Napping struggles

[Jessiewhitt]

Can anyone please offer any helpful advice?

I have a 5 month old baby who sleeps absolutely amazingly at night and always has, sometimes 12 hours a night! She currently sleeps in a sleeping back with her arms out. Recently she has just started rolling and so this has had an impact on her sleep a bit as she wakes up and can take a little while to soothe herself back to sleep. But in general her night time sleep is amazing!

However, during the day she really struggles to nap and it’s stressing me out. By 5pm I am absolutely exhausted because she gets so cranky. I have to swaddle her for naps as she just flails her arms and legs everywhere if I put her in a sleeping bag, can lay there for up to an hour then screams her head off. My issue is that she always wakes after 40 minutes and refuses to go back down to sleep but then is cranky all day because she’s not getting enough sleep! I can’t go out anywhere because she just cries and refuses to sleep in her pram. I’m exhausted and just don’t understand why she has such an amazing sleep in the night but will not sleep in the day. I have tried doing a routine before bed and naps which are slightly different as she has a bath at night, but still she will only sleep 40 mins. I have tried leaving her to see if she self settles but again she will lie there for a long time then start screaming. I have tried removing the dummy from her as she always seems to wake up when this falls out, but the dummy seems to be the only thing able to get her to sleep in the first place.

None of my friends or other mums I have met during baby classes seem to have this issue and every time I see a baby napping in their pram or having nice days out it makes me feel so guilty that I can’t give that to her. Has anyone else has this issue?

40 minute naps at her age is very normal. Mine lo (5 months next week) is the same and will only nap longer if he’s fully comfortably. As in he will still stir and wake after 30-45 mins if he’s too hot/cold/has trapped wind/dummy has fallen out and needs soothing back to sleep.
how long is she awake between naps?
I use the Huckleberry app and it has helped us so much. He naps 3-4 hours during the day, spread out over 4 naps but he is not awake longer than 2 hours in between and even then those longer wake times are near the end of the day.
Since my baby has become more aware of his surroundings it is more difficult to get him to nap and either we take him out in the pram WELL before nap time and pull the hood right down to allow him time to settle. We also have to keep the pram moving if he naps outside otherwise he does wake up. Otherwise at home, because he now fights us if we try to rock him, I put him on our bed and lie right next to him. Give him hair strokes, little cuddles or anything to wind him down whilst he tosses and turns. We have it very dark and white noise playing. He needs a dummy too and I keep popping it in until eventually he goes to sleep (usually within 5-10 mins). Once he’s fully asleep I then transfer him to his next2me cot and lie down next to him in case he needs settling again.
It is all very tedious but like I said very normal for babies to need help napping at this age. The difference is at night they have their circadian rhythm and sleep pressure built up over the day forcing them into much deeper sleep.

She’s very nosey so that’s probably why she doesn’t sleep when we’re out and if she does it will be a quick 10 minutes then screams because she’s tired. I feel like I don’t want to go anywhere because it’s so stressful, but I can’t spend my life at home every day.

I know a sleep cycle is 40 mins but that’s light sleep and so she’s not going into deep sleep when she naps that’s why she’s so cranky. She will have a nap in the morning and a nap in the afternoon but by 3pm she refuses to go to sleep and nothing I do makes her drift off. I’ve tried putting her down for more naps but she just cries! When we’re at home it’s really easy to stick to a napping schedule but out and about it’s so hard to stick to that 2 hours awake window because she just won’t go to sleep then gets overtired!

It’s just nice to know that someone else’s baby is similar with their 40 minute naps as everyone I speak to tell me their babies sleep for like an hour and a half but then I suppose they may not sleep as good at night. Maybe I need to just roll with it and let her fall into her own routine haha!

In my experience, cot naps are rarely more than one light cycle between about 4m and 1yr. I'd get a good sling and go for contact naps if you want good chunks of sleep in the day.

If its any consolation my 5 month old baby naps pretty well, and still wakes four times a night. Naps of thay length are very common at this age, we occasionally get a longer nap but not consistently. I'd also recommend the huckleberry app, it's made a huge difference to understanding DDs day time sleep

More reassurance from me that this is normal, it was the story of my life with my two! Also both amazing sleepers at night, I'm yet to meet someone whose baby slept well at night AND napped properly in the early days, it usually is one or the other. I was quite happy with the hand I'd been dealt!

It will pass. As long as you follow the right wake windows, eventually they will learn to link sleep cycles. For us it started improving around 6 months, and we had a solid nap routine by 8 months. Good luck!

Thankyou everyone for your comments! I feel better now. From everything I read on the internet 40 mins isn’t long enough but I’m just happy that I’m not doing anything wrong and that other babies nap like this too. I really wish they wouldn’t write this on the internet as all babies are different and it makes new mums feel so guilty!

She’s just woken up from a 2 hour nap so maybe she will sleep more if and when she needs it. Maybe I should try and shorten her awake windows to make her less grumpy in the day and she may have an extra nap, as currently she is only having 2 and I don’t think that’s enough for her.

Yes as previous posters have said my DS will only sleep a good chunk in the day if he is contact napping.

It's such a toss up between getting things done and not having him cranky all day.

Are you me?! 😂. This was exactly how our baby was with the dummy (now known as the devil)!

40 mins is one sleep cycle.

so we went cold turkey on the dummy and it honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought. I replaced it with a comforter. First night we was probably up about 6 times to resettle. To resettle we do hand in chest, say our phrase and leave, in the room no more than 10 seconds. We’ve never left her to cry for more than two mins, it is a rare occasion she would do this anyway. If she wakes up crying it’s because she’s annoyed and still tired and will go back to sleep within a few seconds.

we also use a white noise machine and the room is in complete darkness, there is not even a crack of light 🙈

Hope this helps!

I have same age baby, I do think 2 naps is too little. If I catch him on the turn after a 1hr45-2hr wake window and put him down in a dark room he will put himself to sleep quickly. I then actually set an alarm on my phone for 30mins - go back in, wait for him to stir and either pop his dummy in or just put my hand on his chest before he's comes out of sleep fully and it sends him back on to his next cycle.

If I get him back to sleep at 40mins then he will be down for 1.5-2hrs.

Occasionally we fail but in general this works!

At the moment we do:
Wake: 6
Nap: 8:30-10
Nap: 12-2
Nap: 16:00-16:45
Bedtime routine starts at 18:30 and he's asleep by 19:15

Should have said, this was after we got trapped in a 40 minute nap cycle!

The setting alarm thing was something we did for two weeks consistently and he can now much better connect the sleep cycles! I don't need to do anything much now.

Basically repeating what others have said and offering some solidarity! My now 9mo DD rarely napped for more than 40 mins when she was younger and I went mad thinking she "should" be doing more because The Internet said so. I know it's frustrating when you're in the thick of it but they do get longer and more consistent with age. DD still only does short naps if we are out, which is annoying, but I've found that I can usually balance it out by offering her 'good' nap/s at home that day before/after going out or doing an earlier bedtime. You can't be a prisoner in your own home - I did a lot of that and regret it now! Also, I think we were on 3 naps at 5mo so it might be that she needs an extra snooze? Even if she doesn't actually sleep perhaps some quiet, rest time? It will get easier though, we used a sleep consultant for my DD and she always said that the naps are the last thing to fall into place and that seems to be true! I noticed a big improvement from about 6/7 months so fingers crossed for it levelling out for you soon

I could have written this post, but my DD is doing 4 naps at 4.5 months because she gets too cranky after 1.5hrs awake. If she’s on her own in the cot, I v v v rarely get anything more than 35-40m, sometimes on me she does better but barely. She also doesn’t sleep well in the pram. The flip side is she’s always been an amazing night sleeper so 🤷🏻‍♀️ The fighting of naps and bedtime is wearing, but they’ll get through it

Oooh yeah. My boy wouldn't start napping longer than 40 min until he started crawling and totally tiring himself out. My sister had the same with her two - they only napped longer when they were having one nap a day.

Good luck!

Just to add, we're still on four naps a day. It's not convenient but she just can't do longer than 1.5 max two hours awake.