I posted this problem to my Facebook the other day:
Okay, this will probably be a bit lengthy, but here is the deal: Katie is now about 3 1/2 months old and other than the first few weeks of her life, she will not nap longer than about thirty minutes. During those first few weeks, she would sleep for about an hour and a half, but at some point, that stopped. I don’t know if I did something, or what.
So here is her routine: eat (she is breastfed) for 10-15 minutes, play time for about an hour and fifteen minutes ’til she starts to get fussy, then I start putting her down for a nap. It takes ten to fifteen minutes to get her asleep for her naps…I swaddle her, turn on some lullabies, give her a pacifier and bounce her gently on the exercise ball ’til she is asleep, then I lay her down in the crib. I really want her to sleep longer, not for my sake, because I am already accustomed to the short naps, but for her development’s sake.
I know she is capable of sleeping longer, because if I let her stay on the breast (so that I can get a nap, too), she will sleep for an hour and a half or longer. On Mother’s Day, I put her down and she slept for an hour and half, too…by herself! And when my mom watches her occasionally, she will sleep around an hour, also.
So I’m guessing somehow she has learned from me to only sleep that long, and I’m not sure what I should do. I’ve tried feeding her right before her nap, but that doesn’t work. I’ve tried putting her in the bassinet, on our bed (which was on the ground, so there was no risk of her falling), putting her in a blacked out room, putting her in a swing, turning the thermostat down–and up…none of those things have worked. I’ve tried leaving her unswaddled, swaddling but leaving her arms out…I don’t know what else to try!
The idea of just letting her cry it out breaks my heart, but the idea of hurting her developmentally is much worse. So any ideas/thoughts/opinions are more than welcome! And if you need more info, please ask…I’ll check this regularly for replies! Thanks so much!
Another note: I have “The Happiest Baby on the Block”, and it helps as far as keeping her calmed down, but not with sleeping. I’ve thought about getting “The No Cry Sleep Solution”, but haven’t yet…
I received an overwhelming response, and I thought you might like to know what I changed based on the advice I received, so here goes:
For naptimes on Tues and Wed, I still went through basically the same routine to put her down for a nap: I swaddled her, turned on the lullaby CD, gave her the pacifier, and bounced/rocked her gently on the exercise ball. However, I only let the first song play once through (it’s about 5 mins long), then I kissed her on the head and laid her down in her crib. She went straight to sleep a couple times, and a few times she cried. When she cried, I’ve went in to check her after five minutes, soothed her, put paci back in, and left. She pretty much went to sleep after that. If she woke up too early, I basically repeated the last part of that process: let her cry for five minutes, went in and soothed her, then left the room again. It worked pretty well.
Last night, I had decided to only feed her about every three hours; she was still waking up way more often than that, so I gave her the paci when she woke up those in between times, but didn’t give her a chance to cry. I think that not letting her cry at all was maybe a mistake. But I figure I’m not going to get it all perfect from the get-go. When I did feed her, I tried not to fall asleep (did once, but not the other times) so that I could put her back in the bassinet right after she was done eating, and not use me as a pacifier to go back to sleep. That also worked well. She was awake when I put her back down, but settled herself and fell asleep within a few minutes.
I’ve gone back and forth no less than ten times about whether or not to let her have the pacifier. I continued giving it to her while I was deciding, because I knew that once I made a decision, I have to stick with it. I don’t want to confuse her at all… One part of me doesn’t mind her having it, because she doesn’t wake up when it falls out (or rather, when she spits it out), and doesn’t seem to really be too dependent on it. On the other hand, if I’m trying to teach her to self-soothe, giving her a paci doesn’t really accomplish that.
So…today for her nap time, I decided to swaddle her with one arm out and put her down for a nap without the paci. I wanted to see how she would do without it. She cried basically the whole time I was bouncing/rocking her, and was still crying when I left the room. I started the stopwatch on my watch and within five minutes, she was quiet…not asleep, but quiet. I’ve peeked in to check on her a few times in the last thirty minutes or so, and she has turned herself around about 90 degrees so that she can see her mobile. 
She is laying there just kinda talking to herself, sucking on her fingers and/or touching her little teddy bear. Still not asleep yet, but calm, which is good for now.
On Wednesday nights, we go to these workshops for new and expecting parents, and while we are there, Katie goes to the child care they have there on site. Usually she cries quite a bit throughout the evening, and they end up calling me about two-thirds of the way through it to come get her, because by then they can’t get her to stop. Last night, no such call. They said she was really good the entire evening (other than when she was hungry, which was an easy fix). That was VERY encouraging to me…I really feel like we’re making progress. She even seems happier. I, of course, was afraid she would hate me for letting her cry too much, or end up just laying there kind of catatonic all the time because she’d lost all hope of getting any attention. Definitely not the case…whew. I think she was ready for this, because she has adapted quickly and I think if she hadn’t been ready, she would’ve really fought this change.
Side note: twice in the last two days, she’s fallen asleep completely on her own–once in the bouncy seat while I was making dinner, and once while I was holding her and talking to a friend. Pretty sure she’s not ever done that before!
Just peeked in on her again, and she has finally fallen asleep…so about five minutes of crying, twenty-five minutes of chillin’ in her crib, then sleep.
Words cannot express how much I appreciate all the input I received from all of you. I was truly blown away by your willingness and eagerness to help. I am so thankful for such wonderful friends. It’s so hard to know what to do when situations like this arise, but knowing I have moms to turn to who have already been through similar situations is so comforting. Also, knowing there are many ways to solve the same problem is wonderful–all I have to do is choose the one I think will work best for her!
I will keep you all posted on how she does over the next week or so, so stay tuned!
(Next challenge I’ll have to tackle–I noticed last night that when she stretches out full length, she is only about an inch away from out-growing the bassinet. So I guess it’s almost time to move her to the crib at night. Dang.)
