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

He's still asleep thank god. Managed to shower and have breakfast.
Praying for a good night tonight. :)

Morning Ladies,

Not a great night here. DD went down at 7.45 (fed to sleep) and was up several times before 11 when we finally went to bed. Then up at 4, 6, 6.30 and finally up at 7.30.
This is so strange as she was in a much better mood at bedtime due to the extra pram nap so I thought she'd sleep well. Still new routines take time to work and I must crack these naps as I am convinced her night sleep is disturbed due to growth spurt anyway.

Right I have my 9am nap pledge to implement - got to give her breakfast (mashed fruit) Welcome newcomers - Imisssleepand rodformyownback. Vix - sorry you had another bad night, totally sucks.

chillchill - 10 is a late nght for me these days!

vix - oh no! hope the naps make up for it today...

Our night was good, bed at 6.30, woke up when DP came to bed at 10.45 (even though DS is in his own room!) and wouldn't settle, so i fed him and he went back until 5am, quick feed and back to sleep until his usual 8.10, yay!

When the nights are ok I don't mind the daytime wakefulness so much. But would like an hour or two in the day to myself for housework and/or sitting down and drinking a cup of tea!

Well today is a new day, lets see how we all get on.

Any success with the nap pledge, Zimm? After 15 mins of screaming and another 15 mins of loud protest, DD is finally down for a nap in her cot! Has only been 5 mins though, so fingers crossed. We've got the immunisations at 11 though so if she does have a good nap it'll be a mad dash to the doctors. Worth it though!

Okay so I am joining in.

My 5 month DD seems rather wired shall we say and extremely difficult to switch off. When people say their babies get drowsy, I simply cannot imagine this with my DD, unless it is after a big feed in a dar room. And even then she will wake up if she sees something very interesting like, I don't know, air.

For the first 3 months there was no proper napping, I tried, and managed to get her to sleep during the day in her basket about twice. It was me walking the pram, a lot. Then I managed to get it cracked in Dec and she was napping (hour in morn and 2 hours in afternoon) pretty consistently. Fed to sleep pretty much, but sometimes self settling (as she does well at night). But now it is ALL GONE TITS UP and there are no naps. I can just about get her down in the morning, but she wakes 10 mins later and I try for the life of me (ssssssssh or offering milk) to get her settled but she won't. So I have to take her out in the pram. And the pram, well she has now taken to only sleeping 30 mins at a time in it (4 hours spent walking yesterday) and the pram has to be moving at all times. This has always been an issue and she wakes as soon as it stops moving.

So, despite my best efforts she is an overtired mess, sheet white, red eyes, grumpy, not feeding well and now very hard to settle at night as she is overtired to the extreme.

I am literally at the end of my tether.

Still tryijg to get dd down for nine am m
Nap.... feeding to sleep....not going well

Pleasethanks that sounds rough... I too have days when hours of walking. Results in one te short nap...at least I am losing weight!

Pleasethanks I recognise a lot of my DD in what you are saying, although not as extreme. She also never seems to get drowsy and can flick from seemingly sound asleep to wide awake in a second.

I don't know what the answer is, but am trying Vix's suggestion of nap routines every couple of hours, started yesterday really so will keep you updated.

pleasethanks my baby is like yours and last week I bought the babybjorn comfort carrier (goes up to age 2) and she goes quiet as a mouse being the nosy kind, I can walk around and do chores and she is interested but in a C A L M way rather than a hyper way, I do this before nap time to get her a bit more settled and I've been doing this routine (a particular book, lullaby etc) and it helps. Do you have a forward facing carrier - for me it has been priceless

TBH I have trouble switching off too, so I understand. I have to feed her in the quiet, no one around etc. Even though I feed her in the same place she still finds something she's seen a hundred times massively interesting like...a white radiator!! I think this is the way with sparky babies but we must teach them to calm themselves down and settle to sleep I feel because, well the need it - but it is sooo difficult.

Also I have all but banned interactive toys due to overstimulation, except just after waking, no where near nap times. I've become an old fashioned picture book kind of mum. Like I said the carrier helps. I talk in a less excited way with her, and it has taken the high energy baby down a notch. I just want her to find her thumb, she's starting to suck it and I think this would really help her calm herself down (never thought I'd say that my brother sucked his til he was about 10 and had a devil of a time breaking the habit lol)

sedgie thanks for that info. What is your nap routine then? Sorry if you have said elsewhere already, just point me there if so. thanks

pleasethanks my DD has followed a very similar pattern to yours, except has only ever managed 3 x 45 minute naps at best.

rodformyownback and IMissSleep welcome

My soothing strategies:
sing 'go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep little baby' while putting in buggy so she knows its sleep time.

Cover over the open part of buggy
Walk buggy up and down until settled

and when those don't work:

leopard hold and pacing up and down
offer my finger to suck - used to work more pre-teeth
go for a drive in car, radio on but not too loud
boob/milk
used a wrap sling when she was small - twas magic!

If all else fails I give up and try again in an hour when we are both calmer

Have also used, on occasion:
ssh pat. Some success as long as in the 'window'
PUPD - no success, DD seemed to view this as me saying 'psych' to her every time I picked her up and hated it
CIO - not really done but have put her down to see what would happen. Once settled after 5 minutes, mostly not. Again she is the queen of tantrums

That was a long post by me.

Just wanted to add that I will try, at some point today, to put together a time line/list of the growth and developmental spurts. May be of some help to us all even if it only gives an idea of why a previously good sleeper/napper has gone a bit awry at any partcular time (or not!)

So right now he's clearly tired (eye rubbing etc) but just won't go to sleep in cot, with or without me. He's calm, but looking around and not about to 'drift off' like all the books and HVs say that they will (am sure you can all relate!).

Do I:
a) persevere until he drops off (it will happen eventually but potentially not for another 3 or 4 hours!)
b) get him up and try again in a bit
c) give in and take him for a walk just so that he gets some sleep?

Answers on a postcard please. I'm in danger of becoming obsessed with this!

Oh god that is a tricky one. I really don't know what we're supposed to do when they are in that sort of state. We don't want to give up but then the alternative is trying for hours like you say. I would probably try taking him for a walk and potentially returning and sneaking into cot if he drops off? Easier said than done, I know.

The only thing that has so far worked in getting cot naps over the past 2 days has been putting her on her tummy.

PS I am now completely obsessed with this. Current nap at 10 mins and I am watching the clock / baby monitor manically!

PPS suspect current nap is more due to recent injection than anything else, but I'll take it!

Well done Geordiegirl, hope the nap is continuing!

I carried on because I did get a couple of encouraging slow blinks. Then he started crying, then he stopped etc etc. Eventually, after 45 minutes I decided to take pity on him and get him up as he just didn't want to go to sleep in his cot - popped downstairs first with a load of washing, went back up and he was asleep! That was 30 minutes ago.

I feel like all I have done for the past 2 days is try and get him to sleep, poor little thing!

PS me too re the injection/calpol-induced nap, but likewise, I will take it as beggars can't be choosers!

Ooh well done! Looks like we are on similar nap / injection patterns! Just had a blip of tired crying for 10 mins but with some shs pat she's gone back to sleep. For now. Ditto re feeling like all I've done for 2 days is shhh shhhhh shhh and feel like I've listened to a hell of a lot of crying, but have to remember the long-term (hopefully) benefits.

plsthanks3 naps a day, I don't let her stay up for more than 2 hours and now look out for the very first yawn. Yesterday I put her down after 1 hour after reading VIX approach and couldn't believe she went to sleep.

I'm thinking about her wind down 30 mins before I expect her to go down, so quieter activity - reading playing on floor with mummy and soft toys or in the carrier doing jobs in the house.

Then read a particular book - very quietly
Close blinds together
I wipe her hands and put a bit of cream on her (dry) face and use something for her gums as she is teething.
Swaddle and sit for a bit having a chat with 'sleepy teddy'
Hold and shush pat, in the cot finishing the shush pat, all depending i walk out the room with her awake or if she's not relaxing I will hold her and extend the shush pat part to calm her down and get her snoozing. I try to put her down whilst still awake as i made this mistake a week ago and she needed to be held/shushed to sleep instead of fed to sleep!!

fumblina is this what you are after www.thewonderweeks.com/images/stories/Book/WW_info_chart.pdf

sedgiebaby! You inspired me to keep going with the shush pat and am seeimg results. Have been able to get DS to sleep for naps without crying and think we may be part way to some self settling. Am feeling much more positive about DS's sleep than I have for a while.
I also realised in the past few days that I wasn't letting DS wind down enough. We had a bedtime ritual but he was never calm after it. I had DS sitting on my lap looking at a book but when I thought about it he is never calm sitting on my lap. Now I let him lie on our bed while I calmly talk and sing to him. Worked almost straight away along with shsh pat and going back to swaddling.
I went a bit nap crazy yesterday as a result of this thread and decided DS would have one after 1.5 hours or when he looked tired. He also was only awake for an hour a couple of times and went down so calmly it was amazing. Still had bad nights sleep but think these are positive steps. He also did a 2.5 hour stretch between 9pm and 11.30pm and it's been weeks since he got past one sleep cycle before midnight. Don't want to jinx it all by posting and still some way to go but really feel I wouldn't have got here without this and other MN sleep threads. Think I settled DS to sleep 6 times yesterday with virtually no crying which just hasn't been happening lately.

Oh, doing a little rocking between swaddling and putting in cot. Don't think I was doing enough before as was trying so hard not to let him fall asleep on me and normally he'd be wriggling too much to let me do it. Have also introduced a dummy in last week - had tried before but not very hard as wasn't overly keen on DS having one but he spent most of the time sucking my fingers lately. Hopefully not a rod for my own back but am willing to go with anything that will work at the moment. Next challenge is naps longer than 45 mins!

Hi girls am on iPhone so a quickie from me.

Beela, the most important rule is that baby doesn't get overtired so I'd say if after 20 mins they aren't settling in the cot take them out in the pram/car/sling or whatever they like best. I'm personally tackling 'bad' sleep associations later and am for now totally focussed on the 2 hour rule so we can Pay off his sleep debt.

Had 4 good naps today (he did not me!) as we've been out in the car a lot. I'm totally exhausted though!!

Evening all,

A shocking nap day today. i carried out my nap pledge and tried to get her down in her at 9am in her cot. 45 minutes later - no dice. I fed, rocked, shush-ed - nothing. I wonder if 9am is too early for her, might try 9.30 tomorrow. Went out in buggy - no sleep. Went to bounce and rhyme and then for tea and she fed to sleep in middle of cafe on me. So she had 20 mins on my boob, in a cafe. RUBBUSH. Then walked for ages - no sleep. Came home went out - 3.30pm by now - sleep in buggy. Came home - woke up. so she had maybe 25 mins. Curled up on sofa and she dozed on and off on boob for an hour and I got to watch OBEM. Urrrghh total fail. Wonder what night will bring......

Well done geogdiegirl and beela!! Will check back later once DD is down for the night. Urrrrgh so very tired.