5 month sleep

[SharpOliveCat]

Hello,
I just need a bit of advice from parents of babies that refuse naps,the health visitors don't help and I feel I'm losing my mind worrying about my baby's naps. Baby girl has never been a good napper,even as a newborn but it's got worse and worse. She now tries to stay awake from 1pm daily. Iv tried moving bedtime to 6.30pm to compensate for this and she now mucks about at night. She woke at 9.30pm last night and cried till 10.30pm, didn't want bottle, didn't want dummy and gave herself wind from crying even though I was cuddling her, then woke for a feed at 2.30am and stayed awake till 4.30 am then woke at 5.30 am for the day. She's had 2 twenty minute naps today and refusing more. I'm fed up with following sleep cues and wake windows and I'm fed up of having a grouchy baby by bedtime. What am I doing so wrong?? There is a huge age gap between her and my others who are 23, 20 and 16 but I don't remember this with them and I'm sure id remember. I don't want tips on how to get her to nap cos she won't but any advice on how to deal with the day with her like this is much appreciated
Thank you

What are you trying to get her to nap?

My 4m little one never used to nap at home and all, and even now will generally only nap either on the move or as a contact nap unless she's exhausted. I try and time journeys/walks for when I want her to nap. She has got better as we've started going out and doing more, which I think is a combination between the more time on the move and being more worn out. If she hasn't napped much by 3pm I stick her in the pram or carrier and go out for a walk as otherwise she is a nightmare from about 5pm onwards. She is getting better at napping at home, but only if we've been doing loads - so today as we had her nap-walk this morning rather than this afternoon, we did loads of tummy time and rolling practice and then she fell asleep during a feed and she's now snoozing next to me.

Around five months was a nightmare for my baby for naps, I went to the local council playgroup one week and just burst in to tears about it to the nursery nurses. My parents and in laws kept saying "it doesn't matter if baby doesn't nap" but THEY didn't have to deal with the meltdowns from an overtired baby screaming from 5pm onwards.

I don't have much advice other than that with time, around 6.5 months my baby started to lengthen that first nap out to over an hour which made such a difference. This happened naturally, I don't think anything I did made an impact, I think it was just ages.

Otherwise I did a lot of 'compulsory walks' round and round my estate to get the baby to nap. As soon as I stopped walking, the baby woke. It was exhausting.

Basically - solidarity, it's crap and hopefully you're little one will grow into longer day naps.

I walked mine in the pram until he went to sleep - still do sometimes at 2!

It is crap, especially because she now mucks around at night. I tried walks in buggy,car rides, rocking, swaying,being in dark room, white noise, being left in Moses basket with hoover on. My partner is about as helpful as a wet fart, he thinks she should be awake all day but he isn't the one who has to deal with the meltdowns. He also says it doesn't matter if she sleeps all night but she doesn't, just because he sleeps through her wake ups doesn't mean she slept all night but there's no telling him that. Stupid man 😡

Also partner can't/won't settle baby to sleep even at night so he's literally no help at all. I need to go back to work soon, luckily I work from home but I need to do night shifts and I can't because of the way baby sleeps so even that is another headache