4 month old still only sleeps on me

[questionnnn]

Hello, my four month old still only sleeps when being held during the day and early evening. He does now sleep in his bedside crib for 2-4 hours a night but during the day I cannot get him down for naps. And he spends the first 4 hours of his bedtime on me and the last few hours in the early morning on me too. I've tried putting him down for naps in his nursery cot and his carrycot next to me during the day, but he just wakes up crying straight away. He naps a lot too, 4 times a day for at least an hour each time and one nap is usually around 3 hours. So it does naptrap me a lot so I can't get much else done!! Any tips??

The huckleberry app really helped me. Its gives you a guide of there sweet spot for sleep and I use to put my son in his cot and he'd be off shortly after with very little fuss (this was the free version). I also got a light projector that plays a few tunes! Good luck

Will he sleep in the pram? At least that way you can park him in the hall and potter about
Or in the sling so you’re mobile at least?

My 10 month old mainly contact naps but I don’t mind it, she happily goes in a cot at nursery though (they have magic powers of some kind)

Try the pram? I think the motion is soothing even back and forth in your living room then you can stop once he is asleep. It will take a lot of practice to move to the crib, try with the first nap of the day as I find it's always the easiest. Also try spend some awake time in there with toys so he is used to the space!

@SamanthaVimes @xmasbaby20 he will only sleep in the pram when it's moving outside!! Inside he doesn't fall asleep and when I bring him in asleep from outside in the pram as soon as it stops moving he wakes!! I'm trying with the morning nap first but not having much success so will have to keep at it! Good tip about day time playing in the room as at the moment it's nappy change and that's it, we play downstairs.

There’s a thing called a rockit (or something like that) which you put on the pram and it jiggles it, maybe that would help? I haven’t used it but my cousin used it for a while. It looks like a toy space ship

I had one of these... honestly at that point I alternated each of her 3 naps so nap 1 was on me, nap 2 was always a walk and nap 3 was always in the car. I lost loads of weight with all the walking I can look back and smile now but the contact napping nearly killed me (and my back!) at the time.

At 6 months we moved her into her own room for overnights and did gentle sleep training... we started with nighttime sleep so gently reduced the amount of rocking by a minute each time until we was just finishing her bottle and then going down (so basically feed to sleep). Once we’d cracked getting her down at night without holding we then did the Ferber method for naps (tried more gentle sleep training but it never worked for daytime, she really fought it). Took a week or so (and we had to stay in the house all week for her naps which was a pain) but once it worked there was no looking back. At 10 months she is a total star at self settling and having learned how to put herself to sleep for naps she’s now using that at bed time, so she’s not feeding to sleep any more (goes down sleepy but awake) and she goes through because she knows how to get back to sleep if she wakes in the night it wouldn’t have been my first pick pre baby but I realised she had to learn to fall sleep by herself or we would be contact napping until I went back to work at 1 year. I had to have her sleep in my arms a while back due to a family event running over and honestly I can’t remember how I ever managed to do so much of it!

Good luck - sorry I know this isn’t particularly inspiring for now but it’s not long until baby is a bit bigger and can learn to calm themselves. I’m sitting here in the garden sunning myself and have been for 45 mins while she’s down for her afternoon nap, it’s a game changer

@Dollywilde thanks for the advice! Issue I have is he has bad reflux so we have to hold him upright for at least thirty minutes after feeds! So he's always falling asleep on me! Hopefully as he gets bigger he grows out of the reflux a bit so then I can try some of this things tonight suggested!

A sling and lots of breast feeding & cosleeping worked here. Good luck x x x

Tips? Make sure you have the TV remote, a drink and some snacks in a handy place! Mine did this for a while at around that age.. seemed to sort herself out after a while with a bit of encouragement to go in the crib for some naps. Good luck!

Hi OP, did you eventually have luck with getting your little one down? If so, what worked? Came across your post as in the exact same position and desperate for help (and some sleep!). Everything you describe is what we have xx

@Sleephelp

Hi, I'm afraid not i held him for 10 months and he didn't sleep through the night in his own room until 16 months old.

I since had another baby whose now 7 months old and she sleeps in her cot and is completely different.

I treated them exactly the same so to me it has confirmed how different every baby is and my son just needed that comfort and cuddles.

He's two now and that period feels like a distant memory.

It's tough when you are in it, but it won't last forever.

Sorry to not have anything helpful..

No worries. Thank you so much for getting back to me! So glad you’ve got a better sleeper in your second! Xx

1st nap is the most important, and should be within 60/90 minutes of waking up for the day. Get this one right and should set baby up for good naps for rest of day. Get this nap out in the pushchair if you can, go for a walk around wherever you live, pop to tesco/shops etc so you keep the pushchair moving. I have done this since baby was 2 weeks old, and am usually out for 1-2hours quite easily now, its just part of my routine, and i have also worked on getting baby to sleep in the pushchair in the house. As soon as you see tired signs get them to bed with whatever comforters they like to sleep with, my baby its a dummy and muslin next to their face.

You have to help them learn how to fall asleep