Frustrated AND TIRED

I

irefusetofail

New member
How do I “extend” an independent nap? To atleast an 60-90 mins. As of right now my 22 week old
Wakes up @ 7-7:30AM

First nap- 9-9:30 AM
Which I rock her to sleep and then I HAVE to hold her bc she wakes up within 20-25 mins (even in my arms) but is cranky within 45-60 mins if I don’t put her back to sleep until atleast 10:30.

basically holding her from 9:15ish until 10:30 and rocking back to sleep around 10

Second nap- 12:30
She stays asleep until roughly 1 but wakes up fussing w eyes closed. I rock back to sleep, and she will fuss on and off for about 30-40 mins but will stay asleep until roughly 2:30

again holding her the entire time

Third nap- 4:15ish
It’s a short nap, roughly until 4:45/5PM.

AGAIN holding her the whole f**ing time

Bath time is roughly 6:30, and then I lay next to her in my bed around 6:50 and breastfeed to sleep (she stays in my bed until I go to bed around 10-11 and then I dream feed and put in crib* often will wake for feeding around 3)

HOW TF DO I HELP OR FIX THIS NAP SITUATION I CREATED. I have a five year old so she is in school five days a week, but it’s just not ideal to do this on weekends when she is home!

H E L P.
Signed an overstimulated and touched out mom w a messy house!
 
@irefusetofail I could have written this post , but our girl is only 14 weeks, she’s been doing 30 min naps since 10 weeks before that all naps were on me. It can take me 30 mins to get her to sleep - rocking bouncing etc for a measly 30 mins then another 15/20 mins to get her back to sleep. She’s not great at night either - our house is upside down, have a 5 year old girl too who I feel awful for, she gets so little time now. Did you manage to solve the issue ? I’ve tried shorter ww but she always seems to eventually sleep at the 2hr mark. If I put her in crib awake she just cries, I pick her up, often fusses and squirms in my arm, I put her down as she’s not happy in my arms and then pick her up again when she cries this goes on till 2/2.5 hr ww is done .
Is pick up, put down sleep training ? Or just good practice ? She won’t nap in car or pram which is a pain as I’m trapped to house. Any advice ?
 
@irefusetofail How often do you feed them? Use to feed my twins every 3 hours and I was constantly trying to save naps. It was very exhausting. Specially since they wouldn’t nap on the same schedule. Once I had them eat every 3.5 to 4 hours, their naps also extended. Not every single time in a day, but at least one nap during the day will go for 1.5 to 2 hours.
 
@irefusetofail When you wake up, right away expose baby to sunlight and before bedtime again sunlight, if no sun, just to day time light. This helps regulate the circadian rhythms. If you can take a walk in the morning go for a walk and before bedtime go for a walk, this really helps! At 4-6 months I used to take few walks and have baby nap in the carrier if I had to or quick walk, bottle then nap. Your baby maybe undertired so they can't fully commit to naps but get overtired then cant sleep. Walks was a life saver to make sure all naps are happening so baby is tired enough but also not overtired from not having a good sleep. However, they maybe going through teething, rolling, regression but even then you can keep the schedule but be a little flexible as maybe you have a low sleep needs baby so you can extend the wake window just a little bit. During awake time lots of play time, interaction and etc. The serotonin that the brain releases really helps baby and when the parents are connected with the baby it helps baby to calm down and not fuss as much.
 
But keep in mind that perhaps until past 8 months sleep will be on and off and even then you dont know. Just relax and try to not get too frustrated about the naps and sleep. It will eventually come and will get a little easier, I just noticed that when im calm my baby is calm and when I try to go by schedule and get naps done then its just fussing and we both get so tired. Don't be afraid to veer off the schedule a little bit, every baby is different.
 
@irefusetofail I feel for you. I’m in the same boat with my baby, she will only contact nap and it’s for usually 30 minutes unless I rock back to sleep. Tried to sleep train, but I broke down and couldn’t. :( wish I could stick through, but I’m just hoping the naps with lengthen naturally.
 
@irefusetofail I put my baby in her carrier to extend and walk around a dark room with sound machine on. BuT Ive found that what works best is one long 2 hour contact nap a day, however u can swing it. Its the only thing that saves us as 4.5 months , and i know it won't be forever.
 
@irefusetofail Sounds very similar to schedule of my almost five month old. Put baby down ten minutes before the nap so she’s fully awake. She will fuss and whine and maybe cry for 15 min but eventually will learn to fall asleep. It takes time for baby to learn to fall asleep independently but it sounds like you are not giving the tools and space for her to learn. And for bed time I would just turn off the monitor. Bed time is the easiest of all the sleeps for baby to learn how to fall asleep and self settle because sleep pressure is the highest.
 
@irefusetofail You need to stop rocking your baby to sleep. It will be painful at first, but the baby cannot independently fall asleep if you rock them to sleep. You need to put baby in crib awake, at the same time every day. I would recommend the “Precious Little Sleep” book for specifics on how to untangle the setup you currently have.

It’s about doing the same thing - specific wake time, same nap times - every single day, and working slowly but consistently toward keeping baby in their crib. Good luck!
 
@walterburkhardt44 Precious Little Sleep has some ideas of what to do before 4 months. I used Fuss it Out with mine at 2.5 months and it was a game changer. Naps were still short because that's just common for the age (they don't generally get longer until some time around 6ish months without intervention of contact napping/rocking, etc.). Even with short naps though, it gave me so much more time back because I was no longer needing to rock bounce to sleep first, then holding for the nap, etc. I definitely recommend reading Precious Little Sleep and seeing what early intervention you can do to have a good set up for later 👍
 
@walterburkhardt44 Anything you do before 4 months of age may not stick - baby is so young. But putting a drowsy baby in their crib during daytime sleeping is just a good practice. But again, there is little consistency in sleep before 4 months!
 
@irefusetofail Apparently leaving baby with your partner is the answer. I was worried because my baby hadn’t developed a good, predictable nap schedule but is with my husband on my first week back and literally slept all day and only woke for feedings 😑
 
@hey_dude777 I do breastfeed, so that’s my only issue bc she does seem to pick and choose when she will take a bottle! She won’t even let her dad feed her for any feedings at night anymore.
 
@irefusetofail My 5 month old son is the exact same as your daughter. Even while contact napping he wakes up 30 minutes in and starts fussing so I have to re-rock him which can take 15 minutes. I'm hoping to start nap training soon (he's sleep trained for nights) but im worried it won't solve the sleep connecting issue.
 
@godsfisherman84 Just as a warning, my first was exactly the same. All naps were 28 minutes. We sleep trained for naps (everyone told me this was why she wasn't connecting cycles) and it didn't help. She would go down completely awake, fall asleep completely independently, and still wake up after 28 minutes. She finally learned to connect her sleep cycles at around 8-9 months. Nothing I did...she just suddenly starting having 2x1.5 hour naps. I hope it helps for you, but just wanted to make sure you're not putting all your hope into the nap training helping.

I used to feed back to sleep and hold for 1 nap a day so she always got one good one (naybe a total of about 2 hours sleep). And the others would just be short naps unfortunately.
 
@godsfisherman84 Same… and now at 6 months. Will still wake up after 30 min and unfortunately I have to bounce on the yoga ball to get her back to sleep. I wish she would just let me rock her. At least I would have back support!
 
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