Am I failing at this? 4 month old and a FTM

[MotherOfBeagles]

My son is just over 4 months. He does not have regular naps during the day they are sporadic and usually only 20 minutes in my arms. If I put him down he wakes up. I've tried and tried to introduce routines but he's just way too alert and into things - way above normal for his age every doctor midwife nurse and HV can't believe how alert he is. Once a week if we have a day at home he might have a two or three hour nap in the afternoon. At night we have a bath at 7 and I've tried to do his bedtime routine of change nappy, into pjs and sleeping bag, book, lights off, white noise teddy on, star projection on, sing and rock to sleep with a bottle after his bath. He will go to sleep but if I put him down and go downstairs he won't stay asleep. He's wide awake and playing. However if we take him down with us after his bath he will come to bed with me usually around 9.30 do the routine and then he's out for the night with usually one wake up around 4 for a bottle and then awake at 8.

He has reflux and CMPA is on ranitidine, gaviscon and aptamil pepti junior for these. He is constipated from the gaviscon so I'm trying some carabel this weekend.

But heres the bit that's killing me. The meltdowns. He's had 18 today. Full on screaming fits. Like he's been mortally wounded tears red faced open mouthed screams. Nothing consoles him. It can sometimes take me an hour to calm him down. I feel like a bad mum. Like I've missed something and he's in pain and I'm not fixing it. Or maybe it's the sleep thing maybe he's overtired and I'm not helping or doing my job properly.

I'm honestly starting to feel like I tick all the boxes of PPD and I'm failing my son. His meltdowns are just getting worse. I've got calls into his peads consultant and dietician. The GP is absolutely useless.

Help? Am I alone? Does anybody have any advice?

Hi op. My little girl is also 4 months and rarely sleeps longer than 20 minutes. In fact it’s always exactly 25 minutes on the dot that she’ll wake up. She is also very inquisitive. All daytime naps happen on me and I cover her face with a muslin until she’s asleep to help her shut the outside world out.
I also wind down activities after an hour awake time and aim for her to be asleep no more than 1 and a half hours after her last nap.

It really sounds like your little one is overtired which is what your instincts are telling you. I wasted around a month of my little girl screaming all day as I was listening to family telling me it was wind or lack of stimulation when I’d originally thought it was tiredness.

I think when you have an alert baby they use up all their energy quickly and have less reserves to cope with being tired than a more relaxed baby and then have epic meltdowns.

My advice is just do whatever works to get baby to sleep in the day cuddles/rocking whatever and if baby fights the nap, try the next nap quicker, even if baby has only been awake an hour.

My little girl is such a happy baby now that I’ve got her to sleep more in the daytime.

My advice is just do whatever works to get baby to sleep in the day cuddles/rocking whatever and if baby fights the nap, try the next nap quicker, even if baby has only been awake an hour.

I agree with this. We had an atrocious month from 3.5m where I’m dd just did not bloody nap. Every 1.5 hour I wrestled her into the sling and speed walked around my street. For an hour each time. It was so tough, but she’s now through it and much better.

(After 1.5 hr awake, I meant)

Thanks @CherryBlossom100 glad to know it's not just me. I think I'm going to start doing that. I know it's going to be a fight with him but I can't cope anymore like this never mind him lol

If he's only napping for 20mins, you need to make them much more regular than 2 hours to break this cycle of overtiredness that you're in. So after an hour awake time, start to move towards the next nap.

Also his bedtime routine sounds very stimulating with all the noise and lights. I'd go for a dark bedroom (use blackout blinds) and a quiet bottle. Is he falling asleep in your arms and then you're putting him down? If so, that's what's waking him up - survival instinct is kicking in because he doesn't know where you are. You need to get him to sleep where he's going to stay asleep so dark room, bottle then I'd probably give him a dummy in his cot with you sitting with him, firm hand on his chest. But I don't know- I breastfeed and cosleep with mine so trying to equate it!

I do try and get him to nap more but if he doesn't want to doesn't matter what I do he will not go to sleep. He just gets frustrated because he wants to be doing. The meltdowns literally come out of nowhere he'll be happy and playing and then the next second he's screaming. There's no cues or signs. I've got an app I track things on and I'm monitoring stuff but there's no patterns or signs.

At night if we do bedtime at 7 he doesn't wake up when I put him down he stays asleep in his cot for about 20 minutes ish then wakes up and we aren't there and he wakes up. When he comes to bed with me he stirs but is asleep but because snoring dogs and husband are in the room he seems to stay asleep for the night.

Awake times are your cue. Often babies don't show 'sleepy' signs, they just get more and more active. But the meltdowns are because he is so overtired.

At 4mo, mine would go about 75-90 mins before needing a nap. So like I said, after about an hour, you need to plan your next nap. For my DD, unless it was her first nap, she was always in the sling, pram or car seat. I used to walk for miles! My DS was a lot easier so it was sling, pram or car seat if we were on the go, or dark room, fed to sleep and cosleeping if we were at home.

Does he have a dummy? You either need to give him some form of comfort sucking or he'll need movement to sleep. I'm not sure from your posts but babies very very rarely are just popped into a cot and go to sleep. It's hard work a lot of the time! But if he's alert, I'd say it's even more important to keep things very dark and quiet at home because he's very stimulated during awake times.

Don’t worry about the short naps as having longer naps is developmental as they need to learn to link sleep cycles. Having a rest every hour or so is more important. My baby sleeps roughly 2 and a half hours in the day and 12 at night.
She has a dummy and I hold her for the whole nap. I watch the clock to work out the next nap, not my baby as she shows no tired cues at all.
Before I sorted naps, she was awake for over three hours at a time before having an epic meltdown where she would cry for an hour.
She still doesn’t love naps but I don’t give in and rock her until she’s sleeping. Sometimes she still fights the nap but I don’t talk or look at her, put the muslin and dummy in and within 10 minutes, she is asleep. Babies this age have an awake time of 1-2 hours only. I did lots of research when my baby was screaming and unhappy and I’m glad I did.
Don’t listen to the baby and just rock/walk baby until they’re asleep. Baby will soon realise that they don’t get to play again until after the nap. it does get better.
I’m planning on sorting my little one into a routine nearer to six months as her awake time will be better by then. My little girl is still having 4-5 naps a day.
When she was three months old this was 7-8 naps so we are making progress. Any questions just ask as our babies sound very similar.

Thanks @CherryBlossom100 I managed to get him to nap this afternoon when he didn't want to! Woohoo! Although 21 minutes and he's waking up lol. It's just nice to know I'm not alone in it

Don’t worry. I only had one nap longer than 30 minutes today. Today went like this:
7am wake up
8.30 nap (lasted 1 hour)
11.20 nap (lasted 25 mins)
1.50 nap (lasted 25 mins)
4.00 nap (lasted 25 mins)
6.20 bed (asleep for night except for dummy wakes and milk at 4am)

You are doing a great job. Just remember, it won't be like this forever xxx

You are not failing. Your little one is doing exactly what babies do at that age! You could have been describing my DD. she's now 6 months, and we've settled into a routine. Don't force it, it will happen when it happens. She doesn't sleep during the day, 30 mins of we are lucky; but now we are getting 8-12 hours over night!

DD was, and still is, a nosey baby - and she would have epic meltdowns and fight going to sleep, unfortunately I never 'solved' it, I think she grew out of it/learned to trust me/I learned to read her better.

It's a shitty time when they have meltdown/won't nap/your tired etc but your not doing anything wrong. And it will pass and it does get easier.

I am also going to say over tired. Dd1 would not sleep at bedtime, despite a story, song etc. Dd2 gets fed and goes to sleep!
No fuss, she sits and listens to dd1s ztory sometimes but her bedtime is simply about bed. Dd2 was a screamer though, since birth. It took a few weeks to work out that if she was too tired she screamed. Screamed until she coughed, was sick, her screams became hoarse and then she would fall asleep from exhaustion. When she was very small I had to settle her for a nap every forty minutes. At four months it was probably about an hour and a half before I spotted she was ready so got her to sleep before this.

If you say your son has a nap after two hours of awake time I would try settling him after one hour and a half after he wakes from his nap. Even if he naps on your lap it will get him used to the gentle routine. It will change as he gets bigger though, it really will and everything does get a bit easier.