Day sleep dilemma

I love her to pieces and she's great company but I wish she'd have nice day naps again!!
We're down to a 45min nap at lunchtime and a half hour or so nap at about 3.
She's not sleeping through the night - down about 7pm, feed/change 3ish, feed/change 6ish, up for the day half 7am.
I know she's not getting enough sleep but when I try putting her down for more naps during the day she just screams until I cave in and get her up.
Is there an easy way to encourage her to either a) nap more often or b) nap for longer???

Do you get her up at 3am and 6am? Or does she wake herself and get histerical? When the girls were 5months we had cut out those feeds if they woke in the night we just put a dummy in and left the room. But if your breast feeding I guess its different?

I read the most fantatstic book (I know I got sick of book suggestions too but this really is a life saver) Its called "On becoming Baby Wise - giving your infant the gift of nighttime sleep by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam." all 3 of my sisters used it as well and all 8 of our kids are fantatsic sleepers. Its a very easy to read basic book that teaches the importance of routine and how sleeping and feeding influence each other.

They do have it at the library if you get desperate lol!
Otherwise I hope things get better chic it sucks when you don't get any kind of break and it can be very sressfull worrying if they're ok

edited for spelling

Edited by lisa85

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I wonder if it is the heat as the nursery is upstairs so slightly warmer than the lounge etc.
I practice controlled crying but I don't have the heart to let it go on for more then 45min (I soothe at 10min intervals).
She wakes herself at roughly those times every night, sometimes sleeps through until half 5, Yep, we're still breast feeding, maybe its because my milk supply is less in the evenings that she wakes during night - I've considered this and have increased my liquid intake in the afternoon + complan for afternoon tea.

I've tried keeping the room dark, makes no difference.
She leads the feeding and will not take a top up unless a) she's hungry or b) it's bedtime - then she guzzles back both sides.
I don't have a dummy for her, she hates them with a passion ever since they tried to get her to take one in NNICU. She does suck her thumb to self comfort which is nice.
Will try just going in and keeping her company to see if she'll go back to sleep. Thanks

woo-hoo, managed to get her to have 3 naps today!!

Tom went through this stage too and all I did was go in as soon as I heard him stir and rock him or rub his back to get him to drop back off again.  I only needed to do this a few times and he seemed to get the idea that more sleep was a nice plan.  Also at that age we had the ipod in his room playing lullibies very quietly and that seemed to hlep too.

 

even now, if he wakes from a sleep too early I can often get him back down for another hour or so.

Lots of babies have the morning nap for ages - Sophie still does and she is over 11 months . Amy started to drop that one at about 13 or 14 months. It is a great one to keep going as it gives Mums a chance to do stuff and prepare for the day. Sometimes I used to cook dinner then so it was done and out of the way .

I had a chat to a friend's mum about BabyWise. She's a MW and pretty up with it about all the books and programs, and she said it tends to work better with girls than with boys. Personally, I'm not a fan of it, but I do know people who swear by it.

I've got a 45 min napper now too . She used to have three sleeps, two shorter ones of around an hour and one longer one of around 2 hours but now she's having two catnaps of 45 mins and that's it. I don't mind too much coz she's happy enough when she's awake (Maya was exactly the same) but it is a little frustrating coz I can't get anything done, and coz it works out that she naps at a different time to the gremlins so I don't get a break from kids all day.

With the night thing tho, have you tried not changing her for night feeds? I don't change lil miss after she goes down at 7pm until she gets up in the morning regardless of how many times she wakes. Obviously if she was dirty I would but she never seems to poo at night lol. I just find that changing seems to wake bubs up a whole lot more whereas if you just give them a quick feed in the dark it's a whole lot less stimulating for them.

I've also found with her in the last week or so that if I leave her when she wakes during the night, she usually resettles herself. She doesn't cry, she wakes up and talks to herself and I always assumed she wanted feeding but in fact she's quite happy to go back to sleep on her own. Occasionally she does start to grizzle and wind up and I do have to go in and feed her but most of the time I don't need to.