Help - what is your morning nap routine?

[ChampagneLassie]

I'm really struggling to get my 4 month old to sleep during day. She sleeps OK at night, 9pm-7am with 2 quick wakes for feeds. But daytime naps are not consistent at all and sometimes can go all day without sleeping becoming increasingly irate.
I think getting that 1st nap is crucial
Please share with me your routines for morning naps for babies, length wake window, what you do between awake and nap etc

Our 6 month old sleeps wonderfully at night. 8pm-6/7am with 1/2 wakes and self settles but the only way to get her to nap is to contact nap in sling!

My 5m old DD can go max 2hr before her first nap, and like PP it's in the sling. Cot naps at this age are more trouble than they're worth.

Between wake and nap we have a clean nappy, two feeds, and lots of lying by herself playing while I thrash through all the day's chores, then I put her in the sling and go out for a walk (to the cafe for a coffee) and by the time I'm ordering she's usually asleep.

This is impressive! How long total awake time?

Until recently the sling was only thing that worked... but that doesn't always work either, so I'd started trying to nurse her to sleep on my bed instead. Today she had a long nap in sling so I think I'll go back to this tomorrow

Usually about 2 hours. Wake up at 7 most days due to toddler, generally asleep by 9.15ish, give or take.

Yeah forget about the cot naps until about 6/7 months. For now I'd go with sling or buggy.

I've started putting DD (5 months) in her cot for nap time. First nap is usually about 2 hours after she wakes up. She self settles at night most of the time so I'm trying to reinforce it in the day. She usually grizzles for about 5 or 10 minutes when I put her down and then goes to sleep. Invariably though she wakes after 45 mins which is a pain, but hoping she'll go longer as she gets older 🤞

My 5 month was wonderful during naps as we did them all contact napping. Then a few weeks ago she started getting really difficult. Now she will only nap in the car, in the pram or with a fight in the cot. She has dropped a nap in the last week so maybe your baby is due to drop a nap?

Similarly to Dappled above, my 4.5 month will have his first nap about 1.5-2hrs after waking up. Then usually has 2-3 more naps throughout the day, with 2-2.5 hr wake times. We have recently made the move of having naps upstairs in his cot, and they also last a maximum of 45 minutes. In the swing downstairs he will nap for 1.5 hours but trying to move away from that now and allow him to self settle (he also doesn’t fit in the swing that well anymore). Hoping the length of his naps will improve once he gets used to the cot!

This is all really helpful but what I really want to know is what you do during the wake time. I'm really struggling to work out where I'm going wrong... My LO often can stay awake for 5/6 hrs (at worst up to 13 hrs) , getting increasingly irate. I had been working to a 1.5/2 hr wake window, now trying at 1 hr. All I try to do now is change feed and get myself showered, dressed and fed before slinging her and trying to get back to sleep. Sometimes she wants feeding again so do that. I rock her in sling to white noise, sometimes outside, sometimes in dark of her room. If she doesn't sleep I have to take breaks at some point but it's exhausting.

A couple days I've spent majority of day in dark room rocking and nursing to have her only sleep for 5-10 mins.

I wish she had naps to drop! Sometimes gone all day without a nap. I focusing on the first one as, I think if we get that sorted more chance of getting lunchtime nap to work. She rarely has, more than 2 naps in a day

My DD was like this at 4 months. Slept wonderfully at night, even put herself to sleep, but wouldn't sleep in the day, and if she did it was only for 15-20 minutes. She's much better at 8 months- she usually has 2 half hour naps and an hour long nap, then sleeps 8-9 hours overnight. I put the lack of napping down to a developmental leap as she grew out of it naturally after about a month, she just gradually started having naps again.

Good luck, just play it by ear and watch out for cues that she's sleepy

Is it the 4 month sleep regression, it can affect day naps, night sleep or both? I didn't bother with cot naps until 6 months. Do whatever it takes to get the nap ie. contact nap/ sling/ buggy/ car...

DD was like this when she was tiny.

I had the Huckleberry app to log her sleep. It shows you a daily/weekly/monthly chart so you can see patterns. You can log feeds/nappies on there too.

It also gives recommended wake windows/nap times based on their last sleep but I think that changed to a pay for feature at some point of me using the app. I found it invaluable but appreciate it was free at the time of me using it.

As to what we did when she was awake....not a lot at 4 months. Put her in her play mat/rocker/look at other toys/small books/cuddle while I watched tv or read.

Just to add, all naps were contact naps (other than in the pram) until she was about 7/8 months.

Thankyou this is all reassuring. I've got Little ones ap which is simmilar to huckleberry. We had a A1 perfect day yesterday with all naps as per schedule. Today, woke early 5am and I'm still trying for that 1st nap and she is now massively overtired 🤷‍♀️😭

I'm glad you had a better day yesterday, try not to get disheartened today, the weather won't be helping anything so just try and keep you both cool.

Something else you could try if she's struggling to get off is a bath, always tired my DD out and it will probably be lovely for her in this weather too. I'd run it slightly cooler today but my DD is a toddler now so have a google see if you can drop a few degs for the bath water and have a little splash.

My 3 month old sleeps good at night, in the morning when she has first bottle she isn't tired enough to fall back to sleep so I wait about an hour then go for a walk in pram, sometimes she will maybe only sleep 30 mins at this stage, I then have to try keep her entertained until her second bottle is due. I find then she will be tired enough and after that when taking second bottle she will sleep (although it's always a contact nap) for an hour or more, I continue to do this for the rest of the day and it seems to work for me. She needs at least 1.5 to 2 hours of awake time and that bring her up to bottle time

Just reading this now but yes totally with you, I think it really tires them out. We've got a big paddling pool that's in the shade now but warmed up just had some time in that and now asleep! Eventually got the morning nap around 945am