4 month refusing naps all day - so overtired!

[TiredMummy321]

My 4 month LO has always struggled with sleep and naps have always been hard work but we’d always reliably get a good nap with him in the sling and he’d happily take 1.5 hour naps (would often have to help link sleep cycles with more motion though). But today he’s only been able to sleep for 30 minutes for each nap, despite being in the sling in a dark room with white noise and constant movement. When he’s initially woken at 30 minutes as normal, his eyes have been WIDE open and no amount of swaying would help him get back to sleep like it normally would. He is now such an overtired hysterical mess. I know sleep begets sleep and we’ve tried SO hard today to help maximise his sleep but none of the usual tricks have worked.

What’s going on?! I don’t know if he’s going through the sleep regression or not as he’s always been a poor sleeper at night (awake every 1-2 hours since birth 😅) so it’s impossible to tell! But naps seem to have gone mental today! Help! Any tips?

I bet he's in a little sleep regression, or could be coming down with a cold or something. My baby has days like that too. Stick to your normal plans for a few days and see if it passes. If not, reassess his sleep needs. 4 month olds are notoriously difficult with sleep but in my experience it gets better around 5+ months. I also have a 4 month old at the moment and despite us being consistent, his sleep seems to change every day 😭.

My LO’s naps went haywire at about 4 months. My whole day seemed to revolve around getting him to nap and it was exhausting. I tried pram/sling/on me, it just always seemed to be a struggle.

What finally worked for us was using the Huckleberry app, as it helped predict nap times based on wake windows according to an algorithm. I’d tried following wake windows previously according to his age, but for my boy they were never accurate. After about a week using the app he was napping better and no longer overtired, it really helped stop the guesswork!

@Eumy We use that app too and the recommended sweet spots have always been bang on but today he fought his naps for 20-40 mins every time and then only stayed asleep for 30 mins. I know now overtired but the first nap took 40 mins to get him to sleep!

If in doubt: calpol! Could be anything tbh, can you pop him in the pram and go for a walk?

Teething pain possibly? I found the homeopathic teething granules helpful.

Pop him in the pram/pushchair and go out for a long walk. Get on with shopping etc. Second and subsequent baby’s rarely get rocked to sleep if they’re not unwell. Most get a nap on the school run.

Could he need an increase in milk..? Maybe he's hungry and needs more to sleep? Just a thought

I’ve got a 4 month old too. Naps are a nightmare now compared to the snoozy newborn days. Also only managing half an hour max.

My older DD was the same. She grew out of it eventually and her naps lengthened as she had fewer naps per day. When she went to 2 naps they were 45 mins / 1 hour. She’s been on 1 nap for ages and it’s usually 1.5 / 2 hours (although I think she’s getting ready to drop it soon)

My approach is to try and stick to rough wake windows but if it’s taking longer than 15 minutes to get a nap take a break, do something else and try again in half an hour. This really reduced my frustration at spending what felt like all day trying to make her nap.

Try not to get too obsessed with sleep, you can offer them the opportunity to sleep but you can’t force them to (even if they really need a nap!). How well your child sleeps isn’t a measure of your ability as a parent.

30 minute naps were the norm for us from about 4m to 8m, it’s the same for a lot of babies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with cat napping, they don’t NEED long naps.
Have a look at the Possums Method - essentially go about your life, keep them busy and they’ll sleep when they need to. The whole first year is so up and down sleep wise, rhythms help but routines will feel restrictive when they shift them all the time. Best to go with the flow as much as you can.

Also if its taking 40 minutes to get them to sleep, they don’t need to sleep. Sleep is a biological function of the body, when enough sleep pressure builds up the sleep will happen (except of course in the case of medical issues)

This sounds completely normal, they are becoming more aware of everything so would rather not sleep as much.
The sleep begets sleep is actually a bit of a myth, each baby will only have a certain amount of sleep they need each day and it varies per child.
My DD's naps and sleep went awful at 4 months and she always wanted to just be looking around at stuff. It would take ages to get her to nap even in sling/car etc and she was a 30 minute napper until about 8/9 months when they started getting longer.
It's hard but I promise it is really normal.
Some Instagram accounts I found that really helped me get through all the ups and downs of sleep are:
Little nest sleep
Fox and the moon infant sleep
Second star to the right
Hey sleepy baby

They all have some brilliant posts on normal infant sleep and especially the 4 month regression

My now 8mo's sleep went a bit haywire at 4mo. It's when their sleep cycles change permanently and also coincides with a greater awareness of the world. Great combo 👌🏻😴

I too downloaded the Huckleberry app and used their free Sweet Spot tool. This actually made the situation WORSE as I've since figured out my baby has slightly longer wake windows than average so I was trying to get him to sleep when he wasn't tired, which was adding the the frustration. Is it possible that this is what is happening with your baby?

Echo what PP above says about following Insta accounts which discuss biologically normal infant sleep. They'll reassure you firstly that 30min naps can be normal, but also that a lot of the 'advice' you read online (such as the classic 'sleep begets sleep') isn't entirely true, and will often be used by sleep consultants to scare you into buying their packages.

@BuffaloCauliflower I wish I could follow that principle but he’s SO miserable when he only has 30 minute naps. He was hysterical by 5pm and nothing would soothe him.

I did think when it took 40 mins to get him to sleep he perhaps wasn’t tired but he seems to have stopped all his sleepy cues. Even when he’s been up for 2+ hours. He goes from happy to hysterical in minutes and then you’re like “shit I missed it!” 😩

@TiredMummy321 my 8mo has only recently started showing sleepy cues (yawning, eye rubbing), before that there was a lot of guess work.

Can you spend some time this week experimenting with different wake windows to see what his optimal awake time is? I did this by taking my LO out for walks in the carrier or pram and seeing when he would fall asleep. If it took 15 mins from leaving the house then I probably got the time just right, if it took half an hour (or more) then his wake window was longer.

@TiredMummy321 being unsettled is likely just part and parcel of being 4 months old, their development is so rapid and there’s a lot going on for them. DS was in a sling all the time when he was feeding at that age. All naps were on me, wouldn’t have dared trying to put him anywhere. I remember him going through a stage of just going mad if he wasn’t in bed with me by about 7/7.30 having happily slept on my lap downstairs in the evening. Sometimes it’s just one of those things to ride out till you get to the other side. Getting fresh air and natural light every day will help though

Also - sleep begets sleep is quite simplistic and isn’t the same for all babies. They need quite different amounts of sleep to each other too. It sounds like linking sleep cycles isn’t possible right now, it will be again at some point

@BuffaloCauliflower agree with everything you've said.

Baby sleep is wild and it took me months to reconcile that my baby didn't read the handbooks (and also that the handbooks are full of a lot of generic shit).

Please please please don't use Calpol regularly. It's paracetamol and can cause liver problems if over used.
OP 4 month blip is a right pain all 4 if mine did it. I had to take 2 of them for walks in prams to get them to sleep.

My son is the same age and I thought sleep regression when I was reading your post. My son has started fighting naps and it can take a while rocking and shushing him to get him off. He's never napped well not being held, and could have a solid few hours in my arms but like you, I'm having to work harder to get him settled through the sleep cycles.

I hear you on the happy to hysterical in a minute, I find if I catch him before he is over tired he is much easier to get off to sleep, we don't have the screaming and crying and fighting it.

Does he sleep in the pram or the car? If we get to that point where he just won't go down I take him out in the pram for a walk then he'll fall asleep, or he'll always sleep in the car too if we go for a drive, so if he likes motion to get him to sleep (going off what you said about the sling) it might be worth a try taking him out.

Sorry I don't have much in the way of advice, just hang in there! It's what I'm doing and hoping it'll get easier again as he gets through the sleep regression.

...he’s SO miserable when he only has 30 minute naps.

He was not miserable because he had only 30 min naps. He was miserable because he was awake too long between those 30 min naps.

As sn approximation, awake time wants to be:

• Double nap length
• Plus or minus 15 mins (to allow for daily variations)
• Never more than 2h until consistently napping 90m plus

So 30 min naps want 60 min awake time, in the range of 45-75 minutes.

@FATEdestiny We tried getting him to nap 1 hour 15 mins after the first 30 min nap but he wasn’t having any of it. Didn’t seem ready yet. We normally try getting him to nap 1.5-2 hours after he wakes. Previous to yesterday, this worked well and he’d normally be out within 5-10 minutes. Yesterday was a whole different ball game!

@FATEdestiny I'm not meaning to sound confrontational, but where do you get your information from? Is it evidence based?

I nearly fell into an abyss of PND around 4mo because my baby wouldn't do what he 'should' be doing according to the internet (including forums such as Mumsnet). It was only when I tuned into my baby - which included the fact he has longer wake windows than average - that things actually started to get better.

@Calphurnia88 I'm asleep consultant. Or I used to be until I got a "proper job" last year. Advanced search my username- you'll find over 10 years of advice ive been giving on Mumsnet sleep board. Significant amount of experience with thousands of babies.

What qualifications are needed to become a 'sleep consultant'? I have very little time for the proliferation of sleep consultants that have ruthlessly targeted me on social media since I gave birth, giving generic advice that only works for a small percentage of babies and for those it doesn't, ends up in promoting cruel sleep training methods.

And yes, I am aware of your previous posts. They were some of the aforementioned ones that had me convinced my baby was broken/I had broken my baby.

Sorry I missed the studies you referenced which concluded that babies wake time should be no more than double their nap length @FATEdestiny ?