Dear all
This is the first time I've added a discussion on here so please bear with me. I really am just looking for some advice about what to do about my son not taking a nap in the day when he is obviously tired.
My son is 6 and half months old, and has been pretty good about his naps until now. He always has had a morning nap, followed by another at mid afternoon then another late afternoon. I have never forced my son into this routine he kind if just set it himself, when he was tired he would go into his Moses basket in the front room. He always indicated he was tired by rubbing his eyes, yawning, babbling to himself and then getting generally ratty. Just recently as he is too big for his Moses basket i have started putting him in his cot upstairs for his naps (say in the past month). At first he was fine i gave him his comfort bear and dummy (as he has every time he goes to sleep) and he would get himself to sleep. Ive always made a point of letting him get himself to sleep which has always worked. But just recently when he's been tired in the day i take him upstairs for his nap and he just lays there all quiet. Ive got a baby monitor so i can see he is not sleeping. It might be worth adding that my son does try to keep himself awake by jerking his legs about which is what i see him doing on the monitor. He then settles down and just stares, I've left him for near an hour before to see if he just goes asleep but he's just quiet happily laying there. Then when he is ready he will cry for me to come get him. I then bring him back down stairs and he is still tired and ratty. I wouldn't even mind if he just wanted to chill out but it is so obvious he needs to sleep.I also fully understand that his naps need to be reduced at some stage but i just don't understand why all of a sudden when he is obviously tired he won't nap?
I've tried pick up put down, letting him cry whilst I stroke his face and reassure him, just to try and get him to go to sleep but he just screams until i pick him up. i hate to leave him to cry and see him so upset. I don't walk him up and down to sleep because he has never been a baby that will go to sleep that way. I've resorted to letting him sleep on me sometimes because he is just so tired and he has absolutely no problem at all doing that,but I do not want to do this all the time in case he gets too used to it.
However, his night time sleeping is fantastic. I have a set routine every night that involves bath bottle and bed. I have no problems getting him to sleep of a night, he gets himself to sleep so it's not as if he doesn't know how. He still wakes every night for two bottles although I'm sure the second (which he doesn't always drink most of) is just so he can feel comforted by me. I thought it might have been his teething since he has been teething since he was three months but has never cut a tooth? Or is it because I upset his routine from moving him from the front room downstairs to his cot upstairs? I thought he may have been confused since he associates his cot with night time? I don't want to introduce any thing that I use at night time so not to confuse him further.
Please help, any advice or any ideas in what I may be doing wrong would be gratefully appreciated.
Thanks