Nap hell - HELP ME!

[soontobeamum1982]

Baby is 5.5 months old. She sleeps well at night (I know how lucky this makes me), going from 7pm to around 7.30am with two wake ups for feeds, one around 11pm and one around 5am. She is breastfed. She's still in the Snuzpod in our room, but will be moving into the cot (still in our room) in a week or so as she's growing fast.

At night she self settles with marginal fuss. We have a bath and bedtime routine that seems to work. She feeds well in the night and goes straight back down, and rarely cries even if I put her back down fully awake.

But in the day she WILL NOT NAP. She used to reliably nap in the pram, but refuse at home. Now even the pram isn't working. Today, between 8am and 7pm she literally had one 45 min nap and that took 2.5 hours of being out in the buggy to achieve.

This can't go on but I feel like i've tried everything and nothing works.

Please please please hit me with your ideas.

The only thing that is absolutely not for me is any method involving crying it out. I haven't got the stamina, and it doesn't work for my baby anyway as she gets herself so upset and angry that it literally makes her vomit. It doesn't lead to shorter, calmer crying periods, at all.

But I am open to literally anything else. What worked for you?

My dd rarely napped in the day, more like little mini sleeps here and there for 15 mins. Although like yours had a good long sleep at night.
She used to like her vibrating bouncing chair, that used to give her half hr sleep. She also used to sleep in the car, although if I tried to transfer her into her cot she would wake, so I used to have to stay in the car with her .

My DS is now 20 months and has never napped for more than 45 minutes /1 hour a day, and that is with huge effort on my part to get him to sleep! I think some babies just don't nap much.

My DD was the same. One 30min nap a day until she was 20months. Then she went to 11hrs overnight (7-6ish) and a 2hr nap after lunch.

I tried everything when she was little but the world was just too exciting! I remember being so annoyed with mums whose children napped for 2-3hrs twice a day and how they would nap then too or do housework etc.

Some babies just don't want to nap. I feel your pain though! X

Our eldest never really napped, he cat napped in the day, anything between 15 minutes to an hour IF we were lucky. You say she sleeps well at night so hard though it is for you, it might just be that she doesn’t need naps in the day.

Our second and third were a nap revelation after their elder brother’s non napping regime, and ds2 used to sleep for up to 3 hours in the day, dd didn’t sleep for as long but would sleep wherever we were (pram, car seat, sofa, laps, sling, cot, carpet, high chair we used to joke she’d sleep on a washing line ) What I’m trying to say is that all babies are different, some need a nap, some don’t need as much sleep as others.

My ds (now 2 yrs) was the same, brilliant sleeper at night but consistently refused to nap for longer than 20mins which would leave me frustrated every day..
It changed around 10/11 months - now he naps 2-2.5 hrs per day and 12 hours at night. I know you said you wouldn't consider but we did controlled crying for nap time (at 10 months) which worked after 2 days - I didn't try earlier though. Not very helpful, but just wanted to say you're not alone. Agree with above though, some just won't nap so best not to beat yourself up over it not happening.

I'd try (if you aren't already) swaddling her or looking into buying something like the swaddle up sleeping bag, white noise app / YouTube playing continuously and a very dark/black out blind on windows in the room.

Mine was an avid nap avoider, and for about 6 weeks an avid sleep refuser and these steps defo helped.
The other thing that may help is feeding about 20 mins before nap time. I followed the 2/3/4 schedule ish which helped rule out her being overtired.
She sleeps great at home now but is still terrible at nursery often sleeping only 30 mins a day.
Good luck!

Thanks everyone, this has made me feel loads better that I'm not alone. She just doesn't nap at all unless she's in the crib and even then it's a two hour push around for maybe a 45 minute nap.

I've got her in a swing seat now trying to get her off in the house and she's literally screaming herself sick, but her eyes are starting to drop, so fingers crossed.... I might try to make the swing seat a fixture of the in house nap for the next month or so while she still fits in it!

I've basically tried everything suggested here but she just doesn't seem to need to nap much in the day (controversial I know). It's weird because once it gets to bedtime she goes off so easily.

I'm hoping that once she gets older and both takes solids and consolidates naps that I might be able to get her off for a decent chunk after lunch.

Thanks to everyone with ideas, and good luck to those in the same position.

That should read "unless she's in the pram". Obviously.

At 5.5 months the only reliable way to get DD to sleep was the sling.

God i love that sling!

I had an amazing sleeper - as long as she was firmly in my arms....

I sympathise, it's really hard when you can see stuff that needs doing or just want one measleyhour to drink a hot drink and not have to be on duty.

We're still not quite there at night with toddler dd, but if there's one thing I've learnt is that generally a lot of battles around sleep aren't worth having. You can usually find a middle ground between what you want and what they want when it comes to sleep. It's not a permenant thing anyway given how much baby's sleep changes anyway.

Keep providing the opportunity to sleep and encourage it, but if she's not going to go off then so be it. You'll find other methods to achieve what you need to do in that time.

Fwiw, I really wish I'd had one of those rockers but I would be wary of introducing it if you think she's only got another months use in it. What happens then? Great it if works but I would be concern about just pushing the problem further along iyswim?

Yy to attacks of green eyed monster at tales of babies that nap for three hours I didn't paint my nails again till dd was over a year!

For DS1 I found white noise and blackout curtains worked when he started naptime shenanigans.
Tried the same with DD thinking I was an absolute pro at naptime after DS and she wasn't having any of it. I carried that kid in a sling or held her for sleep until she was 8 months old.
I don't get why some of them just won't sleep!
I'm sorry that's no help for you whatsoever but I get how frustrating it is when you can't figure out why they won't just go to sleep
I'd love it if someone put me down for a nap.