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?

As you've said in the OP, baby us overtired. You're putting it down to needing longer naps. But moving to shorter naps at around 4 months is normal development. It will take baby a while to learn to independently link sleep cycles. So the only way to help baby not be overtired is to reduce awake time.

I'd suggest baby just needs more input to get to sleep than you're giving, rather than baby not needing the sleep.

Remember sleep fundamentally and perminantly changes outside of the Fourth Trimester. It will never go back to that, this is the new normal.

For the first 3-4 months of life babys sleep is like it was in the womb- passive. As long as all needs are met, babys default is to be asleep.

Around 4 months sleep develops into the more adult-like version of sleep cycles - periods of light sleep, deep sleep, waking and getting back to sleep. Sleep is no longer passive - it's sn active endeavour. Parents need to actively work to help baby get to sleep and stay asleep. At 4 months they are only just at the beginning of that learning journey.

To help baby sleep I'd suggest

• going to sleep in something that moves (bouncer, pushchair etc)
• sucking for comfort (dummy)
• reduced awake times
• full tummy as often as possible
• total consistency

"I'm not meaning to sound confrontation" - really Calphurnia88?

I'm not looking for an argument. I'm trying to be kind snd helpful on my Sunday morning. It's OK to disagree with my advice snd ignore me. I do know what I'm talking about, I don't intend to justify the help I'm trying to give. You can just ignore my advice as you see fit.

I'm sorry you had PND at 4 months. I'm sorry you missed me saying "as an approximation" in explaining wake windows. I have no intention here to cause you any upset Calphurnia88. I am sorry if I have.

I am on the side of all new Mums. Not against them. You included.

I appreciate your civil response, genuinely.

If your intent is to help new mums, then I gently suggest you consider your delivery. Your advice tends to be X is bad and Y is good (so no room for individuality), and focuses a lot on overtiredness. I have spoken with sleep consultants who specialise in biologically normal infant sleep, and they actually tell me that they see more clients with sleep issues relating to undertiredness than overtiredness. This certainly was the issue with my baby, as I was trying to force him to sleep when he didn't need to because of something I had read online about wake windows. But for a short period I was convinced I was the worst mum because I couldn't get my baby to sleep when he was 'supposed' to.

Anyway, I don't want to spend my Sunday morning arguing either. I do however feel very passionate that new mums are in a very fragile place, and what you advice you give them at this crucial point (especially if you profess to be an expert) can make or break them and their relationship with their baby. So use that carefully.

We can agree that new mums are in a very fragile place, also that they often reach out online to get advice and help and that there are lots of people on Instagram, Munsnet and elsewhere who offer that advice borne from kindness and solidarity.

I also agree that every baby/family is different.

That's why I recognise on Mumsnet we get a lot of projection when it comes to sleep... My baby did this, so your baby will be the same... And understandable defensiveness when parents perceive their parenting is judged as "bad" - when that perception isn't true.

Every baby is different. The OPs baby isnt yours Calphurnia88. You describe your baby as not needing sorter wake windows, I infer therefore not tired. OP describes a baby who is very tired and a poor night sleeper too. Hense the differing situations.

I don't think what you do/did was bad, wrong or anything else Calphurnia88. I don't know any wider context about your babys sleep. If my advice make you feel like you did something wrong, I am sorry. That was not in any way my intention.

@FATEdestiny poor night sleep can also be due to undertiredness, since babies (and humans) only need a certain amount of sleep a day. And believe me, I was OBSESSED that my baby was overtired until I blocked out the noise and properly tuned into him. I'll leave it there ✌🏻

@TiredMummy321 I would also add Lyndsey Hookway to the list of people to follow on Instagram for evidence based information and advice on biologically normal infant sleep.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that @TiredMummy321 is undertired. Or overtired. She says he has only done 30min naps all day for one day and is now hysterical. Could be overstimulated. Could be understimulated. Could be teething. Could be completely different tomorrow.

What I'm suggesting is that OP tunes into her baby and experiments with what his individual needs are, whilst also reading up on what biologically normal infant sleep looks like as it does change a lot after around 4mo. This is what worked for me.

To be fair, over the years I’ve only ever seen @FATEdestiny try and be helpful to struggling parents so I wouldn’t read anything negative in to delivery or tone

@FATEdestiny Hey. We’re still having all the nap issues here and I wondered if you had anymore advice. I tried following your advice about wake window being double last nap length but if I try and get him to sleep after an hour (following a 30 min nap) he full on fights it. Tries to climb out of the sling/my arms. When I extend his wake window to 1.5 hours or 1 hour 40 mins, he falls asleep within 10 mins on average and no fighting. However, the nap still only lasts 30 minutes regardless. I used to be able to extend the nap if he was in the sling but I can’t anymore. At 30 mins on the dot he pings wide awake and then tries to climb out again. If I try to persevere, it ends in tears.

Sometimes he seems ok after 30 minutes, sometimes he’s immediately cranky and is generally increasingly cranky by the end of the day.

He currently has 4-5 naps per day. If he takes 2 longer naps (anything over 1 hour - 1.5 hours), it’ll be a 4 nap day and if it’s just lots of 30 min naps, it’ll often be a 5 nap day. Bedtime varies between 8-9.30pm, depending on when last nap ends. I’d love to get him down earlier but we cosleep and he won’t stay asleep unless glued to me and I struggle to go to bed any earlier due to my insomnia.

Helpppp 😫

@FATEdestiny Oh also to add, when I’ve tried getting him to sleep after an hour, it’s then taken 40 mins of fighting before he drops off.

Some of the crankiness might just be due to developmental leaps (the Wonder Weeks app predicts a very lengthy fussy period around this time for what it’s worth) and the start of teething. My DD is 4.5 months and she and most of the other babies in my anti natal group are also only napping for 30 min at a time. For me only contact naps with a dummy are working with ~90 min wake windows. She won’t even sleep in the pram anymore so gets extra cranky when we have been out and about. Sorry I don’t have any real advice about how to make it better.

@TiredMummy321 if it's taking 40mins for your baby to fall alseep after 1hr awake time, and 10mins to fall asleep after 1.5hr awake time I think it's safe to say that your babies optimum awake time is quite a bit longer than 1hr.

It's very normal for babies to have short naps, especially at this age, and they can get cranky for a number of reasons - tiredness often receives the blame but it can just be a developmental thing. My now 8mo was very cranky around 4-6 months. Sarah Ockwell-Smith has a great article on it: sarahockwell-smith.com/2013/08/29/help-my-4-5-month-old-is-sleeping-like-a-newborn-again-aka-as-the-4-5-month-old-babies-from-hell/

Don't fight him to sleep. Taking him out and doing something with him would be less stressful. Then he can sleep when he needs/wants. Pop him in his pram and walk around a park or take him to do the shopping. Nobody fights their third or fourth child to nap at set intervals. They get put in the car to take the others to school or to drop off the dry cleaning and woken up to collect the children or go to meet someone for coffee.