Baby sleep - no naps!!!

Some babies just don't nap after a while and unfortunately my Mum had 3 of us who didn't 😩
This was also before the days of screens, so we were put into a playpen while she needed to cook and that worked. Xx

Get her tested for being intolerant to certain foods and allergies if that is the correct thing to say. Sorry I am not a Mum so others will need to advise. There was an article recently somewhere that said some babies formulas contained something not all babies could have or something similar. With regards to her bottle, check she is not intolerant to cows milk. Intolerance is quite normal in some babies i.e. does not have to be allergic to it. Cows milk I think has a protein in it that some people even adults cannot digest. Hope this helps you.

Solidarity OP because my 2 year old has always been a rubbish sleeper, still doesn’t sleep through the night, only ever had contact naps or fell asleep in the pram so I never got any chill time either😂 it does feel personal when other babies seem to be napping in the cot and other mums get that free time to do stuff! Despite contact napping on me she would never do it for my husband so he was in your position in that sense and I know he found that hard.

I had my second baby nearly 6 months ago and despite me doing absolutely nothing differently he is quite content to sleep wherever and has been from the day he was born, sleeps through the night pretty consistently in his next to me crib (my daughter never did)- it’s just different babies and different temperaments!

With my first I tried everything, every trick, everything that supposedly would work, nothing did. I was told it was because she was breastfed so more clingy, my son is also breastfed and totally different! Maybe there are things that work with most babies but I do think for sleep general temperament plays a huge part so try not to take it personally.

I had not seen the response you posted at 15:14 when I posted my (well intended) response at 15:16 because it took me 2 mins to draft my post.

Good luck to you, I hope you have a better night tonight.

I feel you. My eldest was an awful sleeper. She would only nap in the pram, on someone or in the car, her night time sleep was awful too, even getting her to settle to go to sleep was awful. She has only just started to consistently sleep through the night since September and she is 5.

The tiredness and the constant been needed. Never having a minute to yourself. The whingeing just gets to you. You feel completely burnt out. I also second not following people who have amazing sleepers - it makes you feel shit and frustrated.

I did a few things to survive and chopped and changed until I found something that somewhat worked.

1. I gave up on chasing naps and wake windows. It just made the frustration worse. I basically went out every morning - playgroup/ park/ soft play/ mum friends meet/ walk/ shops. Then we would come home and have lunch and had downtime and put down for a nap. I made that our routine. We would be out in the morning, create some sleep pressure and pray for a nap. This helped a little with the feeling trapped inside all the time.

1. Co-slept. We ended up co- sleeping just to get some sleep.

1. Tried to have a month "reset", binned off all activities and tried to get a proper routine in place. This somewhat worked and we combined it with sleep training.

1. Sleep trained. Controversial yes. This was the thing that worked for us. We binned everything off - all activities and made sleep training the focus. We still had 1 night waking (usually during and after periods of illness or if we went on holiday) every so often but sleep training worked for us.

My second child is an amazing sleeper and naps consistently and for decent stretches of time. It's like living in a parallel universe.

Temperament. All babies are different. Loads of them hate the cot. It’s just that instagram doesn’t tell you about those babies.

I’d say four hour blocks are pretty good going…

All babies have a “sleep budget”, an amount they can sleep within a 24h period. They’re all different. They need to be tired when you put them down for a sleep, otherwise they won’t. Your baby doesn’t sound tired when you’re trying to get her to sleep, and it sounds like she’s undertired at night, so she’s waking up to be awake in the middle of the night again. Sleep needs do drop as they get older.

my son at 10months needs 4.5 hours awake to be tired enough to nap or go to bed. He only sleeps 11.5 hours per day total, he’s low sleep needs. If I don’t cap his naps and get him up at 6:15ish the day just goes nuts and we start having difficult bedtimes and split nights.

track how much sleep your baby does over a 24h period for the next 7 days and average it. That’s your budget.

pick a wake up time and get her up at that time every day no matter how the night went.

if she’s happily awake for 6 hours at a time you could try a one nap schedule.

eg if you have a baby that sleeps on average 12 hours per 24:

7:30am wake

nap 1-2:30pmish

9pm bed

teaching independent sleep in their cot is very helpful for getting them to sleep easier when they’re tired, so they don’t need endless rocking/driving/pushing in the pram etc. we had to do this at 5 months for DS because he could no longer comfortably contact nap and woke too easily in a moving pram. Look up the sleep wave method.

if you’re going to encourage self settling do this at bedtime first, before attempting independent naps. Sleep pressure is higher at bedtime and it’s easier for them to get to sleep.

Have you tried a baby carrier? All of my baby’s naps take place in a carrier. Although not ideal it means I can still do jobs etc.
i also echo a previous poster about spending some time getting naps into her routine again. So if that means 2 car journeys a day to get her to nap try that. Hopefully once she is back used to the pattern of napping again she will be less overtired and overnight sleep will improve. Sadly sleep is not linear and once you think you have it sorted something else happens and it’s broken again!
some people do have unicorn babies who sleep but most don’t! I wouldn’t trust what your neighbour is posting, people only like to show highlights of their lives. I would unfollow/ mute her for a bit.

DS1 would only ever nap if taken out in the car or pram. He stopped napping completely at twelve months with me but still slept at nursery! DS2 slept for two hours every afternoon until he was three.

Unfollow the smug Mum - you don’t need that.

You have two choices - roll with it and don’t enforce any naps and carry on with co sleeping and hope she grows of it. Though I’m a believer that being over tired is hugely detrimental to night time sleep.

Or you sleep train. You can sleep train for daytime naps in the cot the same way as in the nighttime. It’s painful for about 3 days but does work. Not cry it out. But popping back and reassuring with your presence.

I feel for you! I’ve honestly been there. Truthfully nothing worked for us as a permanent solution. It’s really hard watching other people who don’t have this issue have time to themselves, even to shower, while baby naps. I grinned through it, but it’s exhausting. Not what you want to hear, sorry. I really hope it’s just a development phase for you that will sort itself out x

What actually happens if you leave her in her cot for a few minutes when she's tired?

My 10mo has never napped well with me in the room. He thinks I'm there to play. If I leave him he chats to himself for a few minutes, occasionally a minute or so of crying if he's overtired then straight off to sleep.

If I stayed in the room he'd never nap.

I suspect that's what your DP did to get her to nap yesterday too. Have you asked him?

Take her for a drive if a drive is needed. Just do that.

Are you good at transferring her from the car seat into the house without waking her? I got really good at that with my two in the end!

You could try sleep training her to nap in the cot but it sounds like it may not be working?

I think you need to decide on a routine and stick to it because trying to chase her “moods” between eating, sleeping and playing is driving you up the wall. Or just go out for the day whatever and let her nap wherever.

Would going out in the pram rather than the car be an option?

My DCs would never nap in a cot but would nap in a pram so we would take them out for a walk then once they had dropped off, bring them back home, park the pram somewhere and get on with whatever jobs etc needed doing. We used to reliably get 1hr if useable time doing that.

If she naps in the car or buggy, do that. Not ideal for you but sleep often promotes sleep. If you can get her to sleep in the buggy during a walk, then you can bring her into the house (if possible). That’s the only way I could’ve ever done it with my first.

Because all babies are different, and believe it or not it’s normal for them to not settle in a cot. Some do, some don’t. They people who have kids that do will blame it on something you are doing. But it’s not you. Babies sleep can change. It’s horrible

I can sense your frustration and I can understand it. Being sleep deprived after sleeping again is horrible and exhausting and not having a moment or more in the day to catch your breath or do something you want/need to do is anger inducing.

from the sounds of things she’s probably overtired. I would be spending a week getting her at least 1 but try for 2 naps a day even if they are only 30 mins each. Whether you have to walk her in the pram, drive for hours or cosleep just try and get the rhythm back in your day. Good thing about the car or the pram is they aren’t on your body and they are less likely to sense your anger and frustration (which is probs why she sleeps for other people).

you haven’t broken her, she’s likely just in a bit of a developmental leap or stage and it will pass. But until then you might need to sack off jobs and productivity and take a different approach to get her little circadian rhythm happy again. When they are overtired they are flooded with cortisol and just like little Duracell bunnies. Takes awhile to get them to slow down and give in to rest.

my son was on two naps for ages. Any attempt to get him to one nap resulted in the grumpiest bay, split nights, hysterics - the lot. So he would wake at 6:30, naps at 9:30 for an hour or so, then a short afternoon nap just to tide him over to bedtime.

forget the books, forget what other babies are doing. Just focus on yours and trying something different for a few days if the usual contact napping isn’t working for now

You need to sleep train her to nap in her cot. I found that mine would sleep at night in his cot much easier but needed some practice to do the naps there too, even if he was tired. By which I mean, leave her in the cot, if she is crying leave her for 5-10 minutes, never longer than 15 but I think once you start doing this you will notice she starts dropping off sooner and sooner.