The my baby won't nap sign here thread?

[Zimm]

Helllo all,

Until recently DD (6 months) would only nap in her pram, this worked ok-ish. Now even this seems to be failing, yesterday I paced for 1.5 hours to get her to take a 30 minute nap. NOTHING gets done during the day as I am constantly entertaining her. Her night sleep was fantastic (8pm-6am, 6.30am - 8.30am!) but all went wrong at sleep regression and we now have anywhere between 2 and 6 wakings.

I worry about the lack of naps affecting her and making her miserable.

So please sign here if you too have a nap refuser, maybe we can share ideas or just support each while our houses descend into a cloud of mess, phone call go unreturned and exhaustion from street-pacing kicks in!

Zimm

ImissSleep Thanks for that, the 4.30 thing is interesting. DD is not yet on solids but we are contemplating (she is 5 months this week) today we had two long naps 1.40 and 2.10 the last one she woke before 4 so no cat nap today I'll be starting the bed time routine soon and follow something along what you outline.

Not sure about the pillow as she's that bit younger and I've not thought about it before but I will have a think. Thanks again and wishing you another good night :)

OOOO could be something in the pillow thing - OH sometimes gets DD to sleep by lying her on our bed (with nice soft duvets and stuff) and then transfers her....Maybe could trial a pillow in the buggy?

Naps today - usual catnap on me at 9am feed (hey, at least this is now an established nap, something we have not had for months) Then 40ish mins in buggy after baby yoga class (exhausts her) at 11am and then 40ish mins buggy nap at .230ish. She def wants a catnap at 9 and then a proper nap starting between 11-12. Afternoon naps are more variable.

The good news is her buggy naps are at least back, when i started this thread she was barely even taking those. I think she might be coming out of her six month growth spurt which could be why buggy naps are back - maybe nights and cot naps will follow??

Welcome new thread joiners!!

sedgiebaby - could it have been that the pillow case smelt of you and that helped do you think? Maybe I will sleep with DD's sheet....

The pillow won't work for everyone, just something we are trying.
He started solids at 4months, breastfed till 5 months. Just refused the boob one day so has been on formular since.

I think it made a difference, going to bed with a full tummy made him sleep better, lots of people think it doesn't!

:)

Hello all - urgh, bad night. We seemed to have a lot of wakings from about 3am then wide awake and up for the day. Hoping for a nap about 9 which I am going to join in with!

Sorry to hear that geordiegirl!

My current status is that he's going down for naps every 2 hrs as planned, but I rarely get more than 30-40 mins out of him.

Then at night we have only 1 or 2 wakes but the 2am feed invariably turns into a 1.5 or even 2 hour rockathon where he just will not close his eyes. No crying unless you leave him for more than a few mins, he's just staring wide awake and very fidgety. So much better than hourly waking I know, but still frustrating. How's it going for everyone else?

Morning all, how were everyone's naps and night sleeping?
Despite my best efforts including a trip out in the car dd only managed 2 x 45 min naps in the morning and 2 x 30 mins in the afternoon. Our night was normal only waking twice.

Currently in a darkened room for the morning feed hoping she might drift. Off to sleep for a while. It's also our first time going to a mother and baby group this morning so it's either going to stimulate her to he'll and back or zonk her out. I can hope for the latter but suspect the former!

Am I worrying too much about daytime naps if our nightimes aren't too bad? Although as she has managed to sleep though once before I know she can do it. But that was the night before a holiday to Australia and had to start all over again when we got back

Good luck for today's naps, new day new nap....

Morning All,

Well yesterday wasn't too bad for naps. He had 1.5 in the morning, 45mins at 1pm and 30 mins at 4pm. He would of slept longer but I'm keeping my no naps after 4:30pm rule in place.

Dinner was at 5:30pm, bath at 6pm and by 6:30, he was exhausted. Got quite fed up when I tried to put his pjs on so he had a big cry. But, he feel asleep, no problems and slept till 1am.
So last nights went like this
bed - 6:45pm
feed - 1am
5:45 - feed, nappy change and in bed with us for a cuddle.

I thought I'd be up at 6am but, he fell back to sleep and woke up at 8am!

Things are so much better now that I don't let him nap late and that he has a pillow.
Geordiegirl79 sorry you had a rough night, hope you get some rest today :)

Morning and well done again imisssleep I can only aspire!

Naps were really good yesterday (1hr 40 and 2 hr 10), its nearly a week of good naps now, so I feel the 40 minute thing seems to be resolved - the power of this thread in part !

My night was OK-ish.

Bed 20:00 (took 1.5 hrs to settle her and she got upset, I think I missed the 'window' because she wasn't taking her feed and I kept trying with it and kept her up too long - I have trouble getting her to self settle in the evening but not for naps now)

crying and DH settled at 9pm

Dreamfeed 00:30 (I got her up, she stayed asleep)

crying and I settled at 04.45

Up for the day - 07:00

This is better than the multiple wakings/crying I've had but I think we should be able to improve on it.

Woo hoo 1hr 15 mins and counting !

Ok so I havn't had breakfast, or a shower, i'm sat here with boob in the mouth and mother and baby group starts in 20 mins but she's still asleep :)

Good morning all,

We had the best night since xmas - DD SLEPT THROUGH! 7.30-6.30.

Short nap on me at 7.30, not sure what the test of the day will bring as she has changed her night pattern....

She skipped her 9am catnap so really not sure where we are now...will aim for a nap at 11.30 after bounce at rhyme

Sorry you had a bad night geordiegirl, Vix 1.5 hours in the night is rough - hope things improve soon..

Congrats Zimm you must feel like a new woman!
Still going here, 1hr 20 mins, yey

Ok, never thought I'd be asking this but how long do I let her sleep for? I'm starving, need a pee and the iPod batteries about to run out!

zimm this is fantastic! I'm suitably jealous though
toomuchtoolong I don't know but I've decided, I'm going to wake mine now its been over 1.5 hours, we are going to clash with feeds otherwise.
geordiegirl hope naps win through for you today

Zimm I am so pleased for you!!!

Feeling much better myself as DD went for a nap at 9am and so did I! Had a good hour - lovely :)

Off out for a walk and hopefully a pram nap.

Think I might have managed to reboot my dd! 1h 45 this morning, a measly 30 mins at lunchtime, but 1h 10 and counting this pm

Thank you so much for this thread, without it I would still be struggling with 30 minutes here and there

It's only my 2nd day, and will continue with the same routine to get dd used to sleeping properly, but then I'll need to try and get dd to nap in her cot and not feeding on me. I've never yet been able to get her to nap in the cot during the day, but don't have a problem at night. Where to start? Guess the big test of today's success will be her sleep pattern tonight.

How's everyone else been?

toomuchtooyoung I had the same thing - until last week all 'naps' were either falling asleep on me after feeding or when out in the pram, and very sporadic. She responded quite well to cot naps although last Monday was quite painful with half an hour of screaming, picking up and putting down etc, but each day got a bit better and she settles quite quickly now.

What has worked well for me is to have a clear pre-nap routine, lay her on her tummy and rub her back.

Also meant to mention from your previous message, I didn't worry too much about lack of daytime naps because DD's night sleeping was so good, but then she started getting really grumpy in the day and waking more at night. The increased / more structured naps have definitely made her happier during the day (the change was almost instant)...we are still working on nights!

I had a bad day for naps today after deciding they were no longer a cause for concern! I know why, I put her down too late for two of them. Anyway I brought forward her bedtime, asleep by 6.30pm. Hope I've done the right thing.

Wishing everyone a good night

Hi all,

This should make you smile... I decided to do some exercise today in an attempt to lose the baby muffin-top. DS was getting cranky, so I put him in the sling & started to do my Ministry of Sound aerobics DVD (the low-impact version!).
Had the dance tunes pumping out full blast & DS bouncing around like billy-oh. He was asleep 10 mins into the workout FOR AN HOUR! I will be skinny again in no time at this rate...

mamaGool that's brilliant!

Geordiegirl - you're so right. The first night after any kind of proper daytime napping and she slept from 7 till 2, big feed and back to sleep again till 7. So yesterday we had nearly 4 hours instead of the usual 2 if i'm lucky

Currently having another nap, albeit on me again, but she was actively looking to go to sleep even before the 2 hour window.

Will tackle the location of napping another time, I'm just so pleased she asleep

How did everyone else get on?

Morning everyone :)

Good tip mamaGool!!!

Had a good day yesterday with naps. Same as before really, waking at 7:30am. Nap at 9am - anywhere between 1-2 hours.
OH and I went out for some lunch at about 12:30pm with DS and he was a sleep by 1pm for 40 mins, which was nice because we got to enjoy a nice lunch!
Then 45 mins at 3:30pm, he was quite tired when he woke at 4:15pm and probably could of slept for another 30 mins but... NO NAPS AFTER 4:30PM!!

We got him a Disney play mat yesterday to encourage crawling, that tired him out and he feel a sleep on OH lap at 7!

woke at 12 for a feed, 4am for dummy, 5:45am feed and woke at 7:30.
I have a stinking cold and am hoping and praying that DS doesn't get it, otherwise I will be back to no sleep. Hope everyones nights are getting better :)

Oh dear...

Bed 6.30
Cried out at 7:10; 8:10
Dreamfeed 00:15
Up between 1am and 2am!!!! full of the joys of spring (DH was doing his first allnighter so maybe he could have handled it differently - I wasn't there, he let me sleep!)
Up for the day 07:15

When I went to pick her up dream feed her, her arms were flaying all over the place - very dramatically and she was waking herself up - I'm thinking I will need to swaddle both arms again but she is sooooooooo big I don't even know how to do this.

Any ideas??

No help with the swaddling i'm afraid, had to stop it when she stared rolling over. It actually used to make her quite stressed the minute i started to swaddle her. She's slept much better since she's in the sleeping bag

I've had mixed success with dreamfeeds before now so tend to leave them out. She still woke up around 1/2 whether I dream fed her or not and as it was formula didn't want to be overfeeding her. She was/ still is such a windy baby that unless I got every ounce of wind out of her she too would flail around, and if she ever wakes up after 7 pm bedtime and before early hours it's generally wind

Seeing as I seem to have a relatively good nightime sleeper thought I'd tell you what I do in case it helps anyone

No longer bath before bed as if tended to get her more excited and wide awake
Bottle of formula with gripe water. Get a big burp out of her and then top up with a breastfeed
Into sleeping bag
Switch on iPod that we downloaded a nature sound onto
Into cot dozy, hold hand and rub tummy
Drift off to sleep

It took about 4 nights of protest tears before she realised that we wouldnt pick her up so she could fall asleep on our shoulder. If she got properly upset then we'd pick her up, but just tired tears and we just held her
hand and rubbed tummy. If she wakes after bedtime and it's probably wind I will sit her up pat back and jiggle till a burp appears. Am hoping
this technique is going to work when I tackle daytime naps in fit instead of on me.

Naps not going so well this morning, it's bin collection day and they're making a racquet!

Thanks toomuchtooyoung, really interesting what you say about the bath, dd LOVES her bath and sometimes she does get excited. I'm going to think about what you say about not picking her up, I have to judge it at the moment, for naps she will eventually self settle, we dont really get distressed crying. But at night she's more upset somehow. I wonder if I'm putting her into bed that bit too late sometimes. Thanks for your advice and comments it really helps to know what is working for others.