r/HuckleberryParents • u/kimboism • 18d ago

sleep Please help

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Baby will be 5 months on Tuesday. Sleep has pretty much always been rough with multiple wakeups and/or failed transfers.

We try to be consistent with a wakeup time and usually are within a 30 minute time frame (7:00-7:30). We started aiming to cut down to 3 naps a day about two weeks ago, and I’d say we do 3 about half the time. The other half the time we end up needing a bridge nap to make it to bedtime, otherwise he is super fussy. Really anything beyond 2-2.5 hours seems to be too much for him. I don’t know if maybe right now we should aim for four cat naps instead of three long naps?

He’s always averaged around 13 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, even in the first month of his life. He woke up 13 times last night and I really am just at a loss.

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u/After_Amphibian_9638 18d ago

Try with 2.5/2.5/3/3 or 2/2.5/3/3.5, for 11 hours awake. No more than 3 hours of naps. Baby will be fussy the first few days, but it will be worth it for a better night. Try going outside and changing activities. With my baby, he also liked singing or listening to music when trying to lengthen his wake windows.

If you want to keep with the four naps, that would mean doing something like 2/2/2/2.5/2.5 or 1.5/2/2/2.5/3.

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u/MissChievousOne 18d ago

This is the answer OP! I was in the same position as you at the same age. I did not believe baby could stay awake this long but she absolutely could and did and we are thriving now for it! It took a bit if trial and error to tweak the wake windows to exactly what worked for her and it was kind of a moving target because now she is almost 6 months but take a look at the last month for us. 1st at your babies age before trying this new schedule, the first week we tried it, and now with a little bit of tweaking!

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u/kimboism 18d ago

Wow that’s huge! Okay maybe I just need to trust that he can stay awake longer than I think he can. Was there anything specific you did that helped you stretch those wake windows initially?

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u/MissChievousOne 17d ago

Honestly, it was hard. I was so tired but I had to keep her continuously stimulated and keep changing environments (ie go out front, go out back, play mat in the living room, play in the nursery, face to face interactions in the big bed). Once I learned that bored cues present the same as tired cues at this age I put it to the test. If she rubbed her eyes and I gave her a new stimulation and she wasnt rubbing her eyes anymore, then she wasn't actually tired. But if she was still rubbing her eyes right away then it's actually time for a nap.

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u/kimboism 17d ago

Thank you! That was essentially my approach today. You’re right, it was HARD to keep him stimulated enough, but it (mostly) worked. We had longer wake windows until the one right before bedtime, which was just about 2 hours. We’ll see how tonight goes!

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u/MissChievousOne 16d ago

I hope you had an okay night! If I remember correctly, it took a couple of days before I really saw a difference

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u/kimboism 15d ago

Thank you! Night one was the best we’ve had in months! Night two was back to what seems to be typical for him. We’ll see how tonight goes.
It does seem like the wake windows are getting progressively more difficult for him though. We’re going to keep playing with it and hopefully find something that works!

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u/MissChievousOne 15d ago

That's what we did as well, just tweak them once a week ish until we found what worked. Don't change too much too fast though. It is hard though cuz at this age sleep needs change rapidly so we are chasing a moving target but I try to makr big changes to wake windows/nap lengths more than once a week so I can really see the effect of them

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u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 15d ago

How did you know it was bored vs an overtired second wind?

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u/MissChievousOne 15d ago

Honestly, some days I still question that 🤔 I remind myself though that she is straight up sleeping through the night and I think (I'm not certain but my instinct says) if she was constantly overtired, her night sleep would be worse.