Struggling with daytime naps

[Laurenypops]

I am new to MN and am looking for some words of wisdom on improving my DD's daytime naps. I am very lucky in that at 3.5mnths she is sleeping 7 'til 7, but I am struggling to get her to sleep in the day, and am consequently calming a fractious baby all day. I do normally manage to get her to sleep, but she wakes after about half an hour, still grumpy and tired. I have yet to succeed in getting her back to sleep. I have loosely followed the routine of a well known childcare expert, which has obviously paid off for the night times, but I am not sure whether I am trying to get her to do something that doesn't suit her. If she is getting 12 hours at night is it possible that she doesn't need much in the day? I'm not sure at what age a baby can learn to re-settle themselves, although she does manage to at night. We have used a dummy, which is what helps to settle her initially, but she has recently started playing with it, and pulling it out, only to protest at its disappearance. I think reading this back it all sounds a bit mudddled, but thats because i am! I don't understand how I get it so right at night, and not in the day. I look forward to some advice!

Hey Laurenypops!
Well done in getting her to sleep all night.

I tried to put my dd (changed and fed) into her cot in a dimmed room around lunchtime with a few 'quiet' toys.(eg teether)
I then leave her alone. She sometimes goes off to sleep fine, but sometimes she potters round her cot with her toy.
I have a CD that we play in her room quietly all night that I switch on to lull her.

I know that a lot of people disapprove of using 'props' to lull a baby to sleep, but it works for my dd.

Hope this might help?

Thanks Macdog. There are so many warnings about establishing the wrong sleep associations that I'm obsessing about her settling herself! But a tired, grumpy baby is hard work, and so I'm beginning to think anything is worth a try. Thankyou for your suggestions.

Hi Laurenypops, will she sleep in a pushchair/pram during the day? I too have a good night-sleeper and she does have phases every few months where she won't sleep in her bed during the day. I take her out in the pushchair or time trips to town to coincide with her so she sleeps in the car.

Hi, my 16wk old is exactly the same. Never naps longer than 30mins, but does sleep 7-7. Health Visitor said babies this age sleep 12-14 hrs in 24, so I have accepted that until my son is more active he will be bunny hopping from short nap to short nap, no matter how grumpy in between. My 2.5yr old was the same. Very rarely, I can lie down with baby and then he gets over the light period and slips into deep sleep.

My dd is 6 months and still has three naps each day, mid-morning, early afternoon and late afternoon. I now know that these are the times that she is likely to be feeling tired and I watch out very carefully for signs of tiredness, esp being a bit miserable and yawning. I then try to get her off to sleep as soon as she is getting tuired. I get her to sleep during the day by holding her in my arms and gently rocking her. She will sleep in the buggy, if she happens to be in at naptime, or the car, again if the journey coincides with naptime. I've never tried to put her down in her cot for naps during the day. She will sleep for between 20min to an hour at each nap and I just let her wake up herself, with the only rule being that she mustn't nap later than 6pm as we start her bathtime/bedtime routine from 7pm and she sleeps from 8-8ish. I know that I've not offered any specific advice but sometimes I think it just helps to hear what others do.

Thankyou all. You are so right LaDiDaDi - it definetly helps to hear other people's experiences as this gives me an idea as to whether I am being unrealistic in what I am encouraging my DD to do. I think she is a baby that needs cat naps. She will sleep in the pram, but only for short bursts, but as you say Mamadothat, this is probably all she needs, I and will just have to be extremely grateful for our peaceful evenings - at least until she teeths!

Hi Laurenypops, I followed the same routine as you with my dd and had no probs with the morning and late aft naps but took a while to crack the lunchtime one. I found she always woke after 35-40 mins and although dh always wanted to leave her, I couldn't stand her crying more than 5 mins so would go and pick her up- convinced she must've had enough sleep. Eventually I left her crying longer and found she settled herself back to sleep and would sleep until I woke her (usually 2-2.5hrs). Stick with it- as much for you as for dd, I couldn't do without my 'break'. My dd is 2 now and still has 1.5hrs after lunch (would have more if I let her!) Good luck!

When DD1 was around that age she used to sleep for around 1.5 hours at lunch time but she went through a period of waking up around 45 minutes into this sleep and not being able to settle herself back to sleep again. I knew she needed more sleep than this so I spent some excrutiating days letting her cry herself back to sleep again and, awful though that was, fortunately it sorted the problem out and we didn't look back. From my limited experience, it's a kind of phase they go through.

Thanks all! I have been leaving her to cry over the last couple of days, and although it feels very cruel, she has not cried for more than 7 minutes (i sit with a clock!) before falling asleep. I think this is the answer, as when she has settled herself she sleeps far more soundly. Fingers crossed!

There is only one piece of advice which I ever used from and that is that a baby should not be awake for more than 2 hours. This effectively means that just by the time you are up and about, your baby will probably be wanting a snooze again. Leave it too long, and they get over-tired, fractious and difficult.

Now. You sound EXACTLY like me with DD1. My head reeled with confusions about sleep/feeds etc for that first year - and it took about a year for me to get a grip with daytime sleep. Gah! Now with DD2, I put what I had learnt into practice straight away - and it was marvellous!

So - if he wakes at 7, then at about 8:45 you want to be settling him down for a sleep. REALLY look out for those sleepy cue - and at this age you MIGHT get rubbing eyes, but you will CERTAINLY get yawning. If you see those yawns, then try and get him to wherever is most likely he will settle. Now this might mean you give him a feed in front of the telly (and hey - why not) and let him sleep on your boob, or your lap - but get the phone/remote/cuppa and just relax yourself for a while whilst he sleeps. OR walk him round, cuddle him (whatever works best for settling) and I used to find that by the 4th or 5th yawn - she would be dozy and if I put her down, she might fuss for a bit, but then hey presto!

Indeed if you are ready - get him in that carseat and drive to wherever you need to go this morning to let him sleep in the car! I used to do a lot of shopping / chores ALL based around this 2 hour nap schedule. Sometimes it was easier knowing that I could get out and let her sleep in the car.

Hi Laurenypops, my DD now 2, was always good at nightime as in slept 6 hours from birth but a real pain during the day. she was also easy to settle at nightime once we got her bedtime routine going but this never worked well at naptimes. She was also a great fan of the half hour naps during the day! I did stick with the 90 minutes to 2 hours rule and always planned excursions with the buggy etc for when she would be ready for a nap. TBH during the day the only way I could ever get her to have a decent nap was to take her out in the buggy and walk around until she had been asleep for a half hour then park her in a darkened hallway and creep around but I think that was probably not working by 3.5 months. I really did despair of her ever having a decent midday nap but around her first birthday she just started having 1.5 hours then and has carried on since, just that it gradually gets later.

Hi Laurenypops
My DS is pretty much thesame...terrible at nappping through they day...and doesn't even sleep 7-7! I think this is coz he's a pretty big boy, still totally breast fed was 16lbs at his 16week check (now 19 weeks) therefore still needs that 10.30 feed...then another one at 5am. When i was complaining aabout him being a bad napper someone said to me "well you can't have everything" i.e he does ok at night so be grateful...but it's no comfort when you've got a grumpy overtired baby. I go by the 2hr rule like Catbert...and try to enforce it even when it appears he is alert and far from sleepy. Lunchtime nap is a nightmare as he rarely does more than 40 mins and have yet to let him cry it out after he wakes up as he makes himself sick with rage when i have left him. Think I shall try this next week though as he really does need that long lunch time nap. All babies are different and yours may just like to catnap...but it desn't mean she wont learn to be a better napper...Try putting her down in her crib every nap time with dummy. if she continies to pull it out try a full swaddle...i do this with DS for some of his naps, though not all and it seems to do the trick! good luck

My son didn't sleep through till 6 months and from 3-6 months he only had 3 x 30 min during the day. And it was exactly 30 mins, very freaky. At 6 months he suddenly started to have 2 hour sleeps, usually in the late morning and then about 30-40 mins in the pm. I think it may have been to do with having food and also being very active; he started crawling instead of rolling. He had never read the books that talk about lunchtime naps, he used to do 9-11, then 10-12 then 11-1. Then it was only when he started preschool at 2 that he used to go to sleep after that at about 12.30pm. I am so glad that I never pushed for conventional timings of naps as it would have been a nightmare.

I was just about to start a thread asking for pretty much the same advice as you Laurenypops. Just reading through whats here has helped.

I have a 6 1/2 month ds who needs more sleep during the day too. He's never been very good at sleeping in day (is pretty good at night, doing 8.30-8 now with 1 wakening at the most) but I thought I'd cracked it a few weeks ago when I'd got him to do 30 mins (exactly, it is freaky) at about 9.00am, 1-1.5 hours at about 1.00pm and 30 mins at about 5.00pm. But now he's gone to anywhere between 30mins and 1 hr 20mins in the morning and only half an hour at lunchtime. And usually half an hour exactly at 5.00ish

Any tips on getting him to sleep longer?
I think I might try leaving him to cry esp if some of you are saying he might sleep better if I do that. I had been thinking about doing controlled crying as another issue is that he still needs a dummy and needs to be held in arms to fall asleep (will then be put into cot) and I can't keep doing that forever, esp as he's a big boy.

Those of you that have left baby to cry, do you stay in the room or go back in every few minutes or just leave them?

Hi Debithescot! You're right, I too have been finding the info on this thread useful - thanks everyone. Since starting this thread I have been leaving dd to settle herself, ie leaving her to cry, and on the whole is proving to be quite successful. Yesterday she didn't have her dummy once, and I've found that when she settles without it, she sleeps more soundly, and if she does wake, she settles herself with very little whinging. I generally leave her on her own, but I'm always within earshot, and if she sounds like she's getting to worked up I go in and whisper to her!

With your ds being that bit older he will probably have a greater attachment to his dummy, but it might be worth trying to wean him off it. I've started to just use it to settle dd, and then whip it out before she is properly asleep. She moans for a short while, but if I time it right she's so relaxed she can't be bothered to complain and drifts off.

I don't know how you feel about waking your dd, but it might be worth cutting back on is morning sleep in order to ensure that he is more tired at lunchtime. I have tried this and sometimes it's worked and sometimes it hasn't! Hope some of this helps. If you crack the long lunchtime sleep let me know!

Did you start with just leaving her to cry at her daytime sleeps or have you being doing it at bedtime too? I think I might have to try it.
Ds does only have the dummy to fall asleep, he doesn't get it at any other time (I hate them but caved within the first week to get him to sleep!) but he has started sometimes pulling it out and waving it around when he's meant to be going to sleep! Tonight I put him in his cot while he was still quite awake as he wasn't settling in my arms and he pulled the dummy out and started running it up and down the cot bars, that made me laugh until I rememebred he was meant to be asleep!

I don't know about waking him up, esp as it doesn't seem to make any difference. If he is still asleep after 1 hr 15 mins (morning nap) I start thumping around upstairs and that usually wakes him. I do wonder if it actually matters. Just because books say that your baby should have a long sleep at lunchtime and short one in the morning I think thats what has to happen. But if he's happy, sleeping well at night and eating well does it matter if his sleeping pattern is different to what's in the books????? Will it make any difference to his life overall??????

have just read through the thread again and found a couple of useful bits I missed yesterday.

The idea about leaving him to cry after he wakes up after half an hour at lunchtime sounds good. I too usually leave him for 5 mins then decide to get hium up. Yesterday I did theis, then went for a walk with the buggy and he fell aslepp again for 45 mins!

And I see there are other babies out there who were doing their big sleep late morning too. The last couple of days ds hasn't gone back to sleep till 10.00am (rather than 9.00ish) and has slept for longer than he did when he slept at 9.00 so maybe he'll gradually push that sleep back to "the time all the books say he should sleep at"

I started leaving her to cry during her daytime naps, when I felt she needed more sleep. It seems if she wakes up crying it's because she needs more sleep, as first thing in the morning when she has obviously had a lot of sleep, she wakes and just happily lies in her cot.

I have found it very difficult as a new mum with no baby experience, as I read books to try and learn, and then find they cloud my judgement, and make me doubt my own initiative. You are right DebitheScot, if your ds has a different sleep pattern than the 'suggested' but is happy and content then I wouldn't worry. I started this thread because my dd wasn't either of these things during the day, and was therefore very hard work. Today she had an hour at 9.30am, an hour and a half at lunchtime and half an hour at 4.30pm, and she has been a dream child. Plus she settled herself from awake at 6.30pm,no dummy, no crying. If this is what the right amount of daytime sleep, at the right times achieves, I will persevere!

Your ds sounds like a cheeky chappy with his dummy! I think babies are programmed to make us smile at oppotune moments like that, to remind us to stop obsessing amount small stuff, and just 'go with it' every now and again!