8 week old day time naps

[user1469990255]

My dd is 8 weeks old and is such a terrible day time sleeper. I can get her to sleep after a major battle but she will wake after 10 minutes and the battle starts again. I think the longest I have got her to nap with no battle is 30 minutes. She had the newborn phase of constant sleep but since about 5 weeks it's been like this. She hates the sling and being swaddled so I'm at a loss! She gets so grumpy becuse she is so tired. Any advice. Or any encouragement on when this might get better? I have a 3 year old ds but can't for the life of me remember when he started napping properly. I am quite lucky that she tends to only wake once or twice in the night from 7-6ish and she usually settles herself in the moses basket on a night.

Everyone says it will get better but I need to know when! Then I know when my sanity will come back.

[FATEdestiny]

Have you tried a dummy? You might have a sucky baby who takes comfort from sucking.

The main key to avoid battles is to ensure baby is getting enough sleep. I know that seems obvious, but the more sleep a baby gets, the better she will sleep and the easier she will be to get to sleep. So if her naps are currently very short, they need to also be very frequent.

At 8 weeks old naps of 30-40 mins are not unusual, with maybe 40-60 mins of awake time between one nap and the next. So if your LO is having even shorter naps, the awake time needs to be even shorter.

I'd also evaluate her feeding. A large proportion of sleeping issues at this age can be put down to needing more calories (in the form of more frequent feeds and bigger feeds). A full baby is usually a happy baby. 2 hourly full feeds are really not that unusual.

In terms of getting baby to sleep, you've already mentioned swaddling and I've already mentioned a dummy - both would be my first recommendations. Then movement. Have you tried a bouncy chair for daytime naps? Great way to get baby to sleep while dealing with toddler. Also great for bouncing baby back to sleep at first stirring awake - so a way of extending naps to become longer.