Fear of baby crying while out- struggling with naps!

[LouWhit1]

Hello! First time mum to a beautiful 12 week boy :) but looking for a bit of advice. Having a lot of trouble with baby being difficult to get down for a nap- it takes a lot of effort to get there and in the process he can really cry. And if he misses his naps he's awfully grouchy and overtired by the evenings so I do actively try to get him to take them! In order to get him to nap I'm currently having to go to a darkened room with him in the carrier as soon as he shows sleepy cues, play white noise on my phone and bob around making additional 'shush' sounds and with a dummy also to hand just in case. Sometimes it works like a charm and he drops off super calmly within 5 minutes! Other times he really cries (like screams) and eventually lapses into sleep after about half an hour-45 minutes of doing this. It's starting to make me anxious to leave the house to be honest- because wherever I am I'm conscious that after feeding I'll only have 30-40 odd minutes or so and then I'll need to go and find somewhere quiet to do the whole soothing process and it could involve him screaming his little head off in the process 🥲. Is this normal? I'm worried I might be doing something wrong with the whole soothing process to cause such tears 🥲 but as I say other times he's perfectly content with it and it works really well!
And then my other worry is how to manage getting out of the house at all around this... Our 'routine' (if you can call it that!) at the moment is he wakes, I feed straight away, we play, then I begin the (stressful) soothing routine. If I have to leave the house I tend to wait until I've got him to sleep- then that means that wherever I go I can rely on about 30 mins sleep time, then he'll need to feed which is fine, don't mind breastfeeding in public, but then I'll be starting to panic about how and where to enact the soothing routine. It's not something that I can really do in a busy cafe, for example! Is this also just normal, or is there anything that I can do to make going out a little easier? As I say, fear of him crying and having to struggle through the soothing to sleep process out and about is currently making me anxious to leave the house :(. Thanks so much xx

You’re doing a great job.

and I’d never wake him up to burp him… i think some HVs have overdone it with this advice. So I went by the motto “never wake a sleeping baby” and all that! 😄

Keep driving!! They will eventually fall asleep. This is not letting them cry it out, you’re driving a car and there’s nothing you can do! ‘Baby on board’ signs are code for - my baby is screaming blue murder in the car so I’m a bit distracted!

Youre doing great OP. My goodness the naps can be all consuming but don’t let them rob you of enjoying baby and getting out and about. By 5/6months you can set a more regular routine but at this stage just make sure they’re getting a bit of daytime sleep. And I feed to sleep and don’t burp by 14wk old for naps and bedtime at home. Then pop down with dummy/thumb to soothe them if they disturb a little on the transfer. I found white noise, patting, night lights to be a waste of time with my first baby so not bothered this time. Your breast milk produces sleepy hormones, so that’s all you need!