Day time naps

[CharBell]

Has anyone who PREVIOUSLY failed to get their baby to nap during the day, had any success? I know all about the tips from people who have pretty much always had napping babies but I am kind of looking for some magic here as am starting to go a bit nuts. Baby is 13 weeks old and is exhausted by the end of day.

No such experience only the thought that 13 weeks is still very young and what didn't work previously may well work now.

charbell, does ur baby have no naps at all? or short ones ?
what tiume does baby go to bed at night and what time is baby up?
and when are the feed times if there is a pattern

Have you read the Baby Whisperer? I found this was like magic . I learned how to read the cues that they are getting tired before they actually get past it. My dd use to have about a 90 second window that she would happily fall asleep in but if I missed the signs she was hell!
Is baby in any kind of routine yet?

I'm one of those!! Ds was a total total nightmare in the day. He was very windy when he was younger so he would only have about 2 x naps. Approx 30 minutes each, and cry for the rest of the day. Now, he is 15 weeks old and the windy phase has past and he's excellent. I just have to keep a watch on how long he's been awake. I usually find that after an hour and a half to two hours he's ready for a nap. So i put him to bed, he crys for about 5-10 minutes and then sleeps.

He wakes up at 7, has a bottle, and i put him back to bed. He stays awake for an hour and then has about 45 minutes sleep before getting up at about 9am, and then has a two hour nap between 11am-1pm, fourty five minutes at about 3pm, and then about an hour at 5.30pm. This is excellent as he is so good most the time.

The only negative is, he finds it very difficult to sleep when we are out and about. So i tend not to go out til after 1pm, but i don't mind. If he misses this nap he is evil ALL day so its in my best interest really. People will probably think i'm really stupid for waiting for him to have his nap, but it makes for a happy contented baby....which therefore makes me happy

My ds wasn't very keen on day time naps and was a bit hit or miss till about 1 yo. Babywhisperer book and web site are both excellent (I found them at 1yo)!
I used a variety of different methods to get him to nap (so he wouldn't get used to 1 specific method). His favourite was snuggled up in bed with dh watching footie on a Saturday morning!
But I guess the rule was up for 2 hours and then sleep!

Will watch this with interest. Also have non-napping baby (does sleep at night though, thank god!) A 90 second window? Blimey, what if you're in the kitchen and miss it?

Tinker - I learned not to go to the kitchen until she was asleep! Obviously I had a rough idea of when the nap would come, i.e. about 1 and half hrs from morning wake-up and then about 2 hours after next and about 3 hours after next.

However, naps are a whole new ball game nowadays -she is 21 months next week and refusing a nap at all and it's killing me!

Oh my god - a 90 second window!

He sleeps from 7/8 till 7/8. We wake him at 10.30 for a feed and then he wakes at 3/4 and then 6/7 for a feed. He goes straight down afterwards (awake.) During the day, dark room in his cot. Try to do it when he is tired (second yawn) and give him a gently cuddle and ssssh in his room to try and establish a routine. Been doing this since he was about 3 weeks old.

He will sometimes nap but only if I untune the radio and put it on really loud. Doesn't always work. Naps in pram and car if we keep moving.

Read Baby Whisperer. I don't get it. How can I sssh him and then leave and then go back next time if he won't settle when I sssh him? How many times did you have to do it initially before he slept?

Or just do it like i did from 3 mths.put them down and leave them till they go to sleep!she cried for 20 mins first day then days after that less and less till straight to sleep after 1 wk.The ruthless method!!!

I found the Baby Whisperer useful. The original book was useful for helping to spot the telltale signs that they are ready for a nap but a little light on detail for the pat/sshh or PUPD methods. The 'BW solves all your problems' book goes into more detail on these. Also there is an interview with Tracey Hogg on the baby whisperer site which goes into a lot of detail.

I started PUPD when ds was about your little one's age (he is now 17 weeks). He is now much easier to settle at nap times (if I catch that window perfectly he calms as I swaddle him, the eyelids bounce as I pat him on the back a couple of times and he can barely keep his eyes open to watch me as I leave the room). His habit of 30/40 minute naps is subsiding and if he does stir after 30/40 mins a minute of patting on the back is usually enough to send him back for another 30 mins. He is also re-settling himself at night most of the time (if only I could say the same for me!).

I think like most things you need to be consistent. The 1st few days did take patience (& ear plugs) - however progress was apparent. Every now and then things seem to regress but usually a couple of days later seem to make a leap forward. The key is to not lose faith on the bad days. HTH.

charbell the ssshing could be for an hour however long it takes but it is kinder on the parent as u are comforting them by touch ad then puttng them back into the cot.
its repetition, same thing ever night til its gets less sshhhing and hopefully then he/she will settle alot easier.

i remeber ssshhhing with my ds for about 10 nights around the 14wk stage, to settle him for bed. i knew he was wrecked as dd would keep him busy/occupied but he was just not sleeping so baby whisperer worked for him.

even now at 14mths ,the odd time he wakes, i ssshhh and he resettles very quickly

charbell the ssshing could be for an hour however long it takes but it is kinder on the parent as u are comforting them by touch ad then puttng them back into the cot.
its repetition, same thing ever night til its gets less sshhhing and hopefully then he/she will settle alot easier.

i remeber ssshhhing with my ds for about 10 nights around the 14wk stage, to settle him for bed. i knew he was wrecked as dd would keep him busy/occupied but he was just not sleeping so baby whisperer worked for him.

even now at 14mths ,the odd time he wakes, i ssshhh and he resettles very quickly

A 90 second window is what it FELT like - was probably a bit longer in reality (but not much!) - I was just trying to make the point that it was a very short space of time in which my dd would fall asleep happily!
I agree that at 13 weeks PUPD is probably more effective that Pat/Shh. The first time I tried that one (at night) it took quite a lot of PUPDs - maybe 45 mins ? but then silence. Much less time the next night and so on.

Going on holiday for a week tonight so with support of DP being there all day am going to give PUPD another go. Thanks guys - wish me luck!

Good Luck! Let us know how you get on.

I have a 14 week dd who suffered from terrible wind when she was a wee baby and still does (possible lactose sensitive apparently). We have been trying to put her in her cot for naps which she will do after 5/10 mins of settling but wherever she sleeps, be it the cot, car, buggy, arms - she will only sleep for 1/2 hour - she has had approximately 5 naps lasting longer than 1/2 hour and that was within the first 10 weeks - its an impossibility now. She does sleep very well at night though feeding at 6.30pm settling at 7pm and then waking any time between 3-6am. She has been doing this for 4 weeks or so now. I have resolved myself to the fact that she is a napper by day and a sleeper at night. I will try and continue with the naps in the cot (least favourite) but I doubt they will ever last longer than 1/2 hour! My ds was a dream sleeper and napped brilliantly (still does at 2.6 years) as well as being a good night time sleeper. Can't have it all I suppose!

larlylou, my baby is 15 weeks and was the same as yours - napping for half an hour at best, sometimes 10 mins. The thing was, whenever she cried, I thought, oh well, nap over.

Not true! If I leave her, she settles again. Today she was in her cot for a whole hour, sleeping between three short bouts of crying.

I'm holding out for that elusive nap!

my ds slept like a dream for teh first six weeeks but then his naps just got shorter and shorter - it sent me demented at one stage he was napping three times a day and only for twenty minutes each time. I thought I had an abnormal child who was going to be always slightly frazzled, but then I read Healthy sleep habits, happy child by marc wiessbluth and discovered that the shortening of naps is completely normal and that by nine months most babies naps lenghten. My ds is now nine months and is up at 6.45am naps up to an hour at 9am and then for up to 1.5 hours at 12.30pm then bed at about 6.30 pm. It is a fabulous book as it covers all sleep problems and doesn't condone one right method to make your child sleep. If there was one book I wish I had read before having my ds!

Larlylou - ds was the same as your dd at 14 weeks (see my old posting '45 minute naps - how to make them longer?'), but as with Mogwai he can settle back into sleep. To begin with I needed to nip up and pat him to help him resettle. These days he will re-settle himself about 50% of the time and nap for 1.5hours. Other times he still needs that little bit of reassurance halfway through to help him along.

It isn't from lack of trying to get her to settle back. If she is in the carseat or buggy then it is a bit harder but when she is in her cot I don't rush to her - I leave her for about 10 minutes to see if she will settle and then I go up to her and sshhhh and pat her but she is wide awake and she just won't settle. When we are in the car for long journeys, once she has done her 1/2 hour thats it, she doesn't dose off again until her next sleep cycle which is generally 1.5/2 hours later. Suss - I must get that book and read it. I am hoping that she will get into a longer sleep, especially when they start getting more active and use up more energy. Saying all this - she has an awful cold at the moment and cries everytime she coughs. She has had some calpol (not keen on giving it to her as she is still so young and it gives her tummy ache and wind) so at the moment unsettled nights too which is making her a very sleepy little lady (not to mention that her big brother is just as poorly and wakes up in the night also....vicious cirle - we're all wrecks today from lack of sleep!). Fingers crossed she gets better soon and catches up on her sleep, albeit 1/2 hour ones! Thanks for the responses - nice to know that she isn't the only napper out there.

I've done it!!!!!!!!!!!! I got him into a routine. I fed him at 7am, regardles of when last feed was (one day it was at 6am and I still fed at 7am.) I tried to get him to sleep but only when the Baby Whisperer routine said he should. If he tried to nap straight after a feed, I wouldn't let him. First day it took an hour and a half to get him to nap once and I failed the other times. By day three he SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT (7-7 with dream feed at 11am) and today (day 6) it took me no more than 3 minutes to get him to sleep.

Still really, really struggle to get him back when he wakes after 45 minutes but it is getting easier. Wow. Think we wore him down, poor thing. DP took week off work to help me. Is much easier when you can do shifts. Day 6 and he is still sleeping through. Fingers crossed.

Today he is on the 4 hourly feed schedule because he is a really big 3 1/2 month old. HV to feed more often. Oooh she was sooooooo wrong!

Hoorah.

By the way, the blue Secrets of the Baby Whisperer didn't explain it enough. The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (big and white) was much better,.

That's fantastic Charbell. Hard work but worth it. When we did the same as you it was the nights that fell into place first as well, getting past the 45 minute mark came a bit later.