Nap time problems

[MrsEagle]

My dd sleep problems don't seem to fit into other advice I've read so am hoping there may be some suggestions here! DD is 17 wks old and is very good at night (and yes i'm very grateful for it!) having said that she is hard to get to sleep (needs to be cudddled to sleep and fights it) but there is plenty of advice I have read on this and am deciding which method I am going to try for this. What I'm struggling with is her day time naps. Again she can be tricky to get to sleep but she doesn't stay asleep for long usually only half an hour. If she woke happy and ready for her next play or feed that wouldn't be a problem but she wakes up crying and clings to me for at least half an hour afterwards. Sometimes she will fall back to sleep on me but if I try to put her back down she wakes again and crys. Most of the time she is too awake to be soothed back to sleep. Any other ideas please?! With the pre-sleep cuddle, short nap then cuddles after a half hr nap can sometimes take 2 hrs!!! My ds never had sleep trouble so I'm bit lost on this 1!

Thanx xx

I know this situation very well. DS was exactly the same until about 6 months. All the different methods had no effect on him. The only thing that worked was breastfeeding him on my bed and then he'd go to sleep but need to be still attached to me for the whole nap or out in the pram or car! We tried cry it out, ssshh/pat (pointless for my DS!), rocking, sling, very expensive automatic swing in the end it was just time that helped. When he went into his big cot we used blackout curtains, so that there was hardly any light coming in and detuned the radio so it played white noise, we still use this, he'll be 8 months this week. I found that once he had started solids (it took a couple of weeks) he started taking a long nap in the morning, about 1.5 hours, then his after lunch nap got longer and sometimes, when I only want him to sleep 30 minutes late afternoon, he'll take an hour! Whether this was just a coincidence that he was sleeping better and having 3 meals a day or just learned to sleep better I don't know. One thing I found out though is that he would wake after 30 minutes and then go back off to sleep, sometimes this would take another 20 minutes, so if your DD is not crying hysterically then try and wait a few minutes. Also try a wind down pre-nap, quiet play or read a book. We still walk around the house for 10 minutes cuddling, then look in the mirror on the landing, switch on the radio, turn off the light and sing twinkle twinkle and frere jacques over and over until he yawns or I've done it 4 times! He goes down awake, sometimes laughing, then I give him his dummy, comforter and put his blanket on, give him a kiss and I leave the room. When we started doing this he would protest with a scream but by the time you got back to the door he'd stopped. He has a particular blanket for only daytime naps, and he seems to know now what it's for and pulls it up to his cheek.

Sorry for long reply, hope you find a good method.

My DS went through this phase too and he ended up getting so overtired it began to affect his night time sleep too. Like Milkyjo says, I left him for a good long while when he woke up, as he wasn't really crying, just babbling away to himself. I found that after about 20 minutes he babbled himself back to sleep. Eventually he just stopped waking so soon. Although it's not always practical I tried to get most of his naps in his cot and the routine was slightly different to his night time one. During the night he is in a sleeping bag but daytime naps are on a lovely cosy fleece from Ikea. He is now 10 months and goes down for 2 naps no bother at all. In fact, when you take him into his room, shut the curtains and tell him it's naptime he snuggles in and rubs his eyes, then wiggles towards his cot. So, my tips are to tell her it's nap time, put her down awake and leave her when she wakes for a wee while to see if she goes back down. Good luck! BTW, my DS is by no means a perfect napper. In fact, he had an absolute tantrum mid afternoon nap after 35 mins because he thought it was time to get up. It clearly wasn't as I wasn't finished on MN hee hee