Naps at 2 months

[MrsJW15]

Hi all, my 2 month old sleeps well at night but is terrible at napping in the day. How long should her naps be at this age? Sometimes she just sort of shuts down for 10 months minutes, sometimes will go for half an hour to 40 minutes, occasionally we get much longer stretches.

But sometimes she won't sleep at all - we bounce her chair or take her for a walk in the buggy and she just stays awake! She usually can't resist falling asleep in the sling but wakes if we stop moving.

I'm trying to make sure we get her down within 90 minutes of waking to avoid her getting over tired but it doesn't always work. And I'm not sure how long a nap has to be to 'count'.

[FATEdestiny]

I wouldn't consider under 15-20 minutes a proper nap. I would say it is an indication that baby is exhausted and struggling to go to sleep easily.

Not unusual for naps in the newborn (under 3 month old) to be long, a couple of hours. This is actually the 'easy' stage for naps. They get much more difficult after 3 ish months, when sleep needs a lot more work and form in sleep cycles.

I would suggest your baby sounds over tired and exhausted.

A well fed, well winded, swaddled under 3 month old with a dummy should sleep fairly easily and passively.

Are you swaddling? It helps baby feel safe and secure, like in the womb.

Are you giving a dummy? Babies are naturally programmed to find sucking soothing and calming, it mimics breastfeeding.

Then try gently swaying the swaddled baby with a dummy. Nothing vigorous. It's recreating the swishing around feeling from in the womb.

When putting down for a nap, keep the weight of your body on baby's. So bend at the waist and keep baby in position next to you, so you hover above baby as they are laid down. Put your hand, spread wide, quite firmly on baby's chest as they are laid down and stay there until settled. Baby is reassured by feeling you close.

Then feeding. The vast majority of sleep issues in the under 3 month old is likely to be caused by feeding and/or winding.

A hungry baby just isn't going to go to sleep. A baby who's calorie intake is on the low side overall (over 24/48 hours) is likely to be a lighter sleeper, waking more easily.

A baby with wind will be either uncomfortable or outright in pain so is not going to sleep well. Adequate winding is very important. There are lots of different winding methods are online.

[MrsJW15]

Thanks @FATEdestiny. She usually wakes between 6 and 8, and after a feed resettles very easily in her sleepyhead for several hours. It's after that we struggle!

At night she sleeps in a grosnug which helps, and if we are at home we often put her back in that. Sometimes she likes the dummy, sometimes she refuses it. Or will take it to settle but spit it out to sleep. At night she generally self-settles but the day is a different story!

She eats well, is gaining weight consistently. We have noticed sometimes gas or the need to poo wakes her or stops her setting.

Is 30-40 mins a proper nap? If this is the easy stage, I'm not looking forward to it getting harder!

[FATEdestiny]

Dummies are only meant for the 'going to sleep' but of settling. Once properly asleep baby's muscles relax, including the mouth and jaw muscles holding the dummy. The dumnmt is meant to drop out at that point, it's served its purpose and is now finished with.

So dummy not being needed once asleep is a sign dummy is working really well for your baby.

Daytime naps are always going to be harder work than night time sleep. The body's rhythms to do with hormones and daylight mean that the body is naturally put under greater pressure to sleep at night. Babies need to slerp sleep in the day but vecause of less sleep pressure, you have tp work harder for daytime naps than night time. This is true of all babies (all people in fact).

So all the stuff that works at night, you are likely to need all of that plus some extra help for daytime naps. If daytime naps are less conducive to sleep than night, they are far less likely to happen easily.