To ask for baby napping tips

[elm26]

I'm at my wits end with my almost 5 month olds non existent napping in the day.

She will doze off for 15 minutes then be wide awake then be grumpy 45 minutes later and overtired and rubbing eyes before she finally falls asleep again for another 15 minutes max.

I don't know what to do but I can't get anything done, I start doing something like sterilising, washing up, mopping etc and she starts whinging and eventually crying.

She has a good bedtime routine, bath at 6, bottle at 6:30 and in her cot for 7pm and I then give her a dream feed at 10:30 and she gets up around 6:30am however she wakes up every couple of hours crying because she's dropped her dummy in her sleep (any tips for getting rid of dummy too?!)

How can I get a couple of hours sleep into her in the day? We have blackout curtains, white noise machine, she has a comforter etc.

5 months is a hard time. I would suggest holding her for sleep if that’s what she wants, or wear her in a good carrier and move around. Going for a walk with her in the pram might help, if you’re lucky she’ll stay asleep in there for a bit when you get home. You might not be able to get much else done, at that stage with both my babies most of that stuff has been done in the evening when my husbands around to share the load. It’s really normal for them to not want to sleep alone at this age and much older. It’s also normal for them to have short cat naps and be fussy at this age. It’s a season to get through. I’d also wait to lose the dummy when sleep is better, one thing at a time. Do what you need to for your own rest, that’s important too.

Unfortunately, some babies don't nap as well as others. My first never slept and I always wondered how on earth other people got their babies to nap. My second would fall asleep at the drop of a hat. There's nothing I did differently, it was just down to the baby, so although some tips are useful, don't beat yourself up if they don't work for you and your little one.

That said, with DS1, he would sleep in the pram if I went for a walk or would sleep on me (although appreciate this is not helpful when you want to get on with some chores while they sleep). If you have a sling, try wearing her in it to allow you to get on with some bits, otherwise, just make peace with the fact that the washing up and mopping can wait.

My little boy would only nap for longer than 20 minutes at that age if it was a contact nap. It stressed the hell out of me for a few weeks until I eventually surrendered to it and now looking back it’s my favourite part of his first year. I’d either nap too or just settle down and read/watch netflix.
I found it stressful when he was small trying to fit tasks and jobs into the time he was asleep. But I found that actually you can get more done when they’re awake than you realise if you involve them. Washing up - give them a wooden spoon and pan to play with. Laundry - sit them in the basket/play with pegs. Mopping - play some nursery rhymes and sing along while you go. Life became so much easier for me once I figured this out.

I would suggest holding her for sleep if that’s what she wants, or wear her in a good carrier and move around.

I agree with @BuffaloCauliflower . If you get her comfy in a carrier she'll almost certainly drop off and then you can try to either transfer her or just carry on with jobs.

Equally do the jobs whilst she's awake in the carrier, then your downtime can be when you're nap trapped on the sofa or whatever it is you need to do to get her to have a proper nap.

Hold/rock her for at least 20 mins until she drops into a deeper sleep. The first 20 mins or so are lighter sleep.

It needs to be that you can lift her arm and its gone floppy, before you can put her down.

You may find she stirs 45 mins in and you need to pat her tummy etc for a few mins to prevent her waking up, she will do this until old enough to connect sleep cycles.

Do this for at least a couple of weeks to get her really well rested before trying to get her to transition into deep sleep/connect multiple sleep cycles without your input.

@AfterWeights this sort of approach didn’t work for either of my children at any age. Even after 20-30 minutes you couldn’t put them down, and patting them just woke them up more 😂

Thanks everyone so much.

She is beside herself today with her teeth we had a bad couple of weeks last month and then it eased off and today she's angrily chomping on anything she can get her hands on and crying. When I think about it, the daytime naps have been bad since showing signs of teething.

This is definitely harder than the newborn stage, she's cried and whinged all day and no amount of cuddles, kisses or trying to play will calm her down. Only thing that worked was when I took our dog for a walk, she slept the whole 90 minutes in the pram which is really unlike her, usually she has about 30 minutes then is awake babbling away and looking around.

I've checked her temperature which is fine but I've given some nurofen just in case it is her teeth, I'm about to bathe her and put her to bed for 6 tonight because she's pulling at her ears, rubbing eyes, getting herself in a state.