Struggling with overtired baby!!

[Erlouise]

Hi ladies bit of a long one here sorry - just posted on the wrong thread oops!
I’m really struggling with my baby getting over tired. DD is 3.5 months now and struggling constantly with her naps.
it’s not just recently it’s been going on for a while now.
she got used to contact naps so I was trying to break the habit by getting her to sleep on her own sometimes in the day so I could get stuff done. She was fine with that and would always feed to sleep. However, for the last few weeks she’s stopped feeding to sleep so I have to actively get her down for naps. I watch her wake windows ans whenever I see a cue for tiredness I’m straight in there with the rocking and the white noise, however DD just fights the sleep. she absolutely hates even a shed of light so if I’m out and about she is just wide awake until she gets into a dark room and then she’ll finally nod off. She used to sleep when I went for walks but now she’s wide awake staring at everything and then crying because she’s so tired.
today I spent about 2 hours trying to get her down after her morning bottle and she wasn’t having any of it (she’d already been up for about an hour) I had an appointment with my mum so had to drive to her house, baby usually would fall asleep in the car but fought it and cried most of the way (pulled over 3 times to try and help settle her), got to mum’s she wouldn’t sleep until I put her in a snow suit to go out to walk to our apt, and she fell straight to sleep and slept for 3.5 hours (this hasn’t happened since she was a newborn), it was so late in the day at this point that I had to wake her up to put her in the car to come home which then of course meant because I’d woken her she wouldn’t go back to sleep easy and I’ve just had another 2 hour battle getting her down which I’m going to hope is now her bedtime.
I know she is so tired but for some reason she just won’t give in and sleep. I’ve tried counting wake times and getting her down before she’s been up too long, I’ve tried waiting for cues, I’ve also tried waiting a bit longer to see if maybe I’m the problem and I’m trying too early but nothing is working. I play with her during wake windows to keep her stimulated and I’ve tried a few days of not doing much play time to see if maybe she’s getting too over stimulated but it still doesn’t help. I spoke to the HVs and they just said that as long as she’s sleeping enough at night it’s fine, but it’s not fine because when she doesn’t sleep she’s really grouchy which is understandable, and understably becomes super hard to settle.
I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong but please can the experienced mummas help me. Please go easy on me though I know she needs to sleep in the day and I really am trying my hardest so please no unkind comments about how bad it is that she stayed awake for so long between naps today…
honestly just as I think I’ve got everything down to a t it all hits the fan. Also, just for ref, she used to be great with her dummy it would fall out when sleeping and she wouldn’t care, now soon as it falls out she’s awake searching for it!

Does she have a consistant wake up time? That is really important for cementing your whole day re. naps.

Regardless of how baby slept in the night, even if they didn’t go to sleep until midnight, you should wake them at the same time every day (whatever time you want that to be, usually 7 or 8am).

Wake windows at this age are 1-2 hours, so find baby’s sweet spot. Typically you want the shortest wake window at the beginning of the day and the longest wake window before bed.

She shouldn’t be napping for 3.5 hours; that’s far too long and will be causing other issues. 2 hours is the longest you want any particular nap to be.

@BananasInThreePieceSuits She actually doesn’t have a consistent wake time. My HV told me that it doesn’t matter about times and routines at the min just let baby sleep but maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong. I have for the last couple of days been trying to put her to bed at the same time but hadn’t really thought about wake up time so that’s a great point thank you.

the wake windows at the min aren’t going well because she might only cat nap for 20-30 mins in her crib (as still working on stopping the contact naps) she is still tired when she wakes and I can’t get her back down so she might play for a 10-15 mins but is then tired again and really cranky and crying because she hasn’t slept enough.

the 3.5 hour nap was a one off because she didn’t sleep all morning, usually it’s just cat naps but I think she just got so tired that she ended up having to sleep so long which I honestly feel awful about.

from now I’ll start the wake up time being consistent and see if that makes any difference, fingers crossed it does and maybe she might find it easier to stay asleep independently for longer than she is currently?… here’s hoping anyway z

Please ignore your HV. They get little to no training and have no idea about infant sleep

Good luck with the wake up time; that should always be a starting point. You want a consistent bedtime too which will be 12 hours after your wake up time.

Stick with the wake windows. Even if she only sleeps for 20 minutes and is tired again half an hour later, don’t put her back to sleep. That will be messing things up. You need to follow the wake window regardless of how long the nap is.

I will say though that at only 3.5 months, your sleep expectations are incredibly optimistic. Independent sleep is something even most toddlers struggle with, and baby doesn’t even realise you’re a separate person to them yet.

So quite honestly I would just enjoy the long contact naps. Watch tv, read a book. Embrace the snuggles.

Stop trying to fix something that isn’t broken. Contact napping does not create a bad habit, nor does it mean baby won’t be able to sleep alone later.

I agree with PP - ignore the health visitor! Personally, I went with the Gina Ford method which got my baby used to going to sleep when he was put down, and that has been absolute magic since. He's five now and he still will pretty much go to sleep whenever I put him down. It took a bit of building up so lots of resettling at first very short naps at first, but he got used to it and I think it's really paid off. We did this from 4 months.

She's needs a routine. Start the day at same time no matter what happened at night

I like to do 3hrs feeds and in those 3hrs after 1.5/2hrs later to put for a nap

If babies get overtired they don't settle so watch cues carefully. She may be 1.5

This is a routine I give to mums that I care for their babies (I'm a mn)

7 wake feed
830/9 nap 60/90m
10 feed
1130/12 nap 60/90m
1 feed
2/30/3 nap 60/90m
4 feed
530 30min nap
6 bath/bedtime routine
630/7 feed
7 bed

Then depending if sleeping though either let her wake naturally and feed so be maybe 1-2/3am

Or give a df which is more of an outdated method now as babies tend to do longer stretches - and wake /feed 11pm and see if sleep through to 6/7

And start the day again.