting to move around a little. That works for a lot of babies. Good luck.

[P.J.]

Originally Posted by Plummeting

It's very, very normal for a baby that age to wake up at around the 40 minute mark. If you nurse at all or if she takes a pacifier, what will often work is to go in the room a few minutes before she wakes up and nurse her or put the pacifier in her mouth. They hit a light sleep stage around that time and need help staying asleep. They're not really ready to wake up yet; they just don't know how to get back to sleep. If you can't nurse or do a pacifier, just try being there to pat her on the back or whatever it is she likes to fall asleep, but don't do it until you see she's starting to move around a little. That works for a lot of babies. Good luck.

My DS also does the 3-4 micronaps per day thing. I feel lucky that he's relatively easy to get down for the nap, but it can be frustrating when he wakes up 30-40 minutes later. Every.single.time. I have tried this method of extending his naps (it's one of the ones in the No-Cry book), and it worked once, I was so happy! But the other few times I've tried it, I either got in there too late and he was already wide awake~ I think by the time he peeps and I hear it on the monitor, he's already quite awake ~or I actually woke him up by just sliding next to him and trying to get him to the breast! I suppose I need to actually go into the room and sit there and wait until he stirs and get to him at exactly the right moment. But really, it is a lot of work and time and would take awhile til it started happening w/out me to manipulate it, so I have stopped trying. I figure at this point I can manage with the mini-naps.
Have any of you had success with this method of extending naps?

Besides that the only way he'll ever sleep more than 40 minutes is if I and/or DH naps with him. I usually try to get down for one nap a day with him, and he's even slept up to two hours this way before!!!! But there are also times where we nap together and he still wakes up after 40 minutes. Oh well!

[Tattooed Hand]

I've read the No Cry sleep Solution and various other things. My DD is super high needs. Her sleep has deteriorated from about 5 months onwards. The good old days were the days of 4-5 hours of total nap time and 10 hours of sleep at night where she'd go down around 8, wake up 3 times before 6 or 7. Around 5 months something happened and she started waking up every 1-2 hours all night and sleeping more like 9 hours a night. The problem was her becoming mobile. She began crawling at 6 months and pulled herself up at 7 months and now at 9 months is even taking some unassisted steps. When she wakes up she rolls immediately into a sitting position and starts crawling. It's almost inadvertant. She does not know how to settle down to sleep, even when she is exhausted. It's been taking us 2-3 hours to get her to sleep, which sometimes wasn't happening until 10pm, after which she would wake every 1-2 hours, sometimes, not going back to sleep for 1-2 hours and up for the day at 6am. As a result she was cranky and clingy all day long and her naps shrank down to 1-2 hours of total nap time a day, waking up every 30 minutes.

The last 3 days I've been taking her upstairs to our quiet sleeping room (we moved apartments and kicked DH out to another room already to fix our sleep issues because I am near the point of collapse from sleep deprivation and no REM cycles) at set times and basically holding her down. It's gentle and in a loving craddle position where I sing our sleepytime song, shush her, rock her and nurse her as she wants, but I don't let her roll up. About half the time she'll let out a few screams, struggle a bit and then just nurse and pass out immediately. This struggle has been getting less and less and her sleep has been improving. She's slept around 7-7:30 pm both nights, until 7am, though still with at least 3 wake ups. This wouldn't be a big deal if one of those wakeups wasn't for at least an hour. As a family we've committed to trying this for 4 weeks though hopefully we'll see some positive changes soon.

We'd tried almost everything else in the No Cry sleep solution, but those books were almost not helpful because very little of it worked for our baby and I just spend months getting upset and frustrated. This seems to be what she needs to get to sleep.

[YayJennie]

For my son, a schedule was absolutely necessary for his well being. I think around 5 months is when we really fell into a solid nap/eating/outing schedule, and at that point he was taking 3 naps a day. I followed his lead, but started paying very close attention to when he showed sleepy signs and would put him down for a nap as soon as I noticed he was tired. At that age, he would fall back asleep within 1-2 hours of first waking, then take another nap 2-3 hours after he woke, and another 3 or so hours after he awoke from his second nap. This meant I had to really be careful and couldn't just leave the house whenever, because he needed to be home to take a good nap. He was never a fall asleep in the car seat kind of baby. So I made sure our outings were quick at that age and always had him home, well fed, and comfy by the time he was ready for sleep.

But it's also relevant to mention that I held my son for every.single.nap from 4 months to 11 months. Around 4 months he stopped sleeping on his own, and if I put him down for a nap, he would wake within 30 minutes and be super cranky/fussy and overtired, then not nap well the next time. The only thing I found that worked (and I tried EVERYTHING) was holding him for his entire nap. I would get comfy in my recliner with a book and some crochet and my computer, and settle in for his nap time, or nap with him. It worked for me, and I credit the fact that I held him for all those naps as to why he's such a good sleeper now (he started STTN for 11-12 hours at 13 months and still goes down for 2 naps a day, very easily, without much assistance from me anymore). At least I think that's partly the reason he's such a good sleeper! And I know a lot of toddlers who never had good nap schedules and are now really, really difficult to put down for naps. I'm a huge advocate of instigating a flexible, baby-led schedule, and really think it helped my son

[YayJennie]

Originally Posted by newmamalizzy

I really like this idea in theory, but DD is a major micronapper and will only stay asleep longer than 40 minutes if she's at the absolute pinnacle of crazy baby exhaustion when she goes down. She really needs 4 of her short naps in a day but often doesn't have time to get to them all, since she fights sleep for so long. But then sometimes she throws me a curveball and falls asleep an hour after waking up... Maybe I should try setting nap times that stretch her limits of awake time so I can exhaust her into taking two long naps? She gets so upset when she's that tired, though...

Just my opinion, but I don't think this is a good idea. Waiting until a baby is overtired to put them down for a nap generally leads to less fitful sleep, a shorter nap, and a crankier baby. At 5 months, she's probably ready for her first nap within an hour or so of waking, so try that to start with. If her first nap is solid, then the rest of the day will be easier to fall into place. I remember being kind of like "why does my babe need to go back to sleep already, he just woke up!", but I read that the first nap at that age is generally an extension of night time sleep and really important that they go down shortly after waking. Try scheduling that nap for about an hour after she wakes each morning and see where that leads you.

[LadyCatherine185]

Originally Posted by YayJennie

But it's also relevant to mention that I held my son for every.single.nap from 4 months to 11 months. Around 4 months he stopped sleeping on his own, and if I put him down for a nap, he would wake within 30 minutes and be super cranky/fussy and overtired, then not nap well the next time. The only thing I found that worked (and I tried EVERYTHING) was holding him for his entire nap. I would get comfy in my recliner with a book and some crochet and my computer, and settle in for his nap time, or nap with him. It worked for me, and I credit the fact that I held him for all those naps as to why he's such a good sleeper now (he started STTN for 11-12 hours at 13 months and still goes down for 2 naps a day, very easily, without much assistance from me anymore). At least I think that's partly the reason he's such a good sleeper! And I know a lot of toddlers who never had good nap schedules and are now really, really difficult to put down for naps. I'm a huge advocate of instigating a flexible, baby-led schedule, and really think it helped my son

I had to hold Liam for every nap until he was ~4-5 months old, and then I had to lay down and nap with him until he was about 18 months old.. and that didn't help him become a good sleeper.. He is FINALLY a decent sleeper now at age 2 (sleeps 9 hours straight at night, and takes a 1.5 hour nap every afternoon) but that took me nightweaning and moving him to his own bed. Before that, he would wake every 1-2 hours all night long....

But, I agree, if your baby falls into a schedule on their own the way Wyatt did, definitely take advantage and follow that schedule!

[mum5]

didn't read all responses, but did glance briefly and noticed that a few of you were mentioning that your baby wakes about 45 mins into the nap. I think that they come into a light phase of the sleep cycle during this time and they wake themselves if they have not yet learnt how to soothe themselves back to sleep, and especially if they are over tired.

I got some good advice on sleep cues and rhythms in the "sleep lady"book and it helped me to figure out how to help ds to get to sleep.

[redvlagrl]

I've had both my kids on some sort of routine and it works really well for us.

Bedtime is set in stone at 7pm. That means upstairs at 6.40 (when there was one kid) for bath, diaper, nurse, bed. We were totally rigid about this for about 18 months and only disrupted it a few times and it was really good. We have a kid who sleeps 12 hours through the night and goes down without fuss and we don't have to parent her to sleep and haven't had to since she was about 2 mths old.

DS who is now 4.5 mths has recently started napping for longer. i find he goes in a 2 hour pattern - 2 hours up then a 2 hour nap. 2 naps per day and then a longer stretch of being awake before bed at 7pm.

I do my best to try and keep DS's routine set for now (I will disrupt the morning nap once or twice a week at most) because I want to really "program" him to sleep well. I know that sounds bad, but I think sleep is really important for development as well as everyone's sanity.

Both kids wake at about 7am for the day.