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.

Er...how much further? Am still struggling with 45 minute mark and he is EXHAUSTED. He seems to be more tired than he used to with no naps! Pick up/put down seems to wind him up. Shushing doesn't work. I cannot get him back to sleep even though he is knackered. My presence seems to make it worse. Is it just perseverance with the shushing/patting and force him to stick to routine and eventually he will just sleep longer?

Charbell it took us longer than a week to get the 7-7 with dreamfeed so you have done better than us there. It took us about 3 weeks, the first week he took a lot of settling each night waking, the 2nd week he just needed a few pats on the back, the 3rd week was working to extend his wake up time from 6am to 7am.

It was about 2 weeks after we started that he did his first 1.5hour nap without me having to go in, he then did this about every other day. Then the following week he would do a 1.5hr on his own every day - sometimes the morning nap sometimes the lunchtime one. The following week about every other day he would do both naps without help. The next week it was almost all naps without my help.

It does take persistence. I would usually give 10-15 minutes of pat/ssh to get him back to sleep - if at the end of that he was was just agitated rather than any nearer to sleep I would call it quits - I couldn't see any point in putting the pair of us through any more than that. Obviously at some point things must have fallen into place. HTH.

One other thought for increasing your chances of getting past the 45 minute mark: swaddle. If I don't swaddle ds his nap length is very often as little as 30mins.

OH MY GOD. Daddy put him to bed on Saturday morning and he went to sleep for TWO HOURS. I have had him screaming all week - he must have felt my stress. I then put him down yesterday at 9am and 1pm and both times he went to sleep for TWO HOURS. Both times he cried a little every 45 minutes (REM cycle) but OH MY GOD. Unfortunately Water Babies is going to screw us up today but hope this is the start of something.

Can't swaddle my 18 pound 3 1/2 month old but the Grobag seems to have helped - might be the 'routine' of putting it on too. Started this a few days ago.

That's great news Charbell. When it first started falling into place with us I didn't know what to do with myself, I was so used to thinking of tasks in terms of 30 minute chunks.

18lb at 3 1/2 months - wow! I thought ds was heavy at 19lb at 19 weeks - the kiddopotamus swaddle is still managing to contain him for naps (he breaks free overnight when he obviously has longer to work on it).

I know what you mean - I find myself sitting, waiting for him to wake up. I am such a sap, I even felt a bit tearful that I only have three months maternity leave left and I'd see him for four hours less a day if he sleeps!! This routine business is a bit restrictive and I find myself not doing things because it doesn't fit with his naps but I'm sure I'll get more relaxed about it.

It can be restrictive if you stick to it religiously. However I found that once I knew what ds would like as a routine I could either:
a) plan round it if it was something flexible like going to a friend's for coffee, b) if I needed to be out at a fixed time I had a better idea of what he needed so could try shifting naps around a little bit so that hopefully both he and I would get what we wanted out of the day.

Yeah. It also makes you feel more confident about what he wants, i.e. if he misses a nap, at least you know why he is grumpy and if you have major success with a nap (he has been asleep for 75 minutes with only one grizzle this morning) then you know you can go to a friend's for coffee when he wakes and he will be lovely. I am finally starting to really enjoy maternity leave!! He is so much happier now that he is getting more sleep (and mummy is more relaxed!)