5 month old sleep habits?

I feel like things are going haywire for my 5 mo daytime sleep patterns. They WERE taking 2 2hour naps and a 45 minute nap. NOW, things have changed. Their naps are shortening... I follow Healthy Sleep Habits Healthy Child and am following a routine rather than a schedule.

SO, now they take like 4 naps a day because they cannot stay awake any longer than 90 minutes at a time and they only nap for an hour... My DD SCREAMS whhen she wakes up so I pretty much go right to her. My DS will just lay there so I let him do it for a half hour or so hoping that he will go back to sleep. But he never does! HAHA They sleep exceptionally well at night (12-13 hrs straight) so I am NOT complaining. Just wondering if I am doing something wrong. Or does this sound right??

 

I'm finding the same thing with my 5 month olds- although only one of them is doing the short sleep. I almost wonder if it's time for solids b/c they just seem to want to eat when they get up and then again when they go down for a nap (and they eat a ton).

I also have found that I need to make sure they are extra warm for their naps. I bundle them up and put in sleep sacks for nighttime sleep and now I do the same for naps.

 

I am so incredibly jealous of your good sleepers..

My ladies are 5 months old and our sleeping is AWFUL night and day.

Daytime we get 2 decent naps.. about an hour to 90 minutes each and then they will take a couple cat naps in there of maybe 15-20 minutes. Usually it's something like:

7:30 wake up
9:30 cat nap
11:30 long nap
3pm: long nap
5pm: cat nap
7pm:bedtme

And then at night they'll sleep from 7 until about 1am get up, eat.. one of the girls will usually go back down immediately after eating but my social butterfly wants to party for a while (45 minutes or so) then they go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

 

My boys started this about 2 weeks ago. We have been working with them on napping and so has our nanny and today has been one of the first good napping days for both in quite a while. Hopefuuly they've had some kind of breakthrough. We could still get them down for short naps, but 3 30-minute naps were becoming typical and it was rare that they could be soothed back to sleep. By 6pm or so they were so overtired they'd start crying for no reason. We started putting them to bed at night 30-60 minutes earlier and that was helping too but I don't want to do that long-term. It means less time together when I get home from work and their usual bedtime is only 7:30. Fortunately my boys are still sleeping well at night.

Based on other threads here, I think it's really common at this age. If you figure it out please let us know!

 

early bedtime helps here too...all of a sudden! 6:30 is bedtime now

 

I'm a bit jealous, actually. Our guys never, ever napped that much, and they didn't sleep through the night until 9.5 months. I don't think you are doing anything wrong - they may just be reorganizing their sleep patterns. Any chance they are teething? That can REALLY mess things up. Our boys got their first tooth right about 6 months (Michael just before and Gabriel just after) and they were really fussy and slept even worse for the few weeks before the tooth came through.

 

Please don't be jealous. My first DD was a HORRIBLE sleeper so I have put in my time! LOL! I think they may be in the beginning stages of teething, but I don't feel anything under the surface of their gums. They were 9 weeks premature, so I really wasn't expecting them to pop a tooth until 7 or 8 months (another 2-3 months). They are drooling and have their fingers in their mouth ALL DAY LONG!

 

You might consider trying a dose of tylenol about 20-30 min. before their nap and see if that makes any difference. I don't like giving meds unless I feel like it's really needed, but in your case, I would at least try one dose and see what happens. My nephew got his first tooth at 4 months, as did a friend of mine's little boy, so it is possible they are working on them.

 

never occurred to me to give them some tylenol! DUH! I will try it tomorrow thank you ladies!