[terrainthailand]

So, we've been working on extending our naps around here. DD (4.5 months) usually naps for only 30 to 45 minutes at a time. I've been trying to extend the naps by catching her right when she stirs and comforting her back to sleep (w/ nursing, rocking, or slipping the paci in). I'm successful about 75% of the time. The thing is, when I am successful it interrupts our ECing (she goes in the diaper (probably during the time that I am soothing her back to sleep) and when I am not successful, I wonder if it is because she has to potty. I'm really afraid that taking the time to potty her before I put her back down will wake her up too much to get her back to sleep. And even if I can get her back to sleep, part of the idea of "working" so hard on this, was that she might get the idea that nap time lasts longer than 30 minutes. I am worried if we have a big interruption the message won't be clear. I don't want her to be uncomfortable - but the 30 minute naps don't work too well for us either.

Just wanted to see if anyone has gone through something similar and how they handled it. Is it just something she has to outgrow? TIA.

 

[LCBMAX]

I was just reflecting today how much our naps have changed. After working from 4-6 months, and I really mean WORKING, so hard on trying to get my son to nap by himself for more than 30 minutes, I gave up entirely, and just lay down with him and lo and behold, no more working. By month 7 he evolved a nap schedule of one hour 3 times a day. The first one was in the stroller for my morning walk, the second one was on my back or in bed and same for the third. It did become obvious that he could not start a nap if he needed to poop, but once asleep, no interventions from me could help except nurse/sleeping at his side. No amount of no-cry sleep solutioning, or ec awareness, or ANYTHING would make this boy nap longer except time. Today he slept for 1 hour in the morning, and 2 in the afternoon, and a good bit of both was without me. I am convinced that his daytime sleep chemistry is just growing on its own schedule, as opposed to my schedule for when I want to get things done. Giving up the work of trying to change this was revolutionary for me.

Of course your baby may be much more amenable to your hard work, but if not, try that crazy thing of just not working.

 

[mojobot2000]

I have EXACTLY the same thing going on with my 3-month old. You could set a timer by her naps. Used to be 45 minutes, now much more likely to be 30. I tried extending the naps using the same method you describe, and like you, it worked about 75% of the time, and, like you, it totally screwed with our EC-ing. (Which we follow rather loosely anyway...but she can't sleep in a wet diaper.)

Like the poster above, I've decided to just let me daughter nap for as long as she wants to. This ends up being 5-6 catnaps a day, which is definitely a pain as far as getting things done, especially since I do like to put her down for naps instead of wearing her all the time, for sleep-association reasons. Works great for EC, thought, because she always wakes up dry and ready to go. (Yes, I've wondered whether somehow EC has trained her to take short naps. No way to tell, except when she was littler she did take longer naps, and EC worked then, too.)

The trade-off, for me, is that she tends to be anywhere from a pretty good to an EXTRAORDINARILY good sleeper at night. For whatever reason, at 7 PM each evening something "clicks" in her that says, "Okay, now it's time for SLEEP," and she goes down for 4-5 hours -- sometimes even longer -- once, an actually alarming TEN HOUR STRETCH. So I figure she's getting what she needs, how she needs it, and I'm hoping that she'll mature into fewer, longer naps in her own time.

EC at night is a different matter. For a while, I was letting her pee in her diaper to her heart's content, and taking her to poo if she woke up anytime after 3 AM (she'd usually stay pretty asleep for this, which was adorable, watching her little head nod over her potty as she pooped), but she gradually stopped pooping at night and now only goes first thing in the morning at around 7 AM, so I don't do night time EC at all. She sleeps swaddled, and it's hard to unswaddle her without waking her way up, and our sleep is just too precious to us.

 

[EdnaMarie]

Honestly, their pees will eventually get further apart anyway, so if you really need her to sleep longer, don't worry about it. Just take her when she wakes up. Unless you really wanted a totally dry child at 6 - 8 months, it won't matter. By the time she is in range of the earliest independence (a year or 18 months), her body will have spread those pees out.

I always have the following hierarchy in my head for physical baby care:
-Eating
-Sleeping
-Eliminating

IN THAT ORDER. Never sacrifice sleep for a "catch". I mean, if the pee wakes the child up, then you have to pee the baby before sleeping anyway, and that's different. But if it doesn't, no worries.

 

[InMediasRes]

Could you put her down nakey butt on a cloth diaper and then just change the cloth after she pees? We're having the same problem, so let me know if this works well for you too!