Waking up from naps crying?

[mamatoemily]

Recently my 4 mth old DD has started waking up from naps in my arms crying. It takes me a couple mins to calm her down again.  Does anyone know why this happens?  It's not like she is waking up alone because she is right in my arms....maybe she is too hot...or isn't done sleeping yet??? It makes me so sad when it happens because I am right there with her :(

[Monarchgrrl]

MY DD does this and has since she was 1 week old. But she's not awake. Her eyes are still closed. Are you sure your DD is actually awake? We can't calm ours down except by putting her back to sleep all the way by patting her butt in our arms. Before we realized she was still asleep we would get her up, try to feed her etc, as if she was awake and that would make it much worse. She would be cranky and in a bad mood until her next nap. Once we put her back to sleep and she would sleep more then she'd wake up smiling and happy like usual. So, I  think she does this when her body is fighting to keep sleeping and is losing.

[mamatoemily]

I think you're right...her eyes are still closed and only open as her cries get harder.  Just after I wrote this post it happened again and this time I put her to the breast and she went right back to sleep and is STILL sleeping...

[Knitting Mama]

My girl does this when she has gas. And she was really gassy until about 5 months old.

[the janet]

My boy does this sometimes. In his case, I think it's reflux-/gas-related b/c he often squirms in discomfort if I put him down w/o burping first (if he falls asleep while nursing). It's rare but it definitely sounds like a pained cry and not so much a cry of hunger.

[tzs]

like a pp, mine used to do that around the same age when she "woke up" too early. if i could get to her in time i coudl put her back to sleep for another cycle and she'd wake up happy and chatty

[SeattleRain]

When babies go through transitions in sleep cycles, they often cry out for a minute or two but they're really asleep. My son does this about twice a night. For a week I would hear him cry and go downstairs to his room only to find that by the time my hand got to his doorknob, he'd already stopped crying. After a while, I just stopped getting out of bed, lol. So this is a possible explanation. The other explanation, is that around 4 months I found that naps were interupted by what "Babywise" (otherwise known as the worst baby book on the planet, but I read it when I was pregnant and not thinking of being AP and the term stuck with me) calls the "45 minute intruder." As the name suggests, the 45 minute intruder is crying at around the 45 minute mark into an otherwise good nap. For what it's worth, Babywise says that this is often caused by hunger so their advice is to feed them and help them back to sleep in order to get a longer, more restorative nap.The reason wy this ahppens at around 45 minutes is because the infant sleep cycle is only around 40 minutes long, so basically they hit the lowest part of their sleep cycle and then realize they're hungry and call out for food. I found everything the Babywise book said to be a pile of BS, except for this one tip. There were definitely times when my baby fell asleep and then woke up 45 minutes in, ate, and then went back to sleep.

[rachael07]

My 7mo DS has done this since he was about 2 months old. He always, always, always cries when he wakes up. He just has a tough time with the transition and then he's fine. He also cries at night (we co sleep), and I think he's not actually awake when he does that... just thrashes around in a lighter form of sleep