Controlled crying for naps

[HonorOaker]

Just wondered how it was going?

My baby is a little younger than yours (5 months) and sleeps from 7-7 with a dream feed at 10-11pm. He also settles for naps but was waking up after 45 mins. We were going in before he was waking and shushing which was mostly successful, and he would sleep for another 45-90mins. However, I am back at work soon and wanted to try and make him sleep longer unaided so that I am not worrying about his naps when he is being looked after by our nanny. He had also started waking up in the night and needed resettling (not feeding) and I thought that this may be helped by not needing settling during the day.

Anyway, I thought I would try CC and was encouraged by your post. IT took 4 days. First day he cried for about 45mins and resttled the same the 2nd day. 3rd day it was about 20 mins and 4th day about 10mins. He then slept for 2.5 hours for 5 days...until the last 2 days where he has awoken at 45 mins and not resettled.

Just wondered what yours and others experience was? Should I go back to the old technique or would you restart the CC again?

[KateW]

Hi HonorOaker,

My daughter is now 7 months and since we did CC she has always managed to sleep through her 35/40 min sleep cycle. I have to wake her from her morning nap and at lunchtime she sleeps 1.5-2 hours. She had a phase of sleeping 2 hours at lunch but since she's had a cold and been teething, it's more like 1.5hrs. The last few days I've cuddled her when she's woken after 1.5 hours and she's gone straight back to sleep in my arms (and we've had a nice cuddly sleep in bed for another half an hour). Today I didn't go in when she woke and she managed to get herself back to sleep for another half an hour. I'm not sure what I'd do if she woke again after 45 mins; if your son isn't crying then maybe go back to your old technique to get his body clock used to having the longer naps. If he's crying when he wakes then I'd do CC again. Sorry that's not much help. From things I've read, when there are blips in a baby's sleep routine (cold, teething, illness etc) it is sometimes necessary to go back to CC to re-establish the previous behaviour but it's meant to be much easier than the initial CC and isn't meant to take very long. Best of luck x

[supergolden88]

There's always times when they wont settle even after successfully sleeping for a while. Look into whether the morning nap is too long - then they dont need to sleep as much at lunchtime.

But more importantly since there are night wakings as well - are there other issues such as teething, growth spurts or a cold? They always derail naps for a while at least. If it keeps up then perhaps worth doing CC again but wait first to see if the problem persists.

I am in same boat - my son finally was napping quite well most days but a recent cold means he is again being a nightmare about napping. I will probably have to nap train him again.

[HonorOaker]

Thanks for the advice KateW and Supergolden88. It is really useful to know what your experience of all this is. Funnily enough he slept for 2.5 hours again this afternoon.....let's see!

[awilliams123]

I am having the EXACT EXACT same issue as OP with my 5 month old. I have recently started implementing controlled crying (my version) ie I do not rock or swing or anything him to sleep. He goes into his cot after bath, bottle, book and will usually sleep til 3 or 4 am at which point he has a bottle and goes back to sleep until 6:30 or 7am. His naps however are an entirely different thing. I cannot get him to nap more than 35 mins. It's happened I htink maybe 10 times since he was born. Even as a newborn he hardly slept. I've tried darkening the room (I can't get it completely dark though), I've tried the going in a few minutes before he wakes to resettle him, I've tried putting him down at varying stages of his looking tired phases, all kinds of things. Here is what his typical napping in a day will look like:

6:30 or 7am wakes up and has bottle

8:30 ish I put him down for nap, he cries, I resettle, he cries I resettle and so on...eventually falls asleep

9:00 play or hang out with mummy wherever she is

10 or 10:30 am has bottle

11:00 ish I put him down for nap, he cries, I resettle, he cries I resettle and so on...eventually falls asleep

and this is where it all goes wrong: after a half hour he will wake and I cannot get him to sleep any longer. The rest of the day is just him wanting to sleep/play/feed whatever all at the same time because he is actually very tired but will not sleep. Sling doesn't work with him nor does a walk in a pram (anymore). To be honest I want to stay away from the wrong sleep associations and get to a point where he sleeps in his cot when he needs to for the length of time he really needs.

After this he may/may not have a nap at 2pm ish and if he does, again he may/may not have a 4th nap around 4-5pm. This all decides when bath, bedtime will be because if he's been up for 4 hours straight I have to get him into bed earlier and if he has too late a nap I have to put him to bed later...this can range anywhere from 6:30pm to 8pm which really is not working for anybody.

I don't know what to do anymore...aside from him not getting proper sleep, I basically get zero time in a day to do anything else. At 5 months I'm desperate to achieve something in a day besides a few nappy changes and a bath, if you know what I mean!

Suggestions and comments most welcome!

[susyp]

my daughter didn't sleep for more than half an hour a time in the day until she finally got into big lunchtime sleeps at about 18 months....

and she only slept through the night from age 2 - so i think you are doing pretty well actually!!

susypx