Narmada Okay, bear in mind what has worked for my wee one, may not work for yours, but I think when things are terrible, it is worth a shot. I should say that my DD is a good night sleeper and has been since about 8 weeks old (now 18 weeks) so that gave me real hope that we could eventually break naps. We made real progress about 5 weeks ago, but before then day time was hellish. She was constantly overtired and would go for about 4 or 5 hours with no sleep. Up until 10 weeks she had napped in her cot about twice, other than that it was a moving buggy (no parking up and having a coffee for me) or on me (but after a while that become a real effort with protracted wriggling). I could not go on, I was shattered and worn out and beginning to resent her.
The advice I was given was to get her to sleep at the same time everyday, be that in the buggy, car, on me, in bed etc for a week or two and her body clock would start to adjust and she would expect the sleeps at those times and that would make it easier to sleep in her bed. And it has worked, I can barely believe it. I am aware it may go tits up at any point, but at least I have had 5 good weeks. She is now a total joy to be with and I love being a mum, words I am not sure I ever thought I would utter. Yes, it has involved a bit of a routine, not something I ever thought I would do, but it has saved my sanity and to be honest now that she is used to napping (and likes her naps) we can be flexible with it. But I will not allow her to go for more than 2 hours without a sleep. It all goes to bat shit if I do. But to be honest, her clock seems set that way now
Getting her used to sleeping at the same time everyday was tough, but it was worth it. I used to have to pace the hall in the dark with her in the sling for an hour or walk about in the rain/snow with the buggy for 2 hours every day, but we got there. I can hardly believe it.
As I said, she is 18 weeks and this is roughly how it goes (but obviously a bit flexible depending on what we are doing);
I now get her up at roughly the same time every day, between 7 and 730.
She goes back down for a nap about 830-9ish, she normally takes an hour or an hour and a half (depends on what we are doing)
Big nap between 1-3.30sih
Cat nap of about 15-30mins at some point between 430 and 530
630, bath, feed and bed, usually all settled by 730pm
So, she naps in her basket, where she sleeps at night. I have the room kitted out with black out blinds and they basically stay on 24 hours a day. for her naps I follow a little bit of the same routine as night time. Yes, okay I sometimes feed to sleep, but frankly I will deal with any 'rods' if and when I need to. So the 'nap routine';
- When I think she is getting tired, I pop her onto the mat and let her chill out (generally 2 hours after last sleep, except morning, which is much shorter awake window)
- Take her into the bedroom (baby einstein lullaby music on and low lights) and pop her into sleeping bag
- Feed her (bottle). Sometimes she take a lot, sometimes she does not want any
- Sometimes she dozes on the bottle and if she does, I wait until the sucks are VERY spaced out, take it out and pop her into bed
- If she doesn't doze on the bottle, does not want to feed, I just stick her into the bed
- I have a wee womb noise bear and that goes on as soon as she goes into bed (it lasts 5 mins)
- RETREAT
She sometimes, warbles, cries, but I leave her for 3 mins to see (unless she is hysterical). If she does not settle, I go back in, get her out of bed, offer her the bottle (repeat as above). if she wakes after one cycle when I know she needs more sleep, I go in and offer the bottle again. She will sometimes take one suck, and doze again. Often she will cry out between a cycle, but will settle herself back down
Okay, essay over, Hope this helps a little!