7mo won't nap at all in the day

[BlueFrenchHorn]

Is there anything I can do? Point blank refuses. Wakes at 6.30am and bed at 6.30pm and is awake crying from overtiredness in between.

I have a 2 yo as well so if I could dedicate the entire day to getting him ti nap I would but I change him, he's fed dry comfortable put him down and he screams.

Leaving him makes no difference he never stops, he'll literally cry until he's picked up again.

He rubs his eyes, yawns etc all day.

Plus I'm at the end of my tether. 12 hours awake for a 7 mo is too long.

Any tips at all? Am desperate.

Does he nap on the pram either on a walk or just in the garden?

Or sometimes I trick mine by having him in his play nest in q warm room initialy playing then gradually let things. Get calmer so he drops of to sleep.

He's never napped in his pram (p&t double so it doesn't look the most comfortable to sleep in) and he hasn't slept in the carrier since he was 4 month old (ergo).

What am I doing wrong? Should I just leave him to cry in his cot?

Mine doesn't either OP, only for walks or in the car. Only time I can get him to nap is if I finish feeding him while half lying in the cot and gently put him down - but if I make any sort of noise he wakes

The only comfort might be is knowing as they gets more active in the next month or two- they will sleep????

I've been working on this with my 7mo DD. I started putting her in the cot at nap time. If she cries I go in and feed her again. But I don't take her out of the room. There's been a gradual improvement. Poor DS has been watching a lot of tv recently!

My 7 month old ds is going through the same phase. He used to be ok at napping but now he's terrible. He'll rarely sleep in his cot and will only sometimes sleep in the pram / car for half an hour at a time. Everything that used to work (limited controlled crying, co sleeping in my bed) has now stopped working.
I have resorted to the pick up put down method for no other reason than I needed to try something and had lost all confidence that I had any clue myself. It has been about week and has been mixed... Some days I spend the whole of the 'nap time' picking up and putting down a very upset baby, and on other occasions all I need to do is sit with my hand on his tummy and he'll (eventually) fall asleep.
It definitely isn't perfect but I'm going to give it another week to see if it works more consistently. It is the most frustrating thing to have a very tired grumpy baby who can't get to sleep- driving me slightly nuts!

I did CC one evening and then carried it on the next day - but generally mine self settles so I was just getting over a sleep regression.

Also around 5 weeks I spent a weekend in the bedroom and only lying in the cot so he had to sleep there. I usedthe ppretend we are having fun technique not sure of that would work at 7 months.

OP what time are you trying to get him down? At that age many babies naturally follow a 2,3,4 pattern i.e. awake 2hrs then nap, awake 3hrs then nap awake 4hrs then bed, so something like

Up 7
Nap: 9-10
Nap: 1-3
Bed: 7

I found with my ds I needed to catch him before he got to the point of overtiredness or he was very difficult to put down, so it may be a good idea to really observe your ds for a few days & see if you can spot those first tired signs. They may come sooner than you think.

I did this with my DS, then around 15-20mins before the time when he typically got sleepy I'd start a gentle wind down, so a walk around the house, looking out of the windows, talking calmly & having a cuddle. Read a short bedtime story then up to his room, nappy change & into his sleeping bag & into bed, with his lullabye projector thing switched on. I did the same routine every day, so he soon learnt when sleep time was coming.

I only did CC once under pressure from the HV during a visit, & I vowed never to do it again. So instead, if he cried I stayed with him & soothed him but always left him in the cot. It didn't take long before I could lay him in, he'd shout for maybe a minute & then relax & go to sleep. I also found that over time I learnt the difference between him crying in real distress & him protesting a wee bit at being put in bed, & if it was a protest cry then I would leave him for a few mins to see if he'd settle & 95% of the time he did.

HTH

So he wakes at say 6.30am I try and put him down by 9am. He then refuses I eventually give up and try again at dds nap time 1pm again refuses.

I'm certain I'm putting him down when he's tired but the longer he won't sleep the more overtired he gets.

Do you have a birth ball?

What worked for dd at that age was waiting for the second yawn then immediately up to darkened room (would let DS watch beebies in another bedroom) and cuddle her while sitting bouncing on the ball. I'd shush her but otherwise bounce til she went to sleep. Fairly vigorously at times! Then wait 10 mins and put down.

She'd sometimes only sleep another 10 mins but it was a start. She's now 11m and still needs cuddled to sleep for naps but no bouncing and only naps for 30mins twice a day. Can't wait for the long afternoon nap, though tbh i suspect she may never do it as she hates to miss out.

If you have a strong sleep routine in the evening maybe try mimicking that for naps. Ask a friend or relative to come over and watch older dc for a few days while you make a real try at it. Set yourself an hour of bounce/walk/singing whatever and if that fails, try again the next day.

I wouldn't usually suggest it, but perhaps in the first instance try earlier than 9am - start winding him down at say 8.15am & aim to have him in bed & hopefully asleep by 8.30am. See if that helps. Sometimes they settle better if you catch them before they get to the point when they are really tired. If it is overtiredness, then once he catches up a bit you can push the nap a bit later again.

Conversely, if he still won't entertain going down with the earlier nap, then you could always try going the other way & make it later. It could be that 9am is actually too early, so he's fighting it, but then by the time you try getting him down at 1pm, he's so overtired by that point that he fights it again. If your gut feeling is that this feels like the more likely scenario, the IIWY I'd push the nap time 10-15mins later every few days, until it starts at 9.30am, then keep it there for a couple of weeks & see if he settles any better. You may even need to go as far as 10am.

Also, how long do you leave him in the cot for before abandoning the nap attempt? If its a matter of a couple of minutes it may just be a case of persevering - you don't have to leave him to CIO - if you prefer to stay & shush that is fine, but it may take a couple of weeks of sitting it out until he is happy to settle in the cot with you next to him & you can gradually retreat from there. I appreciate this may be difficult if you have dd to look after aswell, but if you could set her up with a dvd, or an activity like colouring or puzzles that she can do quietly for a few minutes while you settle ds it might give you that time you need.

omama usually it's about an hour and a half at least of trying before abandoning the nap. And that's leaving him to try and settle, cuddling, feeding, patting and sushing.

My DD1 was like this at that age and I remember how I hated the endless days of trying to get her to sleep. In the end I found the best thing for us was to put her down twice a day (8.30ish and 12.30ish) and set a time limit of up to an hour to try and get her to sleep (I would let her cry a bit, but go in and re-settle her if she got really worked up). Then after an hour, even if there'd been no sleep, I would get her up and go out to do something to distract us both from her overtiredness (it usually involved cake for me...). Limiting the time I was trying to get her to sleep really helped make the days more bearable. It took quite a while but eventually she started to nap a bit and the naps got gradually longer and she is now (at nearly 3) a very good sleeper and will still sometimes have a two hour nap.

We had this issue at around at six months. It got better at about seven and a half months. I realised eventually she really needs to sleep about every two hours still, because each nap is so short.