4 week old does not nap

[Madallie]

Dd is 4 weeks old. She goes down to sleep at night at about 7pm, wakes at between 6 and 8.30am for the day, feeding through the night between every 3 to 5 hours (first chunk of sleep us usually the longest). This is all fine but she will not nap if we are at home, meaning sometimes she does not nap all day. She doesn't easily fall asleep in the bottle and isn't easily rocked to sleep.

Just wondered if anyone has experienced similar and if anything changed as their baby got older? I've read that one month olds shouldn't really be awake much more than an hour but dd is awake for hours no matter what I do.

Any advice?

My Dd was almost identical. Perfectly happy but only having two twenty minute naps a day. I saw my.GP who said she was very healthy, just didn't need much sleep. Unfortunately I found the lack of her naps exhausting for me, try and rest when you can.

I'd change your thread title, OP. There's a typo that might be upsetting.

And I'm afraid it never got better, we were down to one twenty minute nap at about six months, and no naps at all be eighteen months. Not even in the car, in the buggy, nowhere. However night time sleep has always been good.

Oh thank you tawdry. I was typing quickly and didn't see the typo. I'm not sure how to amend a title. Could you point me in the right direction?

I've sent in a report post asking MNHQ to amend the title, don't know if you can do it yourself.

How is she with no naps? Does she seem tired/irritable, or is she happy?

That was me. Slept fine at night but not at all during the day, pretty much from birth. Apparently it was a nightmare for my mother and a problem she never solved. On the one hand it never did me any harm in the sense that I've always been very healthy but on the other hand I've never really learned how to sleep properly. It's been a challenge all my life.

I come bearing good news

DD was an appaling napper and night-time sleeper up until about 7 months when we did gentlish slerp training. After this she slept 2 hrs twice a day and around 11 hrs at night until around 16 months when she dropped the AM nap.

DS was however another story... never ever took long naps but always slept relatively well at night.

Sleep training, not slerp training!

Mine was bad at night and would not sleep at home in the cot at all until about 5 months maybe. Then suddenly he just seemed to click with day naps, I didn't do anything apart from carrying on trying in his cot and giving up if he was getting upset as I didn't want to make a battle out of it.

The length of naps is still unpredictable though - anything from 30 mins to 2 hours!

Thanks binky, that at least gives me some hope. Hopefully if I persevere she will get used to it at some point.

my ds was the same when he was really little, i remember trying to get him to go off for a sleep (cus thats what i thought babies were supposed to do) and he used to look at me like i was crazy!!

Saying that he did start having a good nap of around 2 hours at lunchtime when he was around 1 and was starting walkings. He dropped nap completely around 18 months to 2 years.