Baby sleep - no naps!!!

[PrincessPeachxo]

I am struggling.
Until 4 weeks ago, my 10month old would sleep 11hr stetches! Then she started teething and then this was followed by not feeling very well. She has been back to her normal self 2 weeks ago but sleep has never returned. She wont sleep through anymore unless she comes in our bed. She will sleep 4 hrs and then wake, cry and falls back asleep in our bed. Ive tried letting her cry it out for a bit but she gets in some state and ive tried making the time longer before bringing her to bed but she gets more wound up. Then when she sleeps, I transfer her back to her cot. She doesnt wake and will stay asleep for maybe another hour and so the cycle repeats.

This has coincided with daytime naps disappearing unless its a weekend and my partner can help (he works during week) or if my mum is looking after her. She doesnt nap with me anymore and its hard not to take it personally. She will yawn, rub her eyes, and look knackered. I then give her some milk (she always has some before a nap), she looks like she is about to fall asleep but nope! Wide eyes, big smile and then tries crawling away. I have tried letting her crawl and roll around as to tire her out but it doesnt. I then just leave nap time and take her to another room to do something else so I am not fighting sleep for over an hour because sometimes it wont result in a nap!
But when I take her to a different room, half an hr later she is yawning, rubbing eyes, great i think, let's go nap! Nope she then wants to play.
The only way she will nap now, during the day, is if I go a drive.

As much as I dont mind doing this. I had no plans to leave house today as I have lots of housework to crack on with (we had a full on weekend and I said I would do the washing today and prep dinner during day). Now it looks like i might have to go a drive for her to sleep. I got snappy earlier and said "we aren't going a drive, I am not leaving the house for 2 hrs so you can sleep, I have things to do". I know shes a baby but before this it was contact naps for hours.
I just hear people doing all this stuff while their baby naps and I haven't ever been able to do this as she always contact napped so that was me for 2 hrs and now we need to leave the house and go a drive and there isnt much I can do in that time.
Getting down as baby across the road never slept but now is sleeping 12hrs a night with 3 naps during the day and the mum always posts on Instagram with homemade bread, cakes, building lego. I feel bad sitting on phone while baby in playpen playing hersel but i am not getting a goodnights sleep anymore and durjng the day its so hectic as its always "go". etc

Wish I could rewind back to sleeping through the night again. I was always guaranteed a good sleep, partner and I could be intimate, it gave me time in mornings and evenings. Now each night is different I cant plan anything. So housework or anything else is done whilst baby in playpen however she cries if I leave the room. I want my time back. Sorry if I sound selfish and please dont say "oh but your baby slept very well and this has only happened". Its still the same and isnt a competition.

I am angry that to enforce a nap that I need to leave the house. And why does she nap with my partner and mum. Why not me. I've had enough.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

"If that is the correct thing to say"... what a strange comment.

Well if you read my post she was a brilliant sleeper until 4 weeks ago. So I very much doubt she has an intolerance to something shes been drinking since birth.

If you have no kids, please dont comment on a baby / child post, very odd behaviour. Like what can you offer??

Ta