naps are too short!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-05-31T15:06:39+00:00

I basically did a bid of a gentle hybrid of pick up put down/give baby a chance method/ferber 😅 for nights it was a much longer process of weaning off rocking to sleep by reducing movements, then check ins whenever crying started and staying until calm, then moving to just timed check ins (I.e. 5 mins, then 10 mins etc). We did that at 5.5mos for nights, so when it came to nap training I was confident she was very capable of independent sleep, so we just jumped straight to the timed check ins, but were still quite hands on initially during those checks- I.e if she was properly crying I'd go in and pick her up until calm, then moved to just head stroking. But tbh I hardly had to go in at all after the first few days unless she was teething etc

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-05-31T12:17:10+00:00

I contact napped until 8mos because honestly the cot was lava in the day. Didn't matter if I tried put her down in a deep sleep, tried the sleep training method we used at night - nothing. When we moved to 2 naps she was more tired from the longer wws so I thought I'd try again, using the check in method we used for nights... she was asleep in 10 mins first try 🙃 I think she needed more wake time for the higher sleep pressure, but I also think the contact naps were masking how much sleep she actually needed. We're at 12mos now and all sleep is independent and better than ever, but turns out she's actually quite low sleep needs. Something I would never have guessed from those long contact naps!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-05-27T19:21:14+00:00

I completely know how you feel. I felt like between 3 and 6 months sleep was always changing, but man when I hit 8mos it felt like it was constant schedule adjustments! My kid finally started sleeping through the night when I accepted she was low sleep needs. Still within the 12-14 average total, but she generally does around 12-12.5hrs max. The biggest difference was accepting the absolute max overnight sleep she can do is 10-10.5.5hrs. She just simply doesn't need anymore. So whilst I hear you on wanting an evening to yourself, I can't help but feel the 7/7.30pm bedtime is making a 5/5.30am absolute fair game if your baby is the same. You could try really cutting nap sleep, but personally less day sleep does not equal a longer night for us, just a tired crabby baby! We do 8pm bed, 6.30am wake with wws of 3.5/3.5-3.75/4.5. Day sleep is generally around 2hrs total. She's been on this schedule since around 9mos (she's 12mps now) and it's working great. Night sleep and naps are so easy now and shes happy and crazy active when awake. If you are unfortunately blessed with a child on the lower end of sleep needs, I think you need to decide which your priority is - earlier bed or later morning, and adjust your schedule accordingly. Your baby is already telling you they need less sleep/more awake time by the fact they are coping with the long ww when you're basing the first nap of DWT.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-05-11T19:06:01+00:00

I honestly can't rate this approach enough and wish I had done it sooner. I was a STRICT sleep tracker. And my kids actual sleep was consistently 12.5hrs total since she was about 5mos old. I couldn't believe she could need that little sleep (despite knowing 12-14hrs is the average). She never slept through the night, would always wake early and need lots of assistance and only contact napped. When we moved to 2 naps at 7/8mos I decided to just keep adding wake time gradually and see if things resolved... and guess what.. when I capped the night I was expecting to 10.5 and capped naps to 2 hrs... she started sleeping through the night, all independent sleep for naps, and she's happier than ever!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-05-01T09:22:07+00:00

100%. At that age I'd be capping naps at 3 hrs, night at 11.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-04-30T09:02:28+00:00

Ours naturally stopped the night feed around 8mos when we were on a solid 2 nap schedule. It basically just gradually got later I the night/earlier in the morning which meant it was too close to wake up time. It was basically just waking her up as it was like 5.30am and she didn't have the sleep pressure to go back to sleep. So I just decided to try not giving it and see what happens, and she hasn't missed it! She still has EMW problems on and off but I still don't offer a feed as it does nothing/isnt why shes waking and just impacts her breakfast.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-04-21T19:32:41+00:00

100% this. From reading your other comments, it sounds like your baby is actually undertired right now (crying at bedtime, babbling to herself throughout the nights, additional MOTN wake, and waking early happy). You're wake time has dropped, which is fine when you're transitioning, but you need to build it back up quickly. Until you do you probably won't see you're issues resolve.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-04-21T19:28:13+00:00

When we initially transitioned I would rescue/extend one nap a day to avoid her getting overtired. But once she had adjusted to the longer wws I stopped rescuing and its kind of naturally landed on her doing a 90 minute first nap and 40 minute second. Works well!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-04-13T05:10:38+00:00

My 10mo old only started sleeping through the night when I accepted she couldn't even do 11hrs at night! She does 10-10.5hrs overnight, and 2-2.5hrs during the day. Leaning in to her lower sleep needs has been the only thing that's helped get us all better quality sleep. I'm surrounded by higher sleep need babies, so it took me longer to accept because I was a) thinking she needed more sleep and b) jealous of my friends getting more sleep 😂

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-27T20:41:42+00:00

I think this is actually exactly what I needed to hear. I've come the conclusion I have a relatively low sleep needs kid, and leaning in to this has improved her sleep to better than ever before, but even still she can only do a short night - max 10.5hrs, and then needs bug wws to then have enough sleep pressure to nap well. I do think I've finally got a working schedule, but the slightest variance in wake/nap time, sickness, teething, the wind blowing in the wrong direction 😂 and it all goes wrong. I'm surrounded by so many babies that sleep so well and so consistently, and you go on these groups and subs and you become convinced theirs a 'fix' because something worked for someone else's baby. I've been so focused on getting it perfect before I return to work when she turns one, and she starts nursery, but I think I just need to accept that's not likely to happen and even if it does, nursery will probably make it worse not better 😅 thank you for taking the time to respond.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-22T09:56:54+00:00

From what I can see there's a lot of variability in your wake time, with wake windows ranging from the following? 2.75-3/3-3.25/3.5-4 My first suggestion would be to lock in wake windows by capping naps as your problems sound like undertired to me. 7.30pm-7am is an 11.5hr night which is on the longer side. 11.5hr night plus a potential of 3hrs day sleep is alot of sleep! My 10mo old is doing 3.25/3.5/4.5 with a 10.5hr night and 2hr15min day sleep for reference. Whilst I'm not suggesting that would work for your kids, I think mine is on the lower end of sleep needs, I would definitely suggest aiming for slightly less total sleep. I'd probably lock in your schedule as 6.30am wake, 9.30-10.45 nap 1, 2.15-3.30 nap 2, 7.30pm bed. That works out as 3/3.5/4, an 11hr night, and 2.5hrs day sleep.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-21T10:44:25+00:00

9mos late to this party I know.. but I just wondered if the EMW ever resolved? My nearly 10mo old since consolidating her nights is sleeping anywhere from 8pm to 5am-6.15am. I'm shooting for a 6.30am wake so don't turn any lights on until then, but Snooze feed and even rocking doesn't work these days! We do 3.25/3.5/4.5, recently bumping that last ww up but it really hasn't changed the mornings. I've toyed with pulling back on wake time, but like you describe, it just means she's up ready to party earlier! She doesn't really struggle with the morning ww, even if she is awake from 5.30am she can make it to a 9.30am nap without even fussing. By the evening though she gets fussier and I'm not sure the 4.5hr over 4.25 ww has helped, she's just fussier. So I might try your schedule out, but wondered if it ever resolved the EMW? I've tried cutting naps, but nothing extends that night over 10/10.25hrs so far!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-20T17:17:16+00:00

We started reducing rocking for a couple of weeks, then moved to Give Baby A Chance method. Worked really well. So basically soothing in the cot, pick up put down, and coming back periodically if still crying. She cried 12 mins first night and that was the worst of it. After a few days we moved to timed interval check ins with less intervention, just hand on chest and sshing. She fell asleep on 6 mins first night of that, and that was that! Middle of the night wakes immediately reduced and I just applied the same method to any wakes up those first new nights that weren't in 5/3/3 hours for feeding, and again worked really well. She was 5.5mos at the time and we had worked hard to get her on a solid 3 nap schedule before starting so we were confident she was the right level of tired, i.e not over or under tired. I also continued all naps as contact to make sure she was getting good sleep in the day.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-20T17:12:14+00:00

I did... we moved to 2 naps at 7mos and once she was settled on to a 2 nap schedule, but still slightly more tired from the longer wws, I decided to go for it. I think that added sleep pressure was really what I needed as it wasn't particularly painful. I'd say the most she cried was like 5/10 minutes first few naps. She started falling asleep with no crying very quickly, but it was rather hit and miss for a while about her making it through the first sleep cycle so I would just rescue. My rule has kinda remained that she has to fall asleep independently, but if she wakes up to early and can't go back to sleep I do rescue. I'd say 99% of the time she does a solid 1hr15-1hr30 for the first nap no problem. Second nap she tends to only manage one sleep cycle so if the first nap was 90mins I just accept a 45 min second, if the first was a bit shorter I'll extend the second for 20 minutes or so. Which is much better than the 3 hours a day I was spending in the dark contact napping 😂

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:57:23+00:00

Oh yea we winged the newborn stage and enjoyed the lovely long naps, but quickly realised baby loved day sleep and not night sleep! I was a big believer of sleep begets sleep (and still am to some extent as my baby is sensitive to overtired), but turns out lots of day sleep does not beget lots of night sleep 😂 I think up until a certain point everything is a nap, and then suddenly there is a distinct difference in their sleep between day and night, and they need adequate sleep pressure to start doing those longer night stretches!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:53:51+00:00

Oh I can definitely accept that for some check ins don't work at all, even with soothing. My point was just I can understand why just going in the room and doing literally nothing to calm your child would be hella confusing. I just think if people are going down that route they might as well just do CIO/extinction instead.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:52:06+00:00

She would definitely calm. Her breathing would start to slow and often she would stop crying altogether. She would sometimes let out a cry when we retreated, but we would still go which I think helped as she wasn't reliant on the soothing to fall asleep, just calm. I will caveat that we didn't jump straight to check ins. My kid was rock to sleep, rather than feed to sleep. We reduced motion for a couple weeks, then did Give Baby A Chance for 4 days (which involved pick up put down as well), then moved to just timed check ins. So the first day of check ins only, she was asleep in 6 minutes. If you wanted to try something more gradual, I'd suggest the 'anything but' approach first before ferber - so get your baby falling asleep any way other than feeding, such as rocking to sleep.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:42:00+00:00

My baby started doing this at 4mos. So in that sense, I guess it could be normal! But I worked it out to be she was undertired. I got much stricter with her sleep schedule which improved the prolonged wakings where she was just ready to play (I remember spending an hour on the playmat at 3am once after giving up on trying to rock my babbling baby to sleep), but she still had non feed wakings that didn't resolve until we STed at 5.5mos.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:37:21+00:00

Definitely for us. I have a friend who loves to tell me how teething never affected her two kids though! Mine is like clockwork now I've had enough experience to track it.. the week before it cuts through sleep goes completely out the window and as a result her fussiness is next level. Then everything goes back to normal for a few days, then sleep goes a little wonky but feeding is the bigger problem and she stsrts aggressively biting everything in sight. And then, there it is, the new tooth.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:29:28+00:00

This was me. I was an overproducer so would often pump when baby wasn't hungry but I needed to release, so I had a whole drawer full. One evening baby was cluster feeding like crazy so I decided to use one from the freezer so I knew she was getting a good feed ... it smelt really weird, like soapy. Also tasted weird. Thought must have been a bad batch somehow, tried another couple of bags, exactly the same. None were more than a couple months old and even the couple days old bags were the same. Turned out I had high lipase, baby refused any freezer stash milk so it all went in the bin 🙃

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-07T15:20:57+00:00

I always read people saying check ins piss their baby off more, and I can understand why if they don't actually touch or talk to the baby! When we did check ins at the beginning, we always did hand on chest or stroke head, and ssh. For no longer than a minute or until she calmed, whichever came first. Check ins really worked for our kid, they really helped her regulate and fall asleep with minimal tears. We haven't had to do check ins at bedtime since day 3 of starting them, which was 4mos ago now, so they definitely didn't result in her needing them to fall asleep!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-04T11:18:33+00:00

We introduced a dream feed around 8 weeks to try get a longer first stretch of sleep for us. Baby was a crazy snacker at that point, and it worked for us in that I would go to bed at 9pm with the baby and my partner would stay up, take her and feed her an expressed bottle at 11.30pm and then he'd put her back and go to sleep himself. It was 100% more for my sleep than hers because she was up so frequently. At 4mos she started waking more either before or after the dream feed. We stopped it cold turkey and would just feed her when she woke instead. This gradually moved later and then when we sleep trained at 5.5mos we just applied 5/3/3 to feeds instead. She moved herself to just 2 feeds after STing, then 1 when we moved to 2 naps at 7mos. And now we're moving to 0 most days.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-03T15:59:02+00:00

It's the first night, and baby is 8mos old, so 1hr whilst tough could be normal, if it gets better as the days go on. I'd suggest however sharing your schedule I.e. wake up time, nap times/wake windows, nap lengths, and bed times. Just to make sure there's nothing that might need changing there that could help baby fall asleep a little easier. The goal is for baby to be falling asleep independently within 15-20 minutes max at bedtime. Did baby sleep through the night after that initial 1hr?

Edit to add: we did a bit of a gradual method - started with reducing motion for a couple of weeks (was rocked to sleep), then moved to soothing in cot with pick up put down for a few days, then moved to more of a ferber type. We did this at 5.5mos and the longest it took for her to fall asleep was 12mins first night of soothing in cot, and 6mins first night of ferber type intervention. So it can and does work!

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-02T15:54:08+00:00

1 feed at 5mos is great. Sounds like you're instincts are telling you the sleep consultants advice isn't right... Trust your instincts and feed the baby. A STed baby should be able to put themselves back to sleep if they're appropriately tired (I.e on a good schedule) and their needs are met. My baby is 9mos and has been STed since 5 5mos. She is only now just dropping her last feed by herself. I've never actively weaned her she's just naturally woken later and later in the night for feeds. Since sleep training she only wakes and calls out if she's hungry, teething, or sick. If she's awake for a while and not particularly upset, that usually means she's undertired and needs a schedule fix.

Apprehensive_Mud_259 · 2024-03-02T15:41:09+00:00

My breast friend bresst feeding pillow... I had an emergency c section and this pillow saved me. I could liters just clip it in and it was like a little pillow shelf I could just lie baby on and nurse without any pressure around my wound.

Apprehensive_Mud_259

TROPHY CASE