I keep getting frustrated with my baby :(

[CobaltRose96]

Hi all.

I’m a mum to a gorgeous 7 month old DD. She was a very much planned and wanted baby and is a very happy and content little soul... most of the time 😂

However, she is currently going through a stage of REALLY fighting daytime naps. Normally she’s a pretty good daytime napper and has 3/4 naps lasting anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. However, for the past couple of weeks she’s only been having 2 sometimes 3 20-30 minute naps. Yesterday she woke up at 7am and didn’t nap until 1pm!

She’s also become quite difficult to settle for naps. She will yawn and rub her eyes ect so I’ll start shushing and rocking her, but she will thrash around, suck her hands and wrists, and cry. Sometimes it’ll take up to 30 minutes of shushing and rocking before she’ll give in and fall asleep. And even if she does fall asleep, she often won’t stay asleep if put down in her cot. I have tried just putting her down when she starts rubbing her eyes and yawning, but she will then just lay there and cry until I pick her up.

Thankfully she still sleeps well at night (6:30/7pm to 7/8am with only one wakeup for a feed at around 4am). She can self settle at night (I often hear her chatting away to herself over the monitor) but she can’t seem to do it during the day.

Also, she gets bored incredibly easily. She can only be left in her jumperoo/with a toy ect for around 5/10 minutes before she starts crying to be let out or given something else to do. If I’m sat next to her playing with her she’s very happy, but as soon as I leave the room she will start crying. She’s always been a bit like that, but at least when she slept well during the day I could get things done when she slept. Now that she’s not sleeping that much during the day I feel like I can’t get anything done, and I often don’t even get dressed, eat, or brush my teeth until mid afternoon as I don’t get a chance before then! My partner helps when he can but he works full time so it’s only me at home most of the day.

All of this has resulted in my becoming frazzled and quite frustrated with her often Now it’s almost every day that I’m having to put her down and walk away as I can feel my temper rising. Earlier on she was fighting a nap as usual and I thought ‘I could quite easily throw you on the floor right now!’. I was horrified and put her down right away, and now I feel horrendously guilty When she looks at me and giggles and smiles I feel such anger at myself. How could I get angry with something so beautiful and innocent? I’ve never hurt and never would, but I can feel myself getting so cross sometimes

Please tell me I’m not alone in this?

I've been there, I know how hard it can be. Are you always trying to get her to sleep in the cot during the day? Why don't you use a sling or a pram and go out for a walk instead so she can nap and you get some fresh air.
I also wouldn't really expect her to keep her attention on anything for longer than a few mins as she is still so little so perhaps lower your expectations play wise. I also found going to a baby group around that age quite helpful as it tends to tire them out a little. If all else fails you could always take her for a car nap if she is really losing it through being tired but refusing to sleep x

I felt the same when my baby was around the same age, short naps are so completely normal at that age. Just try and accept her naps are short at the minute and go with it, I wish I’d done that instead of stressing and worrying. When you need to do dishes or washing can you bring the jumparoo with you so she can watch? Don’t think I brushed my teeth until midday for most of my maternity! Everything you have said is so normal, it’s incredibly hard having a young baby and being at home.

I remember feeling similar at that time. My girl is nearly 1 now and I realised that I really needed to prioritise getting myself fed / washed / dressed etc so that I could feel a bit more “put together” and able to parent her better. I started having a bath first thing in morning, put toys on bathroom floor so she sat while I got myself washed. Toys then on bedrooom floor while I got dressed, then downstairs for breakfast and I made sure I ate when she did and gulped a coffee down, then after that I felt much more able to deal with whatever she had to throw at me and I enjoyed my days with her much more! Sometimes you need to put yourself first to be able to be w better parent I think.

Hiya! My boy naps for 30 minutes no matter where he is - pushchair, cot, in arms, less if he’s in his car seat. He has done since he was about 4 months old. He also needs constant entertaining too so I came to terms with never getting anything done a long time ago!
I get fully ready for the day before hubby goes to work. I know that all I can do in the day is take care of baby. I’m out most of the time (for my sanity) but try to get him two of his four naps in his cot so that I can at least tidy round and do dishes etc. He fights his sleep hideously and I worked really hard to get him to nap in his cot and he’s fine now. Sometimes takes a few minutes to settle if I’ve timed it wrong.
I put him down for a nap every two hours unless he blatantly isn’t ready.
He’s fine in his pushchair. He’s worst in his car seat.
The HV said some babies are like that and he may well nap better as he gets older and stays awake longer / drops a nap.

He also sleeps well, 6.30pm-6.30am.
I know that’s not really helpful but I wanted you to know you are not alone! I love him more than anything but it’s hard work!

Sounds like the perfect time to adjust her schedule! My DS was only having one nap at 7 months (2 hours in the afternoon) try not to expect anything and go with what she's doing. If she's rubbing her eyes and stuff keep her going for another 30 minutes. Chances are you're trying to get her to go to sleep too early and she'll naturally want to fight it!

If you aren't already doing so put her down to nap in her cot/bed in a dark room. It can (not always) help to get them to sleep longer. Don't beat yourself up for getting frustrated. It happens to all of us!

And a word of warning. Chances are she's going to hit the 10 month sleep regression pretty hard. Start researching it now!

I remember this when DD was a baby, they change so quickly and I struggled to keep up and adapt to the changes. So I felt like I was constantly battling to get her to do what I thought she should be doing (like naps) instead of realising things were changing and being open to that. Don't know if this is making sense but what fixed it for me was to just relax, stop stressing when she didn't do what I expected her to do and just try to go with the flow.

What you're doing isn't working (in terms of naps and keeping her occupied while you shower etc) so try other things until you find something that does, there's some good suggestions on here already. For me it was my expectations which were really stressing me out, once I dropped them and just accepted the day would go how it would go it was better, that 'about to explode' feeling disappeared because I wasn't trying to force things to go a certain way. It was like a weight had been lifted and I started to enjoy DD again, honestly they change so quickly at this age it's no wonder we can't keep up!

Whenever I find myself saying "usually he...", It means that phase is over and it's onto the next. Persisting with the same routine when it's not working will only stress you out, it's better to go with the flow - 30 minutes of trying to get her down sounds really frustrating and suggests she's not ready for a nap.

I think expecting more than a few minutes of playing on her own is unrealistic. I find a sling a lifesaver in terms of getting stuff done. I used to shower with DS in the bouncer, then the buggy, now at 10 months I shower when DH is home!

Thank you all! Unfortunately I have a sling and she HATES it. She swill scream and thrash until I take her out. I think she hates being confined as she doesn’t like being in her pram too long without moving either.

Could she need a bit more food/milk?

I would also encourage going with the flow in terms of letting her watch you and accompany you during most chores/getting dressed/getting bathed. It is quite stimulating for them to get that attention and may help her sleep better when she finally goes down. I found everything took longer and was less efficient but I talked all the time I was doing stuff and did far less housework, more getting out in the morning. Then I found a long two hour nap came naturally at 2pm and possibly a short nap (30 mins) at 10 if up at 7am. I usually went to sleep with baby [ies] at 2pm or if they were in cot I lay down too in my own room nearby. It wasn't quite so consistent till about 7 months, definitely a lot of growing and changing and needing more food/feeds/milk feeds/getting lunchtime weaning right, and then the baby getting interested in so many more things and wanting independence as well as then needing more structured sleeps.

But aim for the long nap in the afternoon, I found it was amazing to have that as the cornerstone of the day and guarded it preciously ( I never went out after lunch and always put babies in cot then for an hour and a half)

Once I stopped beating myself up about the baby not necessarily settling for scheduled naps when younger, and letting her nap on me sometimes or in my arms, I found he/she was actually easier to settle in her cot at 6 -7 months. I think he/she was more relaxed about me leaving him/her and more confident I would return because of lots of cuddles. I also used sleep cues like music, darkened room, special cuddly, last feed before settling (feeding to sleep in afternoon) all helped!

My littlest is the exact same as you describe except he doesn't sleep at night either and has me up pretty much hourly at the minute as he is cutting teeth.
Be glad your getting a full nights sleep!
This is all very normal and will pass.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I’ll definitely try and incorporate her more into my routines. It’ll be tricky though as she’s already a dab hand at crawling and is standing too, so into EVERYTHING

If you're trying to get stuff done, stick her in the high chair in the room with you with a toy or with something like tupperware and big dry pasta shapes she can pick up. When she starts whinging, swap out the toy, or move her to her bouncy chair or play mat or blow up ring instead. Chat to her the whole time. Have the radio on and sing along. My DD was very similar, hated the sling, hated her buggy but I would manage to get all my chores in short bursts this way (I highly recommend The Organised Mum Method). And by teaching her to entertain herself this way I now have a 22 mo toddler who happily plays by herself for hours if I let her! Also I used baby sensory on YouTube to give myself 20 minutes to get dressed and made up, made all the difference.

I have a similar age DS and completely sympathise. Ours sleeps pretty well in the day, but has always been a terrible sleeper at night. I would kill for a one wake up night, probably as you would kill for a day with predictable decent length naps!

Can you stop worrying so much about getting stuff done during the day and do it once bubs is in bed? Spend the day doing stuff with her - go out to groups, go swimming, go for a walk etc? She might tire and nap more. And if your expectations are lower for daytime productivity, you might feel better!

My sympathies, there's nothing more frustrating when you know your baby is tired and needs to nap but just fights it or won't go down.

She might be going through sleep regression or a developmental leap which can interfere with sleep. She may also be ready to drop a nap.

My LG used to get up at 6am, nap at 9:30am for two hours have lunch and then go down again at about 1:30pm or 2pm for an hour or so. She then dropped a nap and just had a two hour nap around 11:30ish for two hours.

She's now 14 months and this is the routine her nursery also have.

This too shall pass

Gosh I could have written this! In fact, I did in a text to my friend earlier! 😂
My lg fights her naps even though she is shattered and rubs her eyes etc. I've realised that it's because she is overtired so I've now only allowed her 2 hours of awake time between naps and then take her to her bed and encourage her to sleep. I put on a song from this night light I have and shush her for 10mins. She thrashes and cries but with persevering will finally go to sleep. She's 5 months old and has been doing this for a few weeks. She sleeps like a dream in the car but I don't go out every day. Last Friday I felt like such a failure as I stayed in all day and she barely napped. She went from 11am til 6pm without one as she fought every one. Since I've put the lullaby thing on and kept to a schedule she's been loads better. Best of luck, I totally empathise! X

Oh and my lg also loves baby bums on netflix. She is absolutely fixated when is it on and I put her in her bouncer and I can make a cuppa etc when it's in and she's as happy as Larry! X