lately lilah has been in a phase of not wanting to nap. i am going nuts. i look forward to her naps, so i can take one too! yesterday she took about three catnaps for a 1/2 hour. some days she will take a 3 hour nap, but those days are few and far between. she's barely two months old..and i thought most young babies slept a lot more than this...
she does usually sleep decently at night. (not tonight, though!) last night she went to bed around 9:30, and woke up at 3:30 bright eyed and bushy-tailed. (normally it's 9ish for bed, waking up at 3:30 + 5:30, then up at 8ish for good)
Are you keeping her on a fairly regimented schedule? If you've changed her feeding patterns that might have an effect. Or it could be the heat wave that's killing off her comfort. The only other thought I have is the amount of stimulation she is getting before her usual naptimes.
Most babies keep up with naps until they are well into toddler-hood.
It's probably just a phase but at the same time try and keep her on a schedule. I find that my kids sleep better at night when they nap well during the day. I also find that predictable nap times = longer naps. It may also be that 6 week growth spurt, just hang in there and it should pass.
hmm, no we don't have a schedule. i usually try to look for cues (ie her yawns) to put her down for a nap. i've tried putting her in the swing to make naptime come sooner, but she usually cries, and i'm a softie.
i didn't think about the heat effecting her napping..we keep the a/c at about 70...but maybe i should try cooler.
i just nap-nursed her and she seems to be sleeping. i should add, she's fine about napping if i nap with her! (which is good sometimes, but some days i do need to clean)
Sometimes it's not you, it's just the baby, but there are things you can do to help. My son didn't start truly sleeping through the night (from sunset to sunrise) until he was around 13 or 14 months old and I was weaning him from breastfeeding. But meanwhile, I learned to keep him snugly wrapped in those first 6 months and I would either shush or sing him back to sleep while I rocked him in a figure eight pattern in my arms. Maybe try these techniques during the day to get her to nap? My advice is to make sure the tv is off, have some white noise going, let her nap with you and be careful not to allow naps to go over 1 1/2 hours during the day, the night waking seemed worse when he had slept a longer than normal nap the previous day.
My mother claimed that my two siblings and I never slept through the night until we were 18 months old. The poor woman! So my year of interrupted sleep with the baby could have been due to genes, I am still a very light sleeper.
-- Edited by dreal at 11:51, 2006-07-12
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