difficulty w day naps

jayden1234522

New member
Hi everyone! Lately my 2 (n about 1 week) month old daughter has been having a lot of trouble sleeping during the day. I’m talking like 13 minute / 20 minute increments… lucky to get a 40 minute nap out of her. She goes to work with me, but I’m a caregiver for a family member, so I’m able to give her all the attention she needs. She eats on demand and is EBF (we’re trying our hardest to get her to take a bottle, but it’s slow going).

I’m thinking it’s due to having to get her up and feed her before we leave. Usually, I’m feeding her at about 10a, we get ready and such, and we leave at 11:30a. She hardly ever falls asleep before we leave, and I think this is where the trouble begins. I’m thinking that waking her up at 10a, not getting to work until 12p, and not being able to get her to sleep until 12:30p or later is the issue.

I guess my question is, can this extra long wake window be mucking things up this bad? She sleeps really well at night! Usually her first evening nap is 2-4 hours. We get home around 5p/6p, and she’s asleep by 7p/8p (sometimes 9p, but I’d consider that a bad day). Then she’ll wake up around 10p-1a depending on when she ended up falling sleep. Her second “night” nap (is what I call it because it starts late & goes into early morning) will last 5-7 hours, starting around 12a-2a.

I’m thinking I should wake her up earlier(maybe around 9a? or would earlier than 9a be better?), so she can get another (shorter) nap in before getting her ready to leave. I feel like I’ll need to feed her at least 20 or so minutes to tide her over, and then I was thinking I’d finish feeding her at work and get her down for her nap ASAP. Does this seem doable? I think the best option is for her wake window to be that quick 30 minutes getting ready, 30 minute drive (this is the longest our drive there ever takes), and another 30 minutes getting her fed and to sleep (this seems a bit ambitious though).

Another question, do I need to try being more rigid with her sleep schedule/being too flexible? I need to at least get her up at a semi-consistent time mon-fri, so we can get to work on time. I know I’m supposed to be paying attention to wake windows and sleep cues which I very much try to do. It’s just in the morning before we leave that always seems to go awry.

Also, I’d like to add that she doesn’t really have this issue on the weekends. We haven’t gone over 90 minutes awake all day, and every nap has been over 2 hours.

Sorry this is a lot to read through!! I’d appreciate tips if anyone has them/even help with making a sleep schedule of sorts. Thank you so, so much in advance!
 
@jayden1234522 It is very hard to follow what your schedule actually is. At 2 months, if your baby has been awake for 90 minutes, I would offer them a nap in the dark with a white noise machine if possible.
 
@trivalee yes, i do this lol. it’s at the bottom kinda. my real difficulty is that i’m working & have BEEN back at work since she was 2 weeks old…. it’s hard keeping her first wake window to 90 minutes, and i feel like that throws off the rest of her day naps. when we’re back home for her evening nap, she usually goes down just fine and sleeps a good 2-4 hours. anyhoot, thanks for your input.
 
@trivalee That’s not what I meant. I try to not go over 90 minutes, not keep her awake for 90 minutes exactly. Sorry, I should’ve said something like “It’s hard keeping her first wake window of the day under 90 minutes” instead of using “to 90 minutes”.
 
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