45min nap help

My dd over the past week has decided that 45min naps are all she wants to take. She goes to sleep with a bit of crying, then she starts screaming after 45 min of sleep, I have left her a few times until 1hour (as per hshhc), and she screamed for the entire 15min so hard, that it took me 10min to settle her down once I picked her up.
She is generally pretty happy lately, but does have big bags under her eyes.

Any ideas on how I can get her to sleep longer? I have tried putting her in the swing when she wakes up, but she still screams. Is this just a phase - I read about all of these other babies that take 2hr naps - my ds probably would sleep longer, but I wake him up at the same time as her to keep them on the same schedule (and he is pretty laid back so he just goes with it).

 

I am soooo jealous of your 45 minute napper!!! Mine barely go 30 minutes each nap. NO BREAK for me ever!!!!!!!!!!!
I look forward to hearing what advice others have for longer naps too
gooood luck!

 

For us it was a phase but even when they went to 2 hour naps they would regress every once in a while so even when you think you have it figured out they change.

 

My boys have always been 45 minute nappers.. In the beginning, I tried to fight it. After two solid weeks of agonizing over-- should I CIO, turn on white noise,..??? I finally resigned myself to IT. And once I did that, it's all been GREAT.

They have been 45 minute nappers since day one.. they are 8 months now and both of them still are.. I can actually, quite literally, set my watch by it. Never even 1 minute over 45..

I'm sooooo used to it now, it's just the way it is.. That is all they need. I figure they STTN (13 hours) so I cannot ask for too much for naps.

I have NO suggestions cuz I never was able to change it.. It just was.

Good luck!!

 

I think it's just a phase so just go with it and put them down for frequent naps. I imagine they should be sleeping at least 4 times a day at that rate. I'd consider letting your son sleep longer if the crying doesn't wake him as IMO 45 min isn't that restfull of a nap. Yes they'll be on different schedules for a while - but it's hard to maintain a rigid schedule at 4 months of age anyway.

 

I also followed HSHHC and one that would nap 30-45 min. I would go in and get her after that time if she is very upset. When I was going through this with my girls, I continued to put them down 3-4 times per day and left them in there for an hour if they weren't melting down. Keep consistent and it will fall into place.

We started a nap routine around 5 months and by 6 they were napping 3 times a day, 1 hour at a time. By 8 months they were doing 2 naps about 1.5-2 hours each.

 

Mine nap from 30 minutes to an hour each...I wish that they would nap longer and some days it's longer then that but most days not.

 

My girls didnt take 2hr naps until they were 6mo old! I had 30min nappers! It was insanity for months! Sometimes if I got it just right (maybe 1 out of every 20 naps!) they would sleep beyond the 30mins.

Maybe try putting her down earlier. I have heard mixed reviews about it possibly from being overtired. I never had any luck getting them past 30mins though.

Hope you have better luck than I did!!

 

I agree with pp's that it's a phase, my DS was/is the same way. For a long time he would always wake at the 45 minute mark and as a result was a 3 naps a day man until very recently. Even now he ALWAYS stirs at the 45 minute mark but 90% of the time he will go back to sleep within 10 minutes. I think all you can do is be consisent with your approach and he'll eventually catch on. It stinks though to have one long napper and one short napper b/c then you are chained to the house with someone always napping.

It does get better though, I promise!! Although I still get jealous when I hear of these 2 and 3 hour nappers, the longest we have ever gone is 1 hour and 42 minutes, usually I'm happy with two 1 hour naps a day!!

 

One of my guys was a reliable 45-minute napper the entire time they were taking 3 naps a day. I agonized about it and found CIO at the end of the nap useless. In fact, there's somewhere in HSHHC where Weissbluth says 45 minutes may be long enough. Anyway, I finally put them in separate cribs when I noticed that they were always waking each other up...that started to help. A few weeks later, we went to 2 naps a day and both naps got longer - we're at about 1 hr 15 in the am and 1 hr 30 to 2 hrs in the pm.

So I'm with PP who said life gets a lot easier when you just go with the flow. I would also not wake up the other baby consistently. Maybe sometimes if you need to get somewhere, but otherwise I would let your better sleeper sleep. Waking them up consistently will result in overtired babies who are even harder to deal with.

Have you tried nursing the first one back to sleep? That worked for me for a couple of months if I went in as soon as he started to peep...

 

I am ready On Becoming Babywise and the author talks about the "45 minute intruder" in sleep. I am too tired right now to remember what he said, but it might be worth reading. I will be using this approach (the Babywise) with the twins. I use HSHHC with my toddler and he is a great sleeper. I just need to be regimented this time around. Good luck!

 

My girls will sometimes take 2 hours naps and sometimes 20 minute naps. Some days I end up holding them to get them to take at least an hour nap because they get so fussy and I know they are exhausted but cannot seem to stay asleep unless I am holding them. I find it helpful to encourage naps at the same time everyday and keep things quiet and low key even if they wake up during that 2 hour period (sometimes they get so bored with me that they go back to sleep).

 

I didn't read the other replies so I'm sorry if I repeat what other posters have said...

I heard somewhere that 45 minutes is a natural time for us to wake up...something to do with our sleep cycles. Both of my boys will often do the same thing. For Ben, I always try to soothe him back to sleep, which for him means giving him his paci and rubbing his head. Most of the time it works, but sometimes it doesn't. I'll also try leaving him to "play" but don't bother CIO'ing at this stage since I don't find that it works at all.

For Daniel, I read his cues. Sometimes he's really happy so I let him get up. Other times he wakes up crying so I try soothing him back to sleep. For him that means putting him in the baby bjorn and walking and singing. If he falls back to sleep within 10 minutes then great. Otherwise, I let him get up.

At 4 months adjusted, my boys did this ALL the time. We separated them for naps and night times due to waking each other up. Now at just over 6 months adjusted, this still happens, but not near as often.