Babies that WILL NOT nap thread

[bumbleweed]

I have been lurking on other threads so I know you are out there - MNers whose babies wont nap or will only nap for 30 mins max!

My dd is 4 months and I am desperate to get her to nap longer during the day so that she doesn't get so ratty at tea-time (only time dh sees her during the week) and take ages to settle to sleep.

I have read 'Baby Whisperer', 'No-cry sleep solution', 'The Fussy Baby Book' and cant get anything to work.

I am at the stage where I think either she is a baby who doesnt need to nap, or will never nap, or that I am a bad mother if I dont take her out for a mammoth pushchair walk at least twice a day (she will sleep in pushchair btw)!

Am really frustrated some days - anyone going through same and want to do on-line support for each other / discuss different tactics?

[gingernutlover]

hi dd is 23 wks and thought I had her naps licked finally ... til this week

she has always hated naps and the only thing I finds works is to leave her to have a grumble (sometimes quite loud) for 10-15 minutes when I think she is tired. She has never napped for more than 40 minutes, and it is usually more like 20-30. ATM she has 3 small naps a day at about 9/9.30, midday and about 4pm. Sometimes she has 2 tiny napps in the pm instead of the one at 4 if she has had particuarly bad naps in the first part of day.

The hing that really helped was when I just accepted that she was never going to do what HV, gina ford, Tracey Hogg or anyone else said she should. Now I just try to catch her at a tired moment and put her down.

Also in the buggy or car she will take little naps and be reasonably content.

I just don't think she needs that much day time sleep but is prone to getting bored and frustrated during her awake periods and will grizzle all day - feels like it anyway!

To be honest I find the easiest thing is to have at least 1 things planned every day be it toddler group, swimming, or even getting weighed at the baby clinic or posting a letter up the road as she is most content when I am either playying with her or we are out and there are things to see.

With the grottiness in the evening, I let her nap until 5, even 5.30 on occasion and then she seems to last out til about 6.30-7 which is her normal bedtime.

Of course, now she is weaning and rolling and wishing she could crawl it is all change again so I guess it is go with flow time again.

Love her very much but she is such hard work at times

[gingernutlover]

also, have been told by lots of people that once they get older they kind of sort their naps out. Something to do with brain maturity allowing them to settle for longer.

some say this happens at 5-6m some when they start crawling. It obviously isn't going to happen at 5-6m for me, if ever .......


also, with the om nap, I try not to let her nap before about 3-45 and if poss 4pm then she tends to last for the evening a bit better.

[throckenholt]

overtiredness was always the key for mine - had to get them to sleep before they were overtired otherwise they were a nightmare.

The rule was no more than 2 hours awake at any one stretch - sometimes they didn't even last that long.

The other thing was routine - ie usual nighttime sleep stuff - right teddy, curtains shut, sleeping bag etc - just to set the scene and give the idea that it was sleeping time.

And if they woke up too soon then calmly and quietly settled them back to bed and said sleep time.

Didn't always work.

Sleeping in a pushchair/car etc is all tied up with the motion - and some babies get hooked on that and find it difficult to get used to sleeping in a cot/bed.

[jessicaandrebeccasmummy]

Ive got exactly the same with 17 week old Becky... she just doesnt seem to need a lot of daytime sleep.

She has 45 mins at about 8.30am, the same at 12ish and the same at 4pm..... she goes ot bed at about 7pm and that is her til 6am for a feed.

She will sleep if in buggy/car but i dont get out too often - its a bit of a challenge with a 19 month old to accomodate too.

[Flamesparrow]

DD would have an absolute maximum of two 45 min naps a day (normally 30 mins was her limit, and quite often it was only one nap), and she would only sleep if she was laying on my chest for them... this was from day one.

She slept well at night, so it wasn't a sleep training issue or anything, just that she didn't want to sleep during the day... I think she was convinced she was going to be missing out on something!

Unfortunately, we never found a cure Trying to stay calm around her made her happier at tea time - as did a bath (it didn't make her sleepy, just happy!).

After about 1yr old, she started to have about an hour of a lunchtime, but that was all, and then in the last year or so, she has decided that 1-2 hours is a good thing.

No ray of light for you really, just wanted to let you know that I've been there!!!!

Hoping this one will be a lovely sleepy baby to make up for it. (Then again, I also hoped this one would come early to make up for being very overdue with DD, but apparantly not )

[gingernutlover]

relieved i am not the only one. she has just napped for 30mins and up and raring to go again - swimming this pm.

strange thing is when we first started to let her have a little grumble before her nap i was happy to just ignore her - bad mummy i guess. maybe it is me but her crying seems louder this week and she is really reluctant to nap - the guilt is reall y getting me down atm

[gingernutlover]

agree with th not wanting to miss out. she has never been the type of baby to sit happliy on my lap and gaze - was v jealous of other mums at posrtnatal as all their babies were so calm. now try to make myself feel better by insisting her livelyness is down to extraordinary intelligence!!!!!!!!!!

[lahdeedah]

I also had this problem with my DD. It definitely improved when she got to about 7-8 months, she started to occasionally sleep for 1-2 hrs at a time, although she always took ages to settle down to sleep in the evenings. Now at nearly 11 months she will usually have a 30 minute nap in the morning, and around 1.5 hrs in the afternoon, and because she is so active during the day she conks out at around 8pm. I just think some babies are not cut out for napping, they sleep more lightly or something. I know I find it hard to sleep during the day, and have trouble settling down to sleep myself, so I guess my DD just takes after me. Extraordinary intelligence obviously runs in the family

[lahdeedah]

forgot to say - I tried leaving my DD to grumble for a while in her cot at naptimes - it never worked for me, as I always ended up having to go in and give her a cuddle before she would drop off. I've given up on that now and just cuddle her until she falls asleep! usually only takes a few minutes in a quiet darkened room. much less stressful - although I know the likes of gina ford wouldn't approve - and it hasn't affected her night-time sleep, she is still capable of settling herself back to sleep during the night.

[Filyjonk]

I am on my second baby like this, ffs. The only way to get either of them to nap is to put them in the buggy (grrrr tandem buggy) and walk in the effing freezing rain or whatever til they both fall asleep.

Dd is 7 m (ds is 2.5) and I have to do this every day, even when it is pissing it down. Which, being in Wales, it often is.

And neither of them sleeps through the night.

I've tried everything. I thought I was due a nice sleeping baby with dd, so cleverly enrolled on an OU degree course. But, though she is very lovely, she does not sleep. Instead she cries piercingly if put down at all

[bumbleweed]

hey gingernutlover - are you me? reading your post was uncannily like reading about myself and dd!

I also do the same as you and do at least one thing everyday - for my own sanity as well as so she can nap in buggy or car. Actually I think I was trying to do too much some days and this was too much stimulation / too little opportunity to sleep.

I realised today about a nap later in the afternoon - she has last few weeks been having a short nap early or mid afternoon and then refusing to go off again later on. Today she slept in buggy around 3.30ish and was happy with dh got in at 5.45 and went off not probs at bed time 7pm. Woo hoo!

I am lucky that once she is asleep for the night, she only wakes up for feeds and settles straight back again.

lahdeedah, quite a few people have said that about the intelligence - dd is certainly v alert and seems like she doesnt want to sleep in case she misses something - she actively fights sleep like its her sworn enemy, even when overtired. She seems like she would really like to crawl, sit up etc and gets fussy because she cant.

Thanks for the reassurance from those of you whose babies were like this but settled when a bit older - after reading that Dr Sears book about fussy babies I had concluded that dd would turn into a fussy toddler and so on ...

[bumbleweed]

oh also the leaving to grumble thing is useless for dd - if I dont go to her when she starts it will build up into a cry that is much harder to settle and will take a good half hour or rocking

and leaving to cry ('controlled' or otherwise) is not for me

[bumbleweed]

It totally pissed down here up north today as well

filyjonk you defo have it worse if you have pissing welsh rain and not sleeping at night as well.

what are your nights like then?

dd has no discernable pattern - some nights only wakes once for feed, some nights twice. 2 nights ago slept through to 6am, but last night woke 3 blooming times! luckily I just bf her back to sleep without any crying or fussing tho.

[Mazzystar]

if it is any consolation my ds daytime sleep was erratic at best, nonexistent at worst until he was 10 or 11 months (walking), when he suddenly started having two - three blissful hours every afternoon. still does at 16 months, phew.

i just went with the flow and tried to get out as much as possible. and got a cleaner, cos i was never going to keep the place sanitary.

[ButtonMoon]

Oh my...sounds like my ds!! No pattern to sleep at night *(can sleep through but often wakes at least once!! wants to see me ) Naps for 30 mins MAX, you can set your watch ny it!, in the day unless on the move. Just resign myself to the fact that I have kids that just aren't keen on sleep. Tried everything with DD (now 3) and she still wakes frequently too. Hard to get him to sleep too...if overtired, forget it!! We had 45 mins of unconsoleable crying tonight He can drop off on his own if you time it right and generally in the night he will usually settle after a feed. Nice to know I'm not the only one!!!

[bumbleweed]

actually it is a consolation - do you think once they're walking they are just able to tire themselves out properly?

I wish I could go with the flow - I will try to a bit more I think.

What gets to me is the constant fussing and crying and getting the sleepy/not-sleepy signs wrong that drains all my energy. What gets to me after that is getting absolutely nothing done whatsoever, housework or anything for me.

[Mazzystar]

mine has "slept through" by which I mean 11 - 6, about 4 times in total. usually wakes at @11, @3 and @6. i am now conditioned to it. wanting to let him cry but dh is not up to it at the mo. he's a dear little soul all day though, happy as a lark.

[ButtonMoon]

That's the frustrating thing I found with my first lo and I can see slowly happening again bumble. It takes you half an hour+ to settle them and then they only sleep for a short time..the number of times I've resorted to the boob or rocking in the car seat just for a quick resolution. But I'm feeling drained too....

[Mazzystar]

should add i think its totally unrelated to having lovely daytime sleeps - as if something really exciting is going on he can manage to go without his nap altogether - and sleeps better at night if he's napped well in the day.....

btw i think its definitely worth trying to get them to sleep - or at least just be- in their cots for a bit - in the day when they are little. i didn't, so ds now naps on a sheepskin rug, or my bed or the sofa.....not the most convenient.

[yomellamoHelly]

Ds was like this.

For first 3 months could only get him to sleep by walking - and I walked miles. Then at 11 weeks he stopped falling asleep in the pram and would go mental come evening time through overtiredness and scream for hours on end.

It took 3 months to sort out. I became rooted at home and followed gf's routines obsessively. I found I largely used the baby whisperer's advice to actually get him to sleep and gf for timings.

Forget the time-spans these books mention for how long it takes, though! Ds fought what I was doing every step of the way - even though he desperately needed me to sort him out.

The night took 3 days to establish. (Hurrah one thing according to the text-book!)

The morning nap took a week to establish. (To begin with he'd cry for 45 minutes. BY the end of the week he'd cry until I shut the door. )

The afternoon nap followed a month later. (Same thing again.)

Getting him to sleep at midday caused me lots of tears and self-doubt. It took 2 months until he started sleeping. On some days I'd spend so much time going back and forth that he'd only get 10 minutes sleep and then I'd have to wake him again. At w/es dh would wonder aloud if it was really necessary , but I persevered, somehow, and it did eventually get better. Then it took another month of being absolutely consistent (I veered once and it took a few days to recover the routine again.)

My approach started off with PUPD (for a month) and ended up with CC to crack the lunchtime sleeps. By then I knew he could settle himself morning, afternoon and nighttime and knew he wasn't hungry/thirsty etc. etc. and he knew I meant business. It's a horrible process to have to go through, but ds was a different child once it was all cracked and I was a different mum for all the extra sleep!

Good luck!

[CarolinaMoon]

this thread reads like a perfect description of my ds

I don't want to do any CC or crying it out, so it is still a bit hit and miss as to whether ds gets off to sleep (I still often resort to the pushchair tbh) but at 15mo he can now sleep for a couple of hours at a stretch. I think walking and possibly just being older and eating decent amounts of food at mealtimes has made a big difference to him.

He's always been quite an alert sort of baby - e.g. he won't sit calmly in my lap at music groups like all the other kids his age do - but as he's getting used to walking he does seem more able to stop when he's tired rather than just pushing himself on and on into overtiredness.

[gingernutlover]

hee hee dd is now on her second nap of the day

maybe weetabix has magical powers?

or maybe she is plotting for later [worried emoticon]

hope your days are all going okay

[lazycow]

Yomellamohelly

You seem to describe my ds perfectly but it took me until he was 6 months old to really tackle it. It is really hard for parents with children who fall asleep fairly easily to understand this. Ds would just get so exhausted and scream all evening too (though strangely much less so as a newborn). He has only just now started falling asleep fairly easily when tired in a pram or car and he is 14 months old.

DS would take very short naps and sleep very badly at night. He would hardly ever sleep for more than 20-30mins when we were out - if that. Often this would only be after I had spent 40-50mins calming him, then he'd wake up still really tired and scream a lot more. It was exhausting and trips out would often be fraught and not much fun. He slept better at home -but I found this restricting so didn't really fit in with this too much - Big mistake!!

Since he cried so much anyway and comforting him didn't help (rocking /walking) would just drive him mad) - I fnally figured listening to some crying in the early days while enforcing a nap routine was worth it. It was hard though. I didn't use GF but I did have to ensure he had a nap sometimes within 1 hr of waking up in the early days and then 1.5 hrs later and then another 1.5 hrs after he woke again. It was incredibly restricting for me - but I felt he needed it. Even with all this he was still exhausted and asleep most nights by 5.30pm.

I now know I have a ds who needs a lot of sleep but doesn't know how to get it on his own. Quite often now at 6pm he looks fine (most people think he does anyway) but I can tell he is tired - the signs are very subtle. He will scream if you take him to bed but within 5mins or less he is generally asleep he is so tired.

His night sleeping definitely improved once the day naps were sorted though this took several weeks- though he still isn't fantastic sleeper he is miles better.

[bumbleweed]

Yomellamohelly you are one determined lady!

one thing I know I cant do is stay home and follow timings like that - I would go beserk with boredom and lonliness.

nice one ginger

dd has had 2 naps today - one without too much fuss early on so I dyed my hair!

then another in the pushchair

challenge this pm as need to make a shepherds pie so cant go out again in pushchair!

hows everyone else doing today?

[queenrollo]

i have a 6.5 month old ds who is erratic with his naps......we usually manage two 30 min naps a day, one in the morning and another just after lunch, and if i'm lucky about 10 mins at about 4pm. then he'll totally surprise me on the odd day and sleep for an hour in the morning.
at the moment as long as he gives melong enough at lunch time to prepare something to eat i'm happy!!!