Baby not napping well and I’m getting so angry

[bleachblondemom]

Long post but I would really appreciate you taking the time to read it.

My son is 10 weeks old and his day time naps are always hit-and-miss, but have been really bad this week. I’m getting so angry and frustrated with him, my temper is out of control. I try not to direct it at him but he is obviously aware of me getting angry and shouting and it makes him cry, then I feel like a total monster. Sometimes I have to scream into a pillow. Sometimes I just leave the room and sob.
He sleeps brilliant in his crib at night but refuses to sleep in their during the day. So there’s two ways I can get him to sleep:

The sling- for the first few weeks of me buying a sling he would nap in it for hours. I could sit watching tv, make & eat lunch, do housework etc. But now I have to be constantly moving or he starts to wake up. I can sit down for 5-10 minutes before he stirs, and if I don’t move fast enough he starts to cry. Sometimes I can resettle him, sometimes it’s game over. And some days he just won’t sleep in it for longer than 30-60 minutes despite me moving constantly. My back, shoulders, legs and feet are killing me.

The pram- he has to be walked for minimum an hour to get him into a deep sleep, then I can bring him home and leave him in the hall. Sometimes he stays asleep for hours. Sometimes his eyes snap open as soon as we get to the front door. This week, I have taken him out every day and each time he has slept for half an hour then woke up. I have walked until I’m exhausted and he won’t go back to sleep, despite him yawning and his eyes drooping. He just refuses to.

I used to be able to get him to nap for about an hour on my bed in the mornings so I could nap too but he hasn’t done this for weeks.

I am so so tired of having to work so hard just to get him to nap. My whole day revolves around it. I can’t take it anymore. Every day I say to myself, I’m not going to get angry again, I will just take a deep breath and calm myself down. Then the next day comes and I have another breakdown.

I love him so much and it hurts me that I’m missing out on playing with him and interacting with him because I’m so focused on getting him to sleep, or I’m in another room crying. Sometimes I feel like I hate him and he hates me too because I’m horrible to him.

I know sleep training is an option but I’m dreading it. I can’t trust myself to stay calm and not getting angry or upset. And I will be doing it alone as DH will be at work. I’ve tried putting him down in the day using the same nighttime routine (noise machine on, sleeping bag on, bottle, crib, dummy if necessary). Doesn’t work. I’m going to get blackout curtains to see if I can trick him into thinking it’s nighttime. But surely then he will only ever be able to nap in the dark which just isn’t feasible at all.

I just want some advice, or even just to know I’m not alone. I just want to feel like I’m not a horrible bitch for feeling this way.

As your baby gets older, he will sleep much less. The newborn days of hours and hours don’t last long! By ten weeks, his sleep starts to reduce significantly.

And it will keep changing.

I recognise your anger OP - I had similar feelings. It was like I couldn’t cope and was trying to control too much. Honestly, with hindsight, I think I had PND. I even did the questionnaires which said so but still didn’t get help. And I wish I did but at the time I was in such a bad place, I couldn’t see it.

I hear you ElphabaTheGreen. Mines lying in bed with me now yawning and rubbing his eyes but no signs of sleep and it won’t happen.

Baby I’m not totally sure that’s true. I say my baby is good at night because usually he wakes twice to be fed but the difference between night and day is I can put him down and he’ll fall asleep usually (he hasn’t for the past two nights, not sure why, leap I think.) But that means although my sleep is broken I do at least get to sleep.

In the day, when I wasn’t getting out as much, it was as elphaba says. Writhing, fractious, irritable babies are no fun at all. And it is upsetting; I know mines going to be difficult today and I won’t be able to do much about it.

10 weeks old, your expectations are high. Sleeps well at night. Id take that!

@EachBleachBlairTrump

You need to talk to your health visitor this level of anger at a tiny baby, for doing what tiny babies do is not usual. He even sleeps well at night!

This

Also seek help about your anger towards baby. Its not normal.

@ElphabaTheGreen you have done amazing to go through all that. I need to step back and count my blessings as DS does sleep really well at night.

We had a much better day yesterday, not because he slept loads but because I was chill about it. And when he was awake he was happy so having short naps obviously didn’t hurt him that much. By the afternoon he was grizzly because he was tired but by that time I had enough energy to happily take him out in his pram for an hour. Yes it was still a bit tiring but I hadn’t also been on my feet all morning trying to keep him asleep in his sling.

That was really the only advice I can take because I’d tried everything else- dummies, white noise, basically everything everyone has said. All those things help him sleep great at night but not in the day. But I feel like it’s gonna be ok, we can keep trying to get him to nap in his cot but until it happens I will try my bloody hardest not to get annoyed about it, and if I do I will practice calming myself down.
One thing I am thinking about is getting one of those automatic rockers, but we’ll see.

And I am sorry for being defensive or snappy occasionally, but SOME people have been pretty condescending in their comments.

@willowsandroses our boys are going through the same leap at the same time 😂 he has been a fussy so and so this week, whinging about everything. Put him to bed at his usual time yesterday but he seemed to think it was just a nap and woke up after 40 mins wide awake! Had to just get him up with us and try again an hour later, which worked thank god. According to app, yesterday was last day of the fussy phase.

God I hope today is the last day for us ... he keeps waking at 5 and not going back to sleep and he hasn’t even slept very well! Tried to get OH to help last night and it just created more work!

@Wondermule Not even worth a reply really, my post wasn’t ‘you’re a shit mom blah blah blah’ it was supportive and friendly and offering my advice and assessment of the situation, if it’s not useful then that’s fine but it certainly wasn’t rude, much unlike yours.

@ElphabaTheGreen you have no idea what I have no idea about. If my advice isn’t useful for the OP, that’s fine but it wasn’t coming from a place of judgment so no need for your know it all comment about things I obviously have no idea about

Why some people get caught up arguing over what someone else has said when they’re trying to be helpful is beyond me. If it didn’t work for you doesn’t mean it won’t work for the OP, if it doesn’t work for the OP who’s asking for advice that’s fine, move on, I certainly wasn’t forcing her to try it, it’s just my advice!

To the OP, so glad it was a better day and you’re feeling slightly better about it! Hopefully some of the advice from people has been useful and you can carry it forward with you. Try to look after yourself too when you can and your DP is home or your mom has DS. Forget housework and rest, you deserve a break. Sometimes we forget to look after ourselves and it doe make us more stressy and wound up. No need to apologise to posters, wasn’t my intention to make you feel bad about it, I just meant showing anger with people you don’t agree with is probably worse than ignoring them on a thread about this topic. Focus on what’s helpful to you? Maybe start a new thread with some of the people who have helped you so you can all communicate with each other without other people giving you useless advice or making you feel worse.

@Ihoeihoeihoe thank you I do appreciate it

Well his naps have been a bit crap so far today but we are dealing with it with smiles and cuddles :)

He’s been up for 5 hours and has had about 75 mins of sleep over 2 naps... surely that’s no where near enough. This is what happens when I try putting him down to nap. And now he’s crying because he’s still tired. This is what happens when I don’t constantly walk him round.

Have you tried dark room OP?

Oh dear. How many hours did he sleep in the night?

I can’t get any room dark enough. He did 10 hours last night (incl break for feed)

Yesterday DS had three 30 minute naps all day. That was it. I'm so glad I stopped logging his sleep on an app because it was making me miserable, stressed and anxious that I was failing him. Now I'm trying to take the approach if he's growing, sleeping alright at night and seems alright in himself I'll go with the flow.

Today he's had 3 hrs in the sling and is now falling asleep feeding 45 minutes later, so every day is different.

It's tough!

I know he would get more sleep in the sling, but I’d have to be constantly moving around with him in it for him to stay asleep. Although I did just rock him in my arms for half an hour and even that wasn’t good enough to keep him down

10 hours last night? That's loads. And it's why I asked you before how much he's sleeping at night. The average for a baby of his age is about 14 hours in total a day. So he's basically doing pretty much all his sleeping at night and if he's had another 1.5 hours already, he won't sleep much more today.

Are you sure he's crying because he's tired? I really would get one of those rocker chairs - they're an absolute lifesaver.

If you're using an app to tell you when he should be napping, I'd get rid of it as it's obviously just really stressing you out. The only time I felt stressed with my newborns was when I was trying to get them to follow someone else's routine. Once I'd chucked the books away and I just went with the flow, our lives were much happier.

@bleachblondemom

He’s been up for 5 hours and has had about 75 mins of sleep over 2 naps... surely that’s no where near enough. This is what happens when I try putting him down to nap. And now he’s crying because he’s still tired. This is what happens when I don’t constantly walk him round.

It's absolutely enough if he slept 10 hours last night! He's sleeping so well at night, he won't need as much in the day. To be honest - he's probably crying for another reason, and he's not actually over tired. Some babies are just very grumpy and cry an awful lot. I would honestly stop stressing over getting him to nap as much in the day, If he's getting that much at night he just doesn't need it 🥰

10 hours last night and another couple of short naps this morning sounds completely normal so far. Again, I’m not sure why you expect so much? Sounds like you are putting an incredible amount of pressure on yourself instead of just enjoying the time with your young baby.

@bleachblondemom Hope your ok. It can be so hardwork when they won’t nap, but are clearly tired and it’s hard to break the cycle.
I used to have to constantly rock DD, it was back breaking. (Think I did pop up on another thread a few weeks ago). We’ve gradually got better, so things hopefully will improve for you too. Have you looked at an easy blind? Will help black the room out. Red lights also stimulate sleep.

Babies just cannot switch off when they’re in light surroundings, they’ve been used to being in a dark womb for months. Even adults have trouble falling asleep in light rooms! You can buy cheap blackout curtains off Amazon, or just pop some cardboard over the window etc. Anyway I shall now butt out.

Really, 14 hours in 24 hours is enough for a nearly 11 week old? I’ve read it should be loads more than that. Probably why it’s stressing me out is all the conflicting info, and constantly reading about how babies should have several naps a day and X amount hours and I’m just like, my baby doesn’t do that so it must be detrimental to him :/
No I don’t follow an app. When he wakes up and he’s smiley and happy, I know he’s refreshed so it doesn’t matter how long his nap was. But when he wakes up crying (he’s not hungry or dirty) then I know it’s because he’s still tired. It’s been half an hour and he’s still miserable but doesn’t want anything else.

"He’s been up for 5 hours and has had about 75 mins of sleep over 2 naps"

Do you mean he woke up around 7am and has had 2 naps since then? Or he's been awake for 5 hours with no naps? I'm a bit confused.

My DD (nearly 6 months) was having lots of short naps until very recently - even now she doesn't reliably have long naps - and 75mins total over 2 naps is not great but not terrible either. It is annoying when they wake up still tired, and you feel like you're spending your whole day trying to get them to nap - but it's just how it is. Luckily it's not forever.

OP, I mean this kindly, but it sounds like there is nothing really wrong with your baby's sleep. You will look back once you are long past the newborn phase, and you will realise that you've spent this time worrying about the daytime sleep instead of appreciating the night time sleep. Please try to relax. I know it's easier said than done, but your baby may be picking up on your stress. In the nicest possible way I think you are the problem not him! - which is not your fault at all as being a new mum is totally overwhelming, but I agree with some other posters that a chat with the GP could help. This time is so precious, you won't want to look back and just remember stress and negativity.

(In case you write this off as patronising, I'm sort of talking from experience - my DS wasn't a bad napper (or a good night sleeper!) but I got very anxious and he had to be rocked to sleep in my arms to nap inside the house, until I went back to work and DH took over and got him to sleep in his cot during the day. I ended up on antidepressants a year later anyway but maybe I should have taken them earlier.)

To be fair peachy no one enjoys time with a tired baby who is crying.