Getting my baby to sleep at nap time

[LilyC]

This is my first post on Mumsnet and I really hope someone can give me some advice as I am not sure what to do! My 13-week old little girl is a terrible sleeper during the day and will only ever nap for 30 mins at a time. She will also only go to sleep having a cuddle with me and also sucking her dummy. At night we have started using the checking technique to get her to go to sleep by herself where we let her cry but go in every two minutes to re-assure her we are there. It has been working so far and now I want to know if anyone has done this for nap time? Should I let her cry and keep going in for nap time or leave it and carry on as I have been doing? It woudl be great if she would self-soothe and go to sleep during the day but maybe I am being unrealistic?

Thank you!

Bumping for you. No real advice other than 13 weeks is still pretty young and I'd try not to worry too much about 'sleep training' as such. Does she sleep well in the buggy/car/sling etc? if so use these aids to get a bit more sleep in her?

Hi - my little girl is 10 weeks, and was struggling to nap during the day, but is getting better. I tend to give her her "big" feed, paly with her (or whatever) until nap time, then give her a little "snack" feed just before I put her down. I play white noise (radio tuned to nothing, on LOUDLY) and let her cry for about 5 mins (so long as it is just yelling, not distressed crying), check on her and she is normally asleep. Sometimes she can do only 30 mins, but sometimes 1 hour plus.

Our daughter has always been a terrible sleeper, day and night, and only ever napped in her cot at home when completely zonked (still the same now and she's 2.5 years, phasing out nap time).

We have always resorted to taking her out in the car or buggy. I keep a good book in the car, or sit in the car on our drive with a laptop. At the weekend my other half goes to buy the papers with her and sits in the car and reads them whilst she naps.

She has always napped fine in cots and on mats at nursery (she started at 6 months), just not at home. Before she started at nursery I was tearing my hair out trying to get her to sleep "on schedule" and we have found that controlled crying worked at bed time, but never cracked nap time.

Maybe we should have tried harder, but the car/buggy method has worked for us and we don't mind it.