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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OK, I think you should try for longer naps.  So, here are some tricks:

1. put her to bed sooner for her naps.  Once a baby is yawning and rubbing their eyes, they are OVERTIRED.  Yup - it's true!  So after 2 hours of being awake, especially at that first morning nap, put her down.  Now, I'd strongly encourage you to put her to bed in her crib and put your hand on her tummy and gently rock her side to side.  perhaps with forehead rubs or hair rubs as well.

Dark room, not holding her, have her learn to fall asleep in her bed - even if it takes you 20 minutes or rocking and rubbing at the beginning, that's fine!   Now, at this point you might need to have her get drowsy in your arms and then transfer her to crib, but that often gets them revved up again, so I tend to just start them in their cribs from the beginning.  If you feed her, then change her diaper after the feeding so she is a bit awake before putting her down.

2.  be alert!  The first second she starts to waken, get in there and, without saying a WORD gently rock her tummy and get her back to sleep.  No talking at all.  Might take her 15 or 20 minutes (be patient, calm yourself, get your heartbeat down, breathe rhythmically, etc - a calm parent begets a sleeping baby so FAKE it till you make it)  You want her to learn to sleep through that weird wakeup thing they have about 30 minutes into their naps (REM, non-REM, I can't remember the scientific terms right now)

She will NOT fall asleep on her own - you've had 6.5 months to figure that out.  You need to help her at this point.

3.  do this for every nap.  see if she can sleep a 2 hour nap at 7am (ish) then a 1 hour nap 2 or 3 more times in the day.

4. Honestly, babies are crazy, and often need to have their first nap only 2 hours (or 1.5 hours) after they wake up in the morning!  Seems so crazy, but whatever.  They can often go a full 3 hours mid day, but not before that first nap.  
So wakeup at 5;30? 
first nap 7:30am - start at 7am THEN
wakes up at 8:30?  next nap starts at  11am-ish
wakes up at 9:30am?  next nap starts 2.5 to 3 hours later

5. Do all these things - placing baby on back, gently rock and rub, help her to go back to sleep after she wakes 10-20 minutes into her nap.

6. As she gets settled with you more quickly, (3 days?  5 days?) you will start to back off and rock her to mostly drowsy, then lift your hand and let her fall asleep herself.  drowy, eyes fluttering, heavy, staying closed more than open....  that's what you are looking for and you lift your hand, or make the rocks slower.  Then a few days later you back off a bit earlier, and so forth.  DON'T WALK AWAY - these babies SENSE your presence.  But eventually, you will be able to give her 5 minutes of rocking and rubbing and walk away, so that's the goal - let it take 2 weeks to get there, though.

Again, during this last stage, if she needs help to go back to sleep after the 20 minute nap, do that, but she should get better at learning to sleep through that sleep transition.

While you are working on naps, keep doing the same thing at bedtime with rocking the same length of time, etc.  Just, if she sleeps better during the day, she should sleep better during the night because she's not so exhausted.

Keep feeding her at night, but after burping her (if she needs it) place her back in the crib and put her back to sleep - nurse/feed in a darkened room, no lights, no music, no dancing or talking or partying with parents.

She should be able to get it with this consistent, slow approach to TEACHING her how to fall asleep. The goal is that you kiss her on the forehead, pop her in her crib and walk out and she nuzzles and wiggles and falls asleep on her own.

Because when a child falls asleep on their own without an adult presence or help, then they can fall asleep in the middle of the night without an adult's presence or help.  But - you need to lead her that way gently.

This might take 6 weeks, but it should work.  And it might take less time!  Try it.  I couldn't stand, as I'm sure you cannot, listening to a young baby cry for an hour every night for 10 days, and not see any difference (I mean, she should be at least crying for less time by now or something!)  So this isn't working, try a more gentle teaching approach.

Not everyone quits smoking by going cold turkey, others wean down and eventually get to nothing.  
[/quote]

Really helpful, ty. Question- what if my baby just keeps crying to be picked up when I’m rocking his tummy? Just keep at it or pick him up?[/quote]

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