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

Oh well done Zimm and Zimm's OH! Now you know that she can do it.

We've been out and about the second half of this week and although I've been back home in time to try cot naps at lunchtime, he has been fast asleep in his car seat so it seemed pointless to wake him up to try and get him to sleep again. However, this means that today he is back to being confused about being in his cot in the daytime. As you say, Geordiegirl - two steps forward and one back! But at least he seems to be getting used to having a long-ish nap at lunchtime on a regular basis, even if it isn't always in the cot.

Having said that, he's meant to be asleep at the moment but his Grandad taught him to blow raspberries yesterday and I can hear him practising through the baby monitor!! (DS, not Grandad, obv).

Hi zimm I've not been online much this weekend but wanted to wish you well with your efforts, sounds good so far! Also to say don't get discouraged if you have some wins and then some exasperated attempts, just keep going! It will be worth it.

Thanks all - this afternoon we were heading home from town for round 2 of napping in the cot and she fell asleep in the buggy and then stayed asleep in the house for a further 25 mins so the second attempt was aborted. Still 2 stationary naps in one day....praying for a better night tonight, last night we had 5/6 wake-ups, not so bad when it's sunday the next day but rubbish if you're facing a bust Monday! Hope everyone else sleeps well!

oh i have awful trouble with my DS taking a long 2nd nap..the first one is generally about 30-45 mins long with a little fussing and the second nap can get a lot more fussing but sometimes he goes to sleep within a cupla mins HOWEVER he again will only sleep for 35-45 mins, i have tried CIO(which is how we got him to sleept thru night) and have done it for 30 ish minutes each time but he gets distressed, he might doze for a cupla mins in between crying but im now thinking i have one of those babies who wont do a nap for longer than this...his 3rd nap is generally in the buggy car and as its only a catnap he sleeps for 30ish minutes which is fine as the closer it creeps to bedtime, we may not have issues with him going to sleep but he may do early waking....naps are my problem, especially trying to get passed that 45minutes....aaaaagh! sorry for the rant...any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Uurrgh DD has a cold...expecting sleep to go out the window for next few days...

zimm how frustrating, and its what happened to me on about day 3 of making changes. I thought I'd have to go back to what I did before. After talking to my mum I decided to carry on to be consistent for dd to avoid confusing her, so I carried on with the shush pat thing, it meant more time and patience on my part I think, and there was perhaps a bit more crying on her part because she was feeling delicate but she probably would have been touchy anyway - in the end it was the right thing to do. Incidentally the first time she had a cold (about 3 months) is where I got in the habit of feeding to sleep to comfort her, I was more than glad to do it at the time but then lived to regret it, so it made me think about how I'd handle it.

__

BTW after my sleeping through last week for a couple of nights, I'm having night wakings again :( not too bad, sometimes self settling, but she's stirring in light sleep windows I can tell by the times), I have been a bit more relaxed about naps, times/places, so this week back on a bit more of a routine to see if it helps.

How's it going today, Zimm?

Took DD swimming for the first time today (!) so cute. Also was a tactic to induce sleep and hurrah, she's napping as I type.

Hello,

Well naps today were all buggy based as we had a manic day but at least her afternoon naps was well over an hour, previously unheard of..However DP and I have spent all evening trying to get her to bed, this cold is making her truly awful at bedtimes. She finally went down at 9.45 and woke again at 10.15, quickly resettled by DP but let's see what the night brings.

if I have the mental strength I will try a shush pat nap tomorrow afternoon....

Hope everyone else has good nights! Going to sneak into bed now...

Geordiegril - swimming is FANTASTIC for inducing sleep, love it!

Hi ladies,

Zimm, did you manage a shush pat nap? My LO is not at all keen on those either, but I expect I will eventually have to bite the bullet & do it, as we are currently in the same situation as Vix (i.e. naps much better & bedtime too, but using feeding & cuddling to get him to sleep)...

Geordiegirl, we went swimming today & he's managed over an hour's nap this afternoon, after initially being very cross & needing a very jiggly buggy ride from Grandad to get him to sleep.

Sedgiebaby, I've been feeding to sleep too, following a cold. I'm trying not to do it every time now, but confess to being a bit lazy in the mornings (& desperate in the evenings!). I'm going to deal with this once he's on bottles & I will know if he is really hungry or not...

We were away at a wedding this weekend, so routine went a bit to pot. Trying to get back into it this week, but we are away on Friday again, so will be difficult...

How are you all doing?

Hi - update...naps going pretty well. She's come to expect the morning one I think and is busy snoring away as I type. PMs are more unsettled as we're usually out and about so it's sometimes bits and bobs in the buggy.

Nights have improved in that she is having dreamfeed at about 11, feed about 4 then when she wakes and is chattering at 5 or 6 I am ignoring her and she goes back to sleep! Then up again about 7. I can live with that!

Hi - update - naps are no longer a problem so long as I am home for them. Except the last nap of the day which is short, she will take that in the car - so at least I'm not totally trapped at home.

Still working on the night waking, I'm getting some fantastic sleeping through nights and then random awakenings throughout, some where she self settles, others where she needs help. I'm hoping it will gradually get better, as there is overall improvement from where we were a month ago.

Hi everyone, haven't checked in for a while and will catch up on everyone's postings later.

Its all been rubbish here recently but DD has 2 teeth cutting, possibly more and I suspect a sore throat as me and DH both have one.

Hoping you are all having success with naps.

Gotta dash - off to the docs now...

Hello all,

DD is still miserable with a cold, so we will be resuming shush pat (which is what we did and it worked in 20 mins) at the weekend when she should be feeling better. Nights bad, as you'd expect with a cold.

ATTENTION ALL - DD is asleep in her cot! AND I DID NOT FEED TO SLEEP!! Used the 4 s rule (minus the swaddle as too old) and my own version of shush pat which involves white noise (a recording of me shush-ing and speaking softly) and holding her arms still and not making eye contact. Took about 15 mins only!

Could cry with happiness! Thanks all for help so far, hope this thread keeps going!!

FANTASTIC!!!!
Sounds like a breakthrough! Well done :)

Thanks got 50 minutes out of her!

Zimm that's brilliant - I am so pleased for you.

Our nights have gone to pot. Health visitor said she shouldn't need feeding at 3/4am and to try settling without a feed (I'd been unsure about feeding / not feeding as we've had weight gain issues in the past).

I spent 45 mins trying to settle DD at 3am before giving up and feeding her just to get some sleep!! Then she was awake again at 5:30, slept for half an hour and awake again for the day. Argh! Thank god for morning nap which is now established, although it was only 45 mins.

Zimm, you deserve a large glass of something nice. I am SO impressed! :)
Well done & cheers!

Well done zimm!! That's amazing. It's great you are not needing to swaddle but just to say we still swaddle ds every night and most naps. It's fine until they are around 12 months. It's the only way he will sleep.

But if we could do without it I would as its a bit faffy so again, well done!

Geordiegirl Do you BF? Has DD got to the desired centile. Our weight issues were awful at one point, so I understand this hang up. She has gone from the 9th to the 91st centile and it has taken 4 months around the clock feeding, first every 2 hours then 3 then 4 and has not helped with nights as a result.

Anyway I share this because feeding/weight issues are soooo stressful, and its something I was fixated with. But because baby wasn't eating well in the day with two night feeds and was randomly dropping one of them, I took the decision to resettle without a feed if it had been x number of hours since the last, then I extended this as I got more confident. Finally because she could not make her mind up when she wanted this 1 feed (sometimes 11:30 sometimes 3:00 etc) I decided to do a dream feed bang in the middle of her night, 00:30. I saw a big improvement in daytime feeding. Last night we were out so her night feed was 21:45, I decided there was no point doing her dreamfeed, I did have to resettle her at 2.30 but she was no more or less hungry at 7am. Once babies get to the age ours are (I think the same) I'm quite convinced now that they can go longer. I'm now going to move the dreamfeed back.

I combination feed because of the early feeding problems I had no choice, her weight became a bigger issue than our desire to EBF.But 5 months down the line I still BF but top up at every single feed. I can see how much formula she takes as a result and her morning feeds (both 7am and 11am) is still the 'least' of them so I'm wondering if she needs the night feed at all, but then its a long time to go without a drink!

I don't know if this helps give you any confidence, but as I recall I had two nights where I had a unpleasant succession of resettling but she got the message and now every waking results in a resettle because I only dreamfeed at night, I think the consistency has helped her, otherwise its perhaps a bit of baby stirring in light slepp and wondering; 'do I get the booby now?'...'or is it now'...'or now' - Night wakings I'm quite sure have improved as a result. I used to present the boob at every waking and they got more and more you see.

When I say 'dreamfeed' what I mean that I get her up when she is fast asleep and feed her and put her back to bed asleep (no nappy change winding etc). If she wakes she is resettled and never fed even if it is 15 mins before the scheduled feed, so that the waking is not rewarded as it used to be. That sounds harsh now I write it but I think it is working better for both of us.

Interesting stuff girls, I am considering a dreamfeed to try and nix the 4am waking....mind you Dd did an 8 hour stretch last night so maybe I'll just leave well alone!

2nd cot nap achieved!!! About 20 mins of calming including a feed and then 15 mins of arm holding and shushing..so a bit harder than yesterday but she is asleep!

Ooh, interesting stuff indeed re the night time feed / don't feed dilemma.

After a couple of AWFUL weeks DS has settled down to waking somewhere between 11.30 and 1.30 at which point I resettle without feeding, and then again sometime between 3 and 5, at which point I feed him - largely because a month or so back he was consistently going through from 7 til 5 every night, fed and then went back to sleep. I think my DS is about the same age as your DDs Sedgie and Geordie, so interesting that the HV is saying no need for feed in the early hours.

I need to break him out of the first waking as I am convinced it is a habit now and he isn't hungry, because once he is resettled then he sleeps for another 3-4 hours (if he does wake again within the hour I usually feed). I was considering a dreamfeed or wake to sleep, but I am worried about just adding in another waking rather than getting rid of the other two!

However - daytime sleeps vastly improved since this thread started and my life is transformed as a result. We've just come back from a week away so we got a bit out of the routine but he had good naps most days somewhere or other. Now to get back into it properly.

So pleased to read about your success Zimm - will have a to celebrate