When did you start putting down your DC for naps?

[GabbyChalice400]

My 4 month old baby has stopped sleeping on the go in the daytime. He used to have 2 naps a day lay in his rocker but he won't do that now.

It seems like he's getting over tired - he will scream for about 15-20 minutes in the evening then fall asleep for hours until he wakes up for a feed.

I'm wondering if I should start implementing day time naps to stop him from getting so overly tired.

But is it too early for him to do this? And at what times and for how long should he nap?

I'm clueless with all this!

At 4 months I had to really invest in teaching DD how to nap. Key is to get the first nap of the day in a lot sooner than you'd imagine is necessary, otherwise they are overtired by 10am and will keep battling.

I decided to adopt the 2-3-4 method which is basically gradually increasing the gap between naps as the day goes on. So first nap 2 hours after they woke up for the day, then 3 hours awake before the next nap etc.

At 4m DD was generally sleeping 7pm-6am with 1 or 2 night wakings for a feed.

She'd then go back down for a nap at 8am then roughly midday, then 4pm ish.

It sounds a lot of naps but this was the baby who, prior to me starting this routine, was sometimes staying awake ALL day and getting in to a complete state by mid afternoon.

I was advised that I would need to persist with putting her in the cot for ten days before a habit would form so I deliberately cleared a week or so in my diary to dedicate to naps. Once it was established she would then nap out and about a lot more easily and a break from routine wouldn't matter.

@INeedNewShoes Thank you so much, that's really useful advice.

He usually gets up for the day about 9, so would that mean putting him down at about 11am?

My DS is starting to get in absolute state in the afternoon/early evening because he hasn't slept all day too.

You might want to consider getting him up before 9am, sometimes a 'lie in' can throw naps off for the rest of the day. One sleep book I follow suggests getting them up by 7.30am as they then sleep better during the night, rather than spending half the night awake and then getting a lie in. Mine has to go down for his first nap about an hour and a half after waking, so if he wakes at 7.30 he is down for his first nap by 9am, and then he naps every two hours or so after that.

Probably about 3-4 months. I used to watch him like a hawk for clues and we roughly followed the 2-3-4 pattern as suggested above. DS really suffered through every sleep regression so it was really important he got some sleep during the day.

I wanted to be able to get out and about with him so I used to time one nap with a walk so he'd sleep in the pram but that first one was always in his cot - one of my NCT friends has the issue that her DC will only nap in the cot so she's limited when they can go out.