Why won’t my newborn nap?

[Merryclaire]

Help! My baby is coming up to 8 weeks and now hardly naps. She has 3-4 short naps throughout the day that are around 15-30 mins and that’s it. She’s wide awake the rest of the time.

Prior to this she would nap for much of the day. I know that can’t continue but this seems to be much less than the suggested guidelines.

Her daytimes are spent breastfeeding, looking at my face and staring into the distance. I try to animatedly talk to her and sing etc but it only amuses her for a couple of minutes before she starts crying, then I have to put her on my breast to quieten her again.

Nighttime sleep isn’t that great either. If I’m lucky we’ll get one 3-4 hour stretch and then she doesn’t like to settle for the rest of the night. However, I’ll often manage an additional hour or two later in the morning.

What am I doing wrong?

Only thing I can think is whether the TV has started to bother her - it didn’t before. But as she’s chained to my chest I have it on in the background for most of the day.

You aren't doing anything wrong, really. It's just what babies do. After a while they wake up and it's much harder to get them to sleep.

Some babies do just fall asleep whenever and wherever, whereas some actively have to be put to sleep themselves.

You can try, if you haven't already:

Swaddling
A dummy
White noise
A sling

DS lived in the sling for the first four months of his life as he wouldn't nap anywhere else. We just kept trying with other places and he eventually got it and then was a great napper and sleeper, it was just bloody awful and hard work for the first few months.

You can't make a baby sleep, please don't feel it's something you're doing wrong. Babies are hard work!

You’re not doing anything wrong, babies are all so different.

Mine would only sleep if I rocked him vigorously for about 20 minutes with a dummy. My friend’s baby would just nod off on her play mat if she was tired.

Will she sleep in the pram if you go for a long walk?

You are not doing anything wrong! My daughter was a great sleeper from the minute she was born, would nap for 2+ hrs in the cot and sleep in good stretches overnight. My son on the other hand… once he got out of sleepy newborn land he would only nap in the sling or pram and would literally wake up at 30 minutes on the dot. I did the same walk 4 times a day for months, drove me and my husband mad. He has just turned 6 months and its like a switch has flipped, naps happily in his cot for 1.5hrs and will sleep good stretches at night. Sleep is developmental, it goes up and down and all babies are different. You are doing great xx

Thanks. I have tried all these things but perhaps need to keep persevering. She doesn’t seem to like swaddling (always breaks out), sling or dummy. But maybe I need to stick with it and keep on trying.

It’s just such a change as previously she fell asleep all on her own.

At the moment I can only manage to feed her to sleep, but because she has reflux I need to keep her fairly upright for a while after she’s finished drinking.

Sounds to me she's now become a normal baby from being an angel baby! My 14m old is only just doing 3-4 hours so I can't believe how good you have it.

Eight weeks is a big time of change. Do you follow Kathryn Stagg? Her stuff on leaps and growth spurts is great for reassuring bf mums of what's normal and how to keep going...and learn to trust our babies and our boobs!

Thanks for your response. She doesn’t like being in the pram at the moment. If I want to go out properly I have to give her a big bottle feed to knock her out!

Hopefully she’ll get used to it.

Thanks so much. I really hope this is just a phase and the sleep improves as I can’t get anything done at the moment. Her naps often don’t last long enough for me to have a shower or have lunch.

Thanks for your reply. I’m surprised you think that’s good. I had read newborns sleep for over 16 hours a day! My baby must be half that.

The 3-4 hour night time stretch is good but she doesn’t sleep much besides that.

thanks for the recommendation - I haven’t heard of Kathryn Stagg - I’ll check her out.

Does she have her eyes closed whilst she's breastfeeding? Because if she does then I would class that as napping. And if she's feeding as much as I remember all three of my babies when they were 8wks old, then that's a lot of feeding and therefore a lot of napping.

Babies can get overstimulated when they're this little so if she's focusing on feeding and got her eta closed then I wouldn't worry too much. Have you tried popping her in a stretchy sling to see if she'll nap on you? Mine all loved that and it worked magic every time to get them to sleep even when super grouchy. Meant I had one free and could move around and do things too. Was an absolute lifesaver!

Re the dummy and the sling-

It took a lot of work to get DS to take a dummy, I really wanted him to because they're great for refluxy babies, the sucking and swallowing of saliva helps soothe them. What finally worked was just sheer exposure, I spent two days putting the dummy in his mouth every 15/20 minutes while he was awake, and tapping on it to encourage him to suck. Never holding it there or forcing it or trying when he was already really upset. He somehow figured out what to do on day 2 and it was a godsend for soothing him from then on. He's never been obsessed with it either, he only has it for naps/sleep/long haul flights/illness/injury.

The sling- some babies take a big of getting used to. Is it a stretchy wrap you're using? See if there's a sling library near you where they can help you to fit it properly and check if there's any minor adjustments that might help make her feel more comfortable in there, it could just be one little thing that means she's not super comfy.

I really can't overstate how much of a lifesaver it was in those first few months, being able to sit and eat lunch, get housework done (the hoover really helped DS to nap so I used to hoover about 4x a day, the flat is never as clean as it was in those days ), and even just being able to sit on the computer or the sofa and watch tv knowing he'd sleep for a good long chunk. Also great for refluxy babies by helping to keep them upright.

You're doing a great job, and it won't be like this forever. It'll get a lot better, and then probably a bit worse at some point, and then better again. But it will continue to get better!

Ignore the recommended amounts of sleep that are very narrow the range of normal is HUGE. DS is a very sleepy baby, as a newborn he genuinely slept for over 29 hours a day for a bit and by 8 weeks was doing about 15 hours a day, DD never did that much and I swear she's just allergic to sleep but there's nothing I can do about it (without sedatives and that's not legal).

Some babies are "low sleep needs" and some are "high sleep needs".

www.eossleep.com/2015/02/12/national-sleep-foundation-updates-recommended-sleep-times-for-different-ages/

Could she be in cycle of being overtired?

Safe bedsharing and feeding in the side lying position is amazing for getting more sleep overight.

Do you do much skin to skin? That can make daytime contact naps longer.

Sleep begets sleep. Paying close attention to wake windows can help.

Could also just be a developmental leap. Thinking of you! It is so hard and sounds like you're doing a fantastic job.

Sarah Ockwell Smith has some good stuff on sleep, and the James Mckenna sleep lab/

At the moment I can only manage to feed her to sleep, but because she has reflux I need to keep her fairly upright for a while after she’s finished drinking.

Is she content when she wakes or does she wake screaming as though she could be in pain/lifting her legs towards her tummy?

Could be worth looking in to CMPA. Some babies only show 1 or 2 sympotms from a very long list.

The DIlan and Me website is a great resource.

You're doing nothing wrong. My little one was and still is sometimes the same. Nearly 17 weeks and I swear he just never slept. once at 7 weeks he was awake for 4 hours - happily. I just couldn't get him to sleep! His naps are still shit but he sleeps about 8 / 9 hours at night (well... usually. Having a bit of a rough time with illness atm) he is a pretty alert hyper baby so struggles to just drop off to sleep.

Keep doing what you're doing and trying different things. What works today may not work tomorrow. Trial and error day by day.

What I found worked a lot was walking around the house with him and doing boring one handed tasks. Like washing his bottles or loading the dishwasher. It literally bored him to sleep.

Absolutely normal.
Catnaps from now until after 4m sleep regression are the norm. Then she will fall in to a 234 cycle.

Wake in the morning
Then put down to sleep after 2 hours of wake time
Wake from that nap
Next nap after 3 hours
Bedtime 4 hours after waking from that nap

Naps will last anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours.

You're doing nothing wrong

Both mine did exactly this! The good napping routines didn't really kick in until about 8 months with DS and about 10 months with DD.

My 14 week old is very similar. I second the recommendation above to check out Kathryn Stagg on Instagram - since learning that sleeping while feeding counts as a nap I've been a lot less worried! Basically my baby will have one proper nap (1.5 hours ish) in the pram in the afternoon (only in the pram, nowhere else) and the rest of the day her sleep is on the boob plus an extra 10-15 mins after in my arms sometimes. When I add all the feed sleeps together it's actually quite a lot, it just doesn't feel like it because for all her naps I'm chained to the sofa/pram! Every so often I go down the rabbit hole of reading what she 'should' be doing but it never helps.
After all, the babies haven't read the guidelines! Sounds like you're doing a great job of responding to your baby!