Daytime nap tips

[MrsCaptainReynolds]

Would be grateful for some day time nap tips.

My second son is 12 weeks. Just like my first, no real bother putting down at night and seems to be naturally extending the time he is sleeping for. So feels like we're heading in the right direction at night time -sleeps from 7.30pm till a dream feed at 11.30pm, then till 3 or sometimes 5am, will sleep again after this till 7am ish. I think this is ok for now.

But the daytime naps are a nightmare. First, he will not willingly sleep in the day at all (not unless we drive somewhere and he sleeps in the car, but I need him to nap at home too). He just gets more and more fractious, tired and screaming...clearly needing to sleep but not being able to switch off. Sometimes I just put him down in a quiet room and let him scream (guilt, guilt, guilt) and he'll zonk out after 5 mins. Other times he'll just scream and scream and scream -he's either in my arms screaming with tiredness, or in the cot screaming with tiredness.

I don't want to get into elaborate settling rituals as I also have a toddler (who took 30-45 mins of rocking to nap, which was ok when he was our only one) but just want to help him get the sleep he needs.

He's currently screaming the house down because I've tried to put him down. Was screaming in my arms with exhaustion before that.

Any tips?

[Littlebagoflaughter]

DS1's naps were revolutionised when I read 'The 90 minute baby sleep program' (can't remember the author's name but I got it from Amazon on my kindle). The author reckons babies (up to around a year old) are on a 90 minute sleep cycle so the optimum time to get them to sleep is 90 minutes (or multiples of 90mins, 3hrs, 4.5hrs etc) after they wake up from their last sleep. I didn't have quite the same problem as you as it wasn't getting him to sleep that was the main challenge but getting him to sleep for longer than 30mins so I can't guarantee it will work! But trying out this timing meant I went from having DS in a sling for all his naps and him only napping for about 2.5hrs a day to him self-settling in his cot and getting more like 4hrs across 2 naps. I was always hopeless at reading his sleepy signs so I found it much easier to just watch the clock. I have a newborn and a toddler so I really feel for you, I hope you get there with the naps, good luck!

[MrsCaptainReynolds]

Thank you for your reply. I'm rubbish at watching for sleep signals too! Will have a look at that book, it'll be my kindle reading while bfing this weekend.

[Jennyhartrey1984]

I'm really struggling with my 20 week old daughter! She's screaming & fighting sleep in the day & I don't know what to do!!

[Muchtoomuchtodo]

I read loads of books.

The one thing that worked for me was looking out for their yawns. This was also accompanied by eye rubbing.

Yawn 1 - they're tired, bed now!

Yawn 2 - don't push it, get them to bed!

Yawn 3 - you're really pushing it now. They'll be overtired very soon (I never believed such a thing existed). Really. Stop everything and get them to bed.