Hi, just wondering can anyone help me.... My 9 week old catnaps, doesn't sleep past 20 minutes, sometimes he may sleep 40 minutes but rarely. He will have 3 - 6 20 minute 'powernaps' from 8am in the morning till I put him to bed at 9pm!!! He is good, playing and smiling, it's tiring though. He sleeps from 9pm till 2 or 3 am most nights, which is good, but during the day he won't settle. I have tried all things suggested, staying with them until he settles, patting, soothing, rocking, dummy, ect. He doesn't usually wake up crying, he just grizzles a little. He has colic which is getting better, but still popping off during the day alot, but not crying and upset about it. He feed quite regulary too, 2 - 2.5 hrs during the day, will sometimes make it to 3 hrs. I am currently giving him Karicare Gold, was thinking of trying SMA, heard it keeps them fuller for longer. He hasn't had an hour or more sleep during the day since about 5 weeks. He will fall asleep in your arms, bed, couch, pram sometimes for an hour or so, but I'm trying to put him in his cot everytime I see the tired signs. How long until he starts to have longer sleeps, or what ealse can I try? Sorry for the long thread.
Ahhhh now your other thread makes sense. Don't use the SMA - there is no need for it and it's a furphy that any one formula will keep them fuller for longer. If you think about it, it's not keeping them fuller, but taking longer to digest, and it's not a brilliant idea to make their little stomachs work harder than they have to as formula is already pretty hard for them to digest compared to breastmilk. Some babies will only catnap during the day no matter what you try and it sounds like the trade off is that you get a decent stretch of sleep at night. You could try wearing him in a sling or carrier during the day and see if he sleeps longer that way.
I agree with Trillian, if he is happy on the formula he is on now then I wouldn't change it as changing formulas can upset their little tummies anyway. have you tried increasing the amount he gets at each feed, maybe he just needs a little more milk? But DD is 5 months old and is lucky to make it 3 hours between feeds so I don't think 2.5 hrs is that bad, his tummy is only small and can only hold so much.
With the catnapping, again DD only ever used to sleep for 30-40 mins at a time. These days she is starting to stretch out longer, has a 30-40min sleep in the morning while we are taking the dog for a walk, then has a 1.5-2hr sleep around the middle of the day and a 1-1.5 hr sleep in the afternoon. Every baby is different, and my MCHN kept telling me she wasn't sleeping enough and to make her sleep more, but really if she doesn't want to sleep she isn't going to sleep no matter how hard I try! It was distressing her more trying to make her go back to sleep when she woke up, than just letting her set her own routine.
She is now sleeping a little longer than she used to do, I just let her sort herself out and didn't try to force her to sleep longer. Your little one may do the same as time goes on, he's only 9 weeks so plenty of time to sort it out! it took me probably until 10-12 weeks before I felt comfortable in the routine we were in and felt like I knew what I was doing.
Catnapping
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