10 week old baby fighting daytime naps....

[Clarabell78]

.... And it's making him and me miserable!! I am very very lucky in that he will go down at around 6.45 waking for 2 feeds in the night but go straight back to sleep and up around 6.30am. During the day tho he won't nap for more than about 30 mins at a time and before he goes down he is beside himself with screaming! As a result he is just generally very grumpy/Whiney most days. He's averaging about 4 x 30/40 min naps per day which I just don't think is enough. He also doesn't appear to be in a deep settled sleep during the day and tosses and turns and moans/groans a lot.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can improve things. I do try to get him down at the first signs of tiredness but its not working. There also doesn't seem to be a set pattern as to when he wants to nap from day to day. I've tried EASY but he will never sleep for the length of time suggested on the examples I've seen.

He suffers from colic but I honestly think that his grumpiness and crying isn't helped by the lack of sleep during the day.

Hi, my girl was exactly the same used to have 3 or 4 cat naps a day lasting no more than 45mins. I did worry about it to begin with as all the books said she should be having x amount of sleep at day but finally accepted that this is just what she did and was all she needed (she was only grumpy if she missed one of these naps). She then dropped to 3 naps and it wasn't till she was about 13/14 months that she stopped doing this and started to have 1 long nap. She is now nearly 2 and sleeps for 1.5-2hrs at about midday.

Ah, you've answered your own question. He suffers from colic. My ds suffered terribly from colic, was never a good sleeper at night and it didn't matter which book I tried to follow none worked.
If you've been following EASY then instead of putting him down at the first signs of tiredness try putting him down 15 mins before your ideal naptime. Some babies take up to twenty mins to settle down for a nap. Darken the room. Try having white noise on in the background and a dummy.

Also, some babies just don't need as much sleep as others.

Thanks for your replies. cookielady when did your ds colic get better? Was he a normal happy baby afterwards? I really worry my little man is just always going to be miserable and raging at the world the way he is now. He is rarely content and its just breaking my heart.

A friend has a similar aged baby and has found out yesterday why he was never sleeping longer than 15 mins per day: he was cold!
She put him in a winter fleecy overall for the school run and baby slept for hours. Same today. Amazing. Fearing overheating she had be over cautious. Maybe worth a thought?

Colic does tend to get better around 12 weeks, so good luck!

'Normal'? Ha. Nope! We renamed him the Energizer Bunny - just keeps going. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel!
We took him to an osteopath for cranial massages which helped with reducing the crying at night. After having three sessions we noticed a marked improvement and by the time he was three and half months old it was a lot better.
My ds stopped being so bloody grumpy once he could crawl at five months.

I use the same blanket on him st night and he sleeps.. Will try making him a bit cosier though, worth a try.

He's already had two sessions with a cranial osteopath and the difference is negligible, maybe after the third things will improve. I just want him to be happier in himself, he seems miserable and I can't seem to help him :-(

Does he sleep better in the buggy/car seat? If so then pop him in and travel!

Dd was always a cat napper until she was 13 months when she would occasionally deign to sleep for an hour to 90 minutes. She's back to one hour long nap now.

Hang in there for another 2/3 weeks. Many babies do settle mor then.

Also he's only tiny still and he hasn't read the book so try not to worry too much that he's not sleeping as the book says he should.

my ds would never sleep for more than about 1/2 hour at a time when he was tiny. He starting having a longer nap around age 1 when he started walking and burning more energy but then dropped his naps completely around 18 months. It made the days really hard but he does sleep well at night and i've found he tends to sleep later till about 7.30 whereas kids still napping in the day tend to be up at the crack of dawn.

Mine's only just got the hang of sleeping for more than 45 mins during the day at 5.5mo (but like yours has been happy to sleep well at night).

I found that putting him in the cot as soon as he starts to go a bit 'vacant' instead of waiting for him to yawn/rub eyes etc, has definitely helped as it's catching him when he's just starting to get tired but hasn't got to the point of being grumpy about it.

Unless he's napping when we are out, I give him the same sleep cues as at night - close the curtains, put him in his sleeping bag and give him his comforter.

Doesn't always work but there have been 4 naps of 1.5 hours in the last week now so it is improving!

My LO has been a sleep fighter and was colicky and very very short naps (30 min was good!), and it was only two weeks ago that I was softer up at 14 weeks that I took her to A&E and was given medication for silent reflux. Since then, we have seen a great improvement.