Help with naps

[Taler]

Help!!!!!!

My 14 wk old DD is a cat napper in the day only having 20/30 minutes at a time.

We have a routine (which I wish we hadn't gotten into!) whereby when I see the tired cues I take her into the bedroom sit on the bed with her in my arms, give her the dummy (which she generally always takes), rock her a little, wait for her to get a bit more sleepy then put her in her Moses basket.

This generally always works until now!

Now when I put her in her Moses basket she's wide-eyes, spits the dummy out, is all smiles (?!?!?!) and kicking about (like she would on her play mat).

How the hell do I manage her that?????

I have tried a bit of controlled crying ("bit" being the operative word!) whereby I go in every few minutes, put my hand in her chest, shhhh her then leave the room. I usually end up giving in or I think there's a genuine reason, ie teething pain.

All I know is I have one very tired very demanding little baba who thinks she holds the cards (which of course she does!!!) but mummy needs to.

Any help/advice please????

She may not be tired? They start to go longer intervals between naps as they get older

But she gives all the signs

My ds does this, gives all the signs but then won't sleep. Sometimes they're too interested in what's going on to sleep and need bigger gaps

Now when I put her in her Moses basket she's wide-eyes, spits the dummy out, is all smiles (?!?!?!) and kicking about (like she would on her play mat

Doesn't sound like she's tired

Agreed but she clearly is as yawns plus gets grouchy. She may well be more interested in what else is going on but if she doesn't sleep she enters overtiredness-ville which ain't a pretty place! ;)

When my DD was about this age we had a similar problem we ended up putting her down for a nap 2 hrs after she had woken up and she just went to sleep on her own. I think at this age that's the longest they can stay awake for. It worked for us but she was an easy baby!

My Ds (17 weeks) does this sometimes. He sleeps beautifully at night but fights naps something terrible. When I see sleepy signs I pop him in his cot/pram, dim the lights/pull pram hood down. If he is still resisting we use white noise, and it works very well. We have an app for it. I also stay mindful of the time, my Ds gets grumpy at around the 2 hour mark, so I try to prempt his nap time. He has a very short sleepy window, which I miss at my peril! He still prefers short naps in the morning (45 mins) and longer ones in the afternoon though.

I used to hold ds until he fell asleep when so young, sometimes bouncing on my yoga ball

Thank you.

I also use white noise as well as 'Mozart for mum and baby' which is brilliant too but sometimes neither work.

I really want to get out the habit of holding and rocking her as the longer that continues the worse it'll get and she'll never learn to fall asleep on her own.

She goes to sleep in a quiet room (not including the white noise) but don't want to use one of those black out things as want her to be used to sleeping in all conditions (otherwise you just have a difficult baby when out and about)

And yes, I know I know what I want! I just don't know how best to achieve it. ;)

Yes I use white noise too.

I will say, she is still very young so don't worry about habits forming yet. Ds was rocked and breastfed to sleep until 7/8 months and then he got a bit heavy so I got him used to falling asleep on his own. I stopped rocking and just held him until he slept, after a couple of days I then lay him down next to me - little bit of crying. Then lying down in cot with one arm on him.

Now he will fall asleep perfectly fine. I think it helped I waited until he was a little older and more independent and understood a bit more.

Don't worry, she will eventually self settle. I wish I could get those little baby cuddles back now :) :(