How can I get my 3 month old to nap?

[charlieg22]

Hi,

My three month old just will not nap during the day. He generally sleeps well at night (8-10 hours) but apart from his first couple of weeks he only ever takes very brief catnaps (about 10-15 mins once or twice a day if we are lucky). We have tried everything - rocking him in his bouncer, in his cot in a dark quiet room but he just cries/screams & will not drift off and he is irritable a lot of the time he is awake as he's tired. The problem also is that we are in a 1 bed place & my husband works nights so needs to sleep in the afternoon in our bedroom with the cot. Does anyone please have any suggestions as to what we can do? Thanks

You have my sympathy hope you find a solution.
A couple of ideas I've got you may have already tried.
Going out for a walk in the pushchair - the stimulation may be enough to wear him out if he doesn't fall asleep on the walk to sleep when back. The only downside to this was on the occassions when my ds wouldn't sleep and I walked him, he was asleep, I got back knackered and he was awake, by the time we returned after hour walk!!!
The other thing is I know this may not be good if your dh is trying to sleep, but maybe it's too quiet and IMHO it's good to differentiate for baby nighttime and daytime sleep, so have noise going on, hoover, washing machine etc any white noise, and see if the sensation of that will get him off. Dn would settle to the hair dryer being on.
Good luck.

Feel free to ignore my advice, as some people would not recommend it.

Have you tried a dummy? DS was a very sucky baby and was a terrible napper until he had a dummy to go to sleep with.

DD on the other hand will happily fall asleep with a dummy, but won't sleep for longer than about 10 minutes unless she's on her side or her front.

She only ever sleeps on her front during the day when I'm in the room with her. She has good head control, and I'm happy with her doing this, although I know it goes against SIDS advice.

go for a drive? not great for you and don;t if you are pooped but guaranteed to get DS to sleep - within seconds if we went fast enough!
try putting him down with something that smells of you - a grubby mussie - that helps DS when he's grizzly.
will he sleep longer on you? he might just be a power napper. a friends dd hardly sleeps at all in the day but will do 12h at night no probs!
might he have some trapped wind? ds would always wake when i put him down if he had a burp/ fart stuck.

best of luck!