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

Zimm sorry to sound like a stuck record but are you sure 9am isn't too late because it sounds like she's overtired.

Alex only lasted 1 hr 15 this morning before showing sleepy signs and so I got him down quick and he did his longest nap ever. (1.5 hours)

Not sure what works for you other than pram naps but if it were me I'd keep trying to get her to nap any way I could to stop more overtiredness. My fail-safe is a laying down feed. Sorry can't offer more help but stick with it x

Ok, think I've cracked it...
So he started rubbing eyes, getting a bit grumpy etc
took him to ny bedroom which is quite dark if I close the blinds. Pop on Disney channel and... 10 mins later he's tucked up in my bed with me and sleeping! I didn't even realise he'd gone to sleep!!

He's been up since 8am an had a 20 min nap at 9am.

I'll let u know how long this nap lasts :) might join him zzzzz

So pleased for those with successful naps - Zimm I am feeling for you. We had a 50 minute nap this morning - this is what I did in case it helps?...
took her upstairs and closed curtains, put her in grow bag (she started panicky noises at this as she knew what was going to happen I think);
Fed her in semi-dark of the bedroom;
Laid her in cot and she started screaming so picked up and put back down on tummy;
5 mins of complaining while I stroked her head / back going shhhh then she lay very still with eyes open and then drifted off.

Having said that she has just started screaming blue murder as I type one-handed

Just realised of course my previous post will not have helped at all as you will have tried everything but thought it still might be worth sharing?

Update from me re 40 min naps, heard dd after 40 yelling for 1-2 mins (not distressed) so waited outside her room to see what would happen ( I tend to dive in) and it went quiet suddenly for a total of 2.5 hrs!!! (put her down 1.45 after waking this am) which never happens

I have a thing about not letting her cry which I've possibly taken too far in the past and included any kind of whinge.

Oh dear it's all gone a bit wrong today.

Last night was good (11pm, 5am, up for day ay 8.10), baby group at 10 so set off at 9.40 thinking he would nap in car as usual. No, wide awake (but looking tired) all through baby group... fell asleep in car on way home, then woke up as soon as we got back, so about 20 min nap.

Had a feed and he looked all sleepy so put him in his cot and started the shhhushhing, then there was an almighty nappy explosion, can't leave him lying there in that so OH (who is off work today) is now changing him while I eat some lunch!

Oh, and yay! to fumbelina and sedgiebaby - sounds like you are having some successes today

Sedgie that is brilliant!!

Hello,

Well done to all those with nap success! So technically DD is taking a stationary nap now!! But it is in her buggy, managed to wheel her in as she fell asleep on the way back from town :-) Massive cheat but still an improvement.

Vix - I am actually wondering if 9am is too early, as the one time recently I got her to nap in her cot it was 10.15. I can't usually get a buggy nap out of her before 10.30 so I am thinking maybe she is a three hour baby? She is very alert and interested (I am not trying to say other babies aren;t, but I think she is a bit extreme, jerks her head about constantly to look around. Also she is very wilful, throw tantrums already if a toy is taken away. So maybe she needs to be really tired too sleep? I am wondering if her pattern is:

Very small nap around 10am (which she eventually took on me today after a feed, was quite nice actually, I watched Friends and we had a cuddle)
Larger nap at lunchtime (which she is taking now, this is the second time she has buggy napped in the house at this EXCACT TIME)
Catnap around 5pm, probably on me after a feed.

Thanks to all posting their soothing strategies. Right tomorrow's goal is a 10 am nap, followed by a longer lunchtime nap.

We have swimming this afternoon which usually gaurentees a fair night's sleep as it tires her out in a good way.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS!

Big whoop to sedige

beela - tomorrow is another day!

Zimm - I think a buggy nap in the house definitely counts, at least you can have a rest too!

DS is in cot wide awake, finding his own hands the most fascinating thing! How can anyone sleep when they have hands to look at?? At least he is not crying.

As you say, tomorrow is another day, and I will also aim for a 10am and a longer lunchtime nap.

Is it too early for wine yet?

Zimm how old is your DD again? Ds is 25 weeks and is also interested in everything! He gets very shirty if you take toys or food off him, it's so funny but I shouldn't goad hm I know! Good luck with tmrw, you'll find the sweet spot eventually!

He slept for 2.5 hours!!!

God I'm in shock. :)

IMissSleep No way!! I had 2.5 hrs this morning too, in fact I had to disturb her so we could go out?!? Now if this happened all the time, I could once again be presentable and - dare I say it - groomed! Not to mention having a clean house.

This PM I had a consultant app, so we got a 40 min nap in the car - and wouldn't go off again, despite yawning and yawning and then crying by the time we got in, I tried to settle her, but in the end I couldn't settle her with my shush pat, so left the room with her quiet(ish) in bed and she then grumbled and cried (a 'making myself cry' not a sobbing cry) and went to sleep in about 6 or 7 mins of this, prolly would have gone down to her but my mum was with me and gave me the confidence not to.

Main thing is she put her self to sleep.

The difficult thing for me is how long to let her cry a bit because it can go from a protest to a distressed cry quite fast - then we are in trouble.

I had to wake him too!

God I feel better, I too will be presentable and I will now tackle to dishwasher, laundry blah blah blah!

Good that she put herself to sleep

I hate letting him cry and have to say I never let him. As soon as the monitor starts making noises I'm in there!! Would rather catch him half a sleep then wide awake and crying, its more of a fight to get him back to sleep!

Zimm You might well be right, a lot of what I'm doing is Baby Whisperer stuff, and her suggestion is that from 4 months babies should start to be able to be awake from 2-3 hours, and if you can possibly journal for 2/3 days what dd does with her eating/sleeping you may in fact see a semblance of a pattern that you can build on.

I think that my dd (20wks) is chronically overtired and so 2 hours is sometimes more than enough. BW suggests that the spirited type of baby (super alert/energised/sparky ones) are quick to get tired and take longer to wind down. Is is possible that your dd needs longer to wind down. In my case ideally I have a very quiet day all day with dd - I see a big difference in her if she does not get overstimulated. DD notices everything and everything is a distraction to her, earlier today I had to remove my earrings or there would be no feeding, then she caught sight of the tiniest bow on my bra and was transfixed - I had to tuck it out the way.

When I do the shush pat thing, I face a white wall so she can't get excited by anything in the room - and this is a darkened room! When I used to settle her in her pram in the house for daytime naps (she is now too big) I had to put a white sheet over the hood so she couldn't see anything - even then the inside of the hood was the most fascinating shadowy thing ever!! I don't know if any of this is helpful to you, with you mentioning alertness I thought I'd respond as its familiar to me too.

Hi,

I also have a v bad daytime napper - I must admit I haven't read all of this thread but just wanted to add my technique incase it helps anyone out! I put 10 week old LO into her nursery whenever she makes tired signs (yawning, eye rubbing) which is usually 1.5 hours after she's woken up. I have bought some black out blinds so her nursery is v dark and I have also bought a white noise album off itunes (the "natural" version) I take her to her nursery, rock her for 2-3 minutes, she puts up a BIG fight, put her in her basket then turn on the white noise - it's almost instant sleep,amazing! Prior to this I didnt realise she needed sleep and she would be awake literally ALL day if it was up to her - making her v grizzly and a not happy baby.

Good luck all!

Evening ladies....well DD asleep by 7.20. Our naps today were:

9.00-9.45 - attempt to get her to nap, fail miserably.
10.30sm - fell asleep on me while feeding - let her sleep there til she woke 30 mins later
1.00-1.45 - fell asleep in buggy and then slept stationary in the house!
6.00 - 20 minute nap on me after feeding

Now down for the night. God I'm tired - supposed to be going out when OH gets home! On the upside this is the first time I've got her down without OH help (he normally settles her) and not fed to sleep! I fed, rocked, put down, she woke up very briefly but when to back to sleep. result. Good luck everyone with your nights cxx

hi everyone! just checking in. naps going well, still putting her to sleep in my arms then down in cot (i will tackle self soothing eventually). the problem us the nights aren't getting any better and she us waking up earlier! she woke me 4 times between 12-7 last night. don't know what to do, im exhausted.

Chilli - I think I am in pretty much the same situation as you. She had 2 pretty good naps today, one in the cot and one in the pram and has seemed much happier during the day plus she is going down much quicker at night without too much screaming, but still waking up and me ending up feeding her about 3 times a night, which I'm sure she shouldn't have to do at this point.

Going to resign myself to a mega early night tonight to try and catch up on sleep myself.

Hello ladies - just wanted to pop in and say 'Me too, me too!!' My DS is 25 weeks old and was always a poor napper, but slept okay-ish at night. Then everything went haywire just before Christmas and things went from bad to worse. Four month sleep regression, methinks. We're getting better with naps (compared to essentially no naps at all) but our nights still rubbish.

I'm going to follow Vix's programme (ish, with what will work for my DS) but there were a few things I've learnt over the past few days that I thought might be useful.

Someone else was posting about the 30-minute-curse in the pram. I had that with DS too. He would ping awake at EXACTLY 30 mins out in the pram. I mean, you could time him. It was insane. And then he almost entirely stopped sleeping in the pram. But I think it's just a question of hanging in there. I think it was definitely sleep-regression-related, and he seems much better at sleeping in the pram now (as long as I'm on the move!)

Re the early wakers - our DS gets really enthusiastic about life at about 4.30/5.00am. Awful. Previously, I was trying to keep him quiet by feeding/shushing etc until DH took him at 6am. Not ideal, as DS would be overtired by the time he'd been downstairs a few minutes. Now I pretend to be asleep in the morning (mwahahaha, I am NEVER asleep anymore), and, wonders will never cease, after about 10 mins of cooing and gooing, followed by mad scrabbling, spitty hands in my face (we co-sleep), followed by some grumbling (but no crying), E has been GOING BACK TO SLEEP HIMSELF! Incredible. It's happened three days in a row, and this morning DH got to hear his alarm go off at 7am for the first time in months (he's usually up before then). Perhaps it works because we co-sleep, so DS knows that I'm there, so doesn't get upset? Dunno, but will keep at it. Obviously I'm still awake, but I'm hoping that DS will eventually learn to wake up a little later soon. And the self-settling is very positive. I did something similar with the first nap of the day and it worked - but the trick did not work for the afternoon nap. Hey ho, can't have everything!

Geordie- its really hellish, isn't it? are you bfeeding or ff?. I bf and dd never takes a very big feed during the night feeds so I wonder if the frequent waking are do to more formilk than hindmilk?
following the VIX method has made her much happier baby during the day its also getting easier to get her off to sleep for her naps with only a few minutes of protest crying on my arms before passing out. I thought it would help night times but no.
she is 5mo this week but have not started weaning yet. wanted to wait and do baby led weaning but so desperate I might try baby rice in a week or 2 if things don't get better.
hope you all have a better night than i probably will

Chilli - fwiw weaning didn't have any effect on sleep here. In fact got worse as she got really bad constipation for a while.

But then she does have a bunch of food intolerances so it may just be that!

Hey just checking in. We had a fab day and night. Here's what happened:

Yesterday am ds woke at 5.54 and would not go back to sleep so we got up.
First nap at 7:40. Longest nap ever 1:23 mins in cot
11:20 took next nap 40 mins in cot
1415 took nap in pram - just 15 mins cos I had to get home quickly and he woke
17:18 took nap in cot for 35 mins
19:08 went to sleep after 30 mins settling and one false start!
12:15 dh says he had a night terror and needed a gentle sshh but didn't wake up
0215 woke for first time for a feed
5:50 woke for feed. Wouldn't resettle.

Best night ever here with only 1 wake! Okay it's earlier than I would like but I went to bed at 8 and got 6 hrs sleep which is more than I've had in 6 months!!! Sadly once I fed ds at 2.15 I didn't get back to sleep again - insomnia kicked back in despite best efforts.

Look forward to seeing how everyone else fared last night.

Morning everyone!

Last night wasn't too bad:

7:30pm - bed
11:30pm feed
2:20am- dummy
4:45am - feed
8am wake up

Need to get rid of this 2am wake up!! I don't mind really as its just for his dummy, and when I went in at 8am he was wide awake so god knows how long he'd been awake but he didn't wake us!
I gave him some Hipp organic night feed milk at 11:30pm. Its thicker than normal milk and is meant to keep them fuller for longer. I think it worked because he only had half his feed at 4:45am.
He just refused Bfeeding at 5 months hence why I use formular, think its because I started giving him some solids at 4 months, just was always hungry and I was feeding him every 2 hours still at 4 months!!

vix206 - Glad You had a good night, shame you couldn't get back to sleep! Typical isn't it!!

Hope you all had a good night :)