How do I get her to sleep longer than 20minutes?

[cosmic]

Hi all,

I have just started working on getting Annabelle to have her daytime naps in her snugglebed (up to now she has slept on me in a hugabub and loves it).

I am up to day 3 (yay) and at this stage can get her to go into her bed awake, but very tired and she goes off to sleep on her own or with some patting etc. But at the 20 minute mark she wakes (without fail) and I am having a lot of trouble settling her back to sleep again.

I am very famililar with baby's sleep cycles and know that this is when she has her brief awakening - I am just at a loss to know how to get her through it into the next sleep stage and was wondering if you might have any tips you have used successfully.

thanks! :thumbsup:

[Mischief]

:hugs: Hugs to you Cosmic! Its soo hard isnt it!

Are you making sure nothing has changed? If you are moving around she might be thinking "where am I? This wasnt what the world looked like when I went to sleep"....

[tickle]

C: I've found that Amelia will sleep in her cot during the day for longer now that I have taken out the snuggle bed. You've probably tried it already though. Amelia will never fall asleep on her own, which I'm ok with for now. Come to think of it Oliver doesn't either.:laughing:

[cosmic]

Kat, yeah I make sure I put her down while she's still a little bit awake so she knows where she is. I find that works fine at night when she goes to bed but I'm not having the same success during the day!

HL, do you mean you take out the snugglebed and put Milly in the cot? Because I have taken out the snugglebed and put it on our bed and have been putting her in the snuggle bed there. Mainly because she was opening her eyes and crying as soon as she felt me lowering her into the cot, cheeky monkey.

Up to now I have been staying with her and when she stirs at the 20minute mark I try patting her back to sleep (again, that works at night) but no go. I even pick her up to try to get her back to sleep as quickly as possible but she just wakes up even more and screams the place down until I bring her out to the loungeroom.

I'm pretty sure she needs more than 20minutes sleep at a time! But mind you, right now she is very contentedly playing in her playgym so maybe she doesn't. :rolleyes:

[Megs85Kai06]

hey cosmic i have the same prob with my 3 month old son. the paed told me that 15% of babies will only cat nap throughout the day but sleep well at night. i've been to a sleep clinic and all, and tried every resettling technique ever invented and i'm still at a loss... How old is bub?

[Frazzled]

Hey Cosmic, it is very hard I know. Elliot was exactly the same - he was sleeping for around three hours a go until about 8 weeks and then went through this stage of only sleeping for 20 minutes a go till he was about four/five months old. No matter what I did, as soon as I resettled him - he would wake withing another five or ten minutes! Since then he has not been big on day sleeps - unless he is unwell or super tired - he will only sleep for fourty minutes at the most but even now at 8.5 months will regularly have short cat naps. Don't try and worry too much as it could be a stage? Unless you are prepared to do the crying thing (which i am sure you aren't) there is probably nothing you can do other than what you are doing.

You know what they are like - once you get used to them having one routine - they throw you out by changing it completely!

Good luck sweet xxx

[cosmic]

Thanks Megs and Kate - sorry I just saw your replies! Megs, Annabelle is 3mths old. :) And she goes into her cot just fine at night and sleeps really well. She is still waking to be fed a few times, but goes straight back to sleep after (I bring her into bed with me) so I'm not complaining about that at all (mind you, I don't much care for her 6am starts in winter :rolleyes: ).

I'm glad to hear I don't have the only cat-napper around. The thing is I have been used to her having such long sleeps in the hugabub (mind you, her sleeps were getting shorter lately) that I was a bit concerned she's not getting anywhere near enough sleep. I guess time will tell if she eventually adjusts to sleeping on her own and so starts to sleep a little longer.

Today I was able to resettle her (once) so she had 40 minutes, but the rest of her naps were all 20 minutes long. Then she gets up and is awake for a good 2 hours and today she was actually pretty happy and smiley most of the day so maybe she's fine with catnapping! I think I will keep trying but stress a bit less about it.

Kate, I'm already experiencing enough guilt just for putting her into a cot and not letting her sleep on me anymore, let alone leaving her to cry!! :laughing:

[cosmic]

oh, and the thread title is "How DO I get her to sleep..." so maybe a nice mod can edit that for me so I don't look illiterate? :D

[Pixie]

ahh dear :) :hugs:
It gets better and easier and then they start teething and you remember

Those nights where you wined and dined and came home and went whoo I am exhusted all that chatter all that delish wine, the salmon the truffles, where you took those long candle lit baths and thought ahh I needed this.

and then you realise you weren't actually that tired or exhusted compared to breastfeeding for two hours, going to the toilet while breastfeeding (sorry yes I have done this) spent 2 hours settling the baby and just as you realise they are asleep the phone rings.

I love being a mother and I know we all do you're doing great Cosmic

[cosmic]

spent 2 hours settling the baby and just as you realise they are asleep the phone rings.

Or the bloody census woman knocks at the door and makes the dog bark! :banghead: :D

[draught]

Title edited as requested.:thumbsup:

C, if it is any consolation DD1 was a catnapper of the 45 minute variety until she was about 2 years old - then she began to have longer day time sleeps - until she dropped them completely! My theory is that if they wake happy it is hard to re-settle them. She used to wake laughing and giggling - pretty hard to re-settle a happy baby, so I would get her up until she showed tired signs again and off we would go. She slept so well at night that I figured it was all about swings and roundabouts. While it means that you only have 20 minutes to yourself to rest etc it is bearable if they aren't screaming when they wake.

[Jamily]

Hey Cosmic

Emily was the classic catnapper (in fact if you do a search you'll find posts on me asking the same question a year ago!). However, one thing that I found really made a difference was how light the room was. If it was pitch black she had a much better chance of re-settling. It didn't always work but I did notice an improvement when the room was dark. I also found that if she was well wrapped that also helped. Unfortunately I didn't find the magic formula that worked every time.

Her naps are now at least 45 mins which is still way less than some of the other bubs I know of her age, but she wakes up happy and refreshed so I've just learnt to accept she is not a great sleeper in the day and the good thing is that I get extra time to give her hugs and kisses :smiliedance: