4mo - very short naps, always overtired

[Mammia135]

Does anyone have any advice for sleep.

My 4mo was a Velcro baby and would not be put down. I would feed her to sleep and she would sleep for at least an hour and seemed happy. She was a very light sleeper though and wakes for anything but I could usually feed her to sleep again.

Recently (regression?) this has changed. Her nap laps are much shorter, just a minutes sometimes, or any noise from my older child, talking, me coughing or sneezing (hay fever!). But she won’t be fed to sleep so easily. And because her nap is so short, I miss the sleep signals, she is quickly overtired again and she cries and cries.

I’m trying so many things to get her to calm down and nap again - bouncing is
killing my knees and a yoga ball doesn’t work. Side sleeping sometimes works but then I’m stuck to the bed. Using a carrier is very reliable but then I have to carry her for the whole nap. But if she stays in a carrier, especially when we’re out, she will sleep loads! I can’t move her to the bed because she wakes very quickly or almost immediately. It’s awful as naps are very unpredictable, and I seem to be in this continuous cycle of crying, carrying, sleeping on me.

This is completely different to my first who would feed to carry to sleep, transfer to a cot and would stay asleep and he would nap very predictably.

Any help please!

Short naps are developmentally very normal until they can tolerate more awake time and then be tired enough to sleep for longer. Mine did 28minute naps on the dot until he was on 2 or 3 naps a day. I just leaned into carrier and pram naps (Walking and then sitting on a bench, or sometimes just letting him nap in pram at home). Once this phase passed I could move him to his cot once asleep and he would sleep longer - this was around 6 or 7m. They will naturally sleep longer on you as its warm and comforting x

I understand they are developmentally normal but her awake windows are so short and unpredictable. She’s overtired almost as soon as she’s woken up. So after cycle after cycle of this we’re both pretty unhappy with each other. Is all of this normal? Or is it just a painful phase we need to get through?

For this age it is normal yes as their sleep cycles are going through some biological changes. Mine was so fussy and grumpy and I often thought they were over tired but they were just becoming more aware and sensitive to disruption/stimulation. I hope it gets better for you too, saying hang in there is no help as I know how unbearable it can feel, but everything really is a phase. Fear of overtiredness can often cause people to try and get their baby to sleep before they have enough sleep pressure to sleep for longer and can perpetuate the cycle too, it definitely did for us. If they're getting 12-15hrs total sleep across 24hrs they should generally be OK I let him have one longer contact nap and then lived with a couple of short ones until it shifted

Firstly at this age naps should be in a dark quiet room. They're not newborns who sleep through anything anymore.

Secondly, we sleep trained at 5 months for this reason. He got to a point where he only fell asleep if rocked standing up for at least 30-60 minutes and my back gave in. Baby didn't nap for a whole day as I physically couldn't rock him!!! DH had to take a day off work the next day and a few days later we decided to just put him down. He cried for 25 minutes (we checked in with him.a few times) and went to sleep. Totally transformed his sleep. Had to do the same for naps in the day.

Although a warning that when you sleep train, you need to avoid naps on the go as much as possible going forward so it does limit you if you need to be out loads.

The 4 month sleep regression was the hardest period for us. We mistakenly thought we could carry on as we had been and tried everything to make the baby fit into that. Wake windows, nap schedule, sleep associations, gentle sleep training. None of it worked and just made us more stressed and tired in top of him not napping at all and waking every 60 min past midnight.

In the end it lasted six weeks until we gave in and started co-sleeping. At first after so many wakings, then to go to bed. Also gave in allowed him to nurse to nap and sleep. And we massively readjusted our expectations of ourselves and made others fit into that. From then on everything has just got better and better and with the exception of an occasional night he is mostly sleeping through and we're all happy and healthy again

I guess if just say you have to do what you have to do to get through it and imo following the baby is the best advise we got

If the current set up isn’t working, and she naps well in a carrier, could you just go with doing naps in a carrier a bit more frequently? It sounds like baby will sleep better, plus you can get on with that ever you need to do.

Will she sleep out in the fresh air if pushed in a pram?. I used to go for a good hour walk every morning and within 10 minutes they'd be fast asleep. Id enjoy the rest of the walk and then push the pram in to the kitchen and get jobs done.