What am I doing wrong?

[hopingforanother]

I posted about 5 mo ds and his dwindling naps a few wks ago. It has gone from bad to worse.

He has had ONE nap this week of 20 minutes.

0-4 months he self settled for 3 shortish naps everyday. Then we were both ill.... Since recovering day time sleep has been disastrous.

I put him down when he yawns etc, sometimes he is screaming before I've shut the curtains, sometimes he will start to go off but get distracted by his feet, sometimes I can rock him to sleep- but this doesn't really happen anymore.

I've tried sssh pat, tried sitting with him and letting him try to get himself to sleep, tried music, stories, cuddling... Tried pick up put down, but I live in flats and ds screams and is very loud, so stressed about neighbours.

Please help......... I'm desperate for 10 minutes to myself during the day. I'm feeling so useless and frustrated and pissed off with worrying about the neighbours. Any ideas?

Thank you!

My DD was a nightmare for naps, sounds quite similar. The only thing that used to work was giving her some milk and then rocking her to sleep in my arms in a darkened room. It could often take well over an hour though She eventually dropped all naps completely at 18 months.

It's an absolute nightmare, I completely sympathise. We never did find a solution but I did find that if I read a book or something while I rocked her then at least I could relax a bit and distract myself from the fact that she wouldn't sleep. If it's any consolation, she's now 2y7m and self settles in the evening and sleeps beautifully all night so the rocking to sleep didn't do any harm.

Thanks for replying Alma, did your dd sleep well for the first few months? Ds has totally changed in terms of napping.... Though he is sleeping well at night now, he is still only getting about 9 hrs total, that really doesn't seem like enough. Dd was a crap napped too but I persevered and she would have at least one a day, but this seems insane!

He's 20lb so need both hands to rock him! No reading allowed here!

I don't even know whether to bother trying to get him to sleep for naps. I spend about 30-40 minutes with him now, and by the end of that time he is wide awake again and has usually been crying or screaming for quite a bit of that. If he does go to sleep with rocking he now instantly wakes up when I put him down....it is probably helping my bingo wings tho....

She was never too bad with sleep, she didn't reliably sleep through until 9 months but was only ever up a couple of times in the night at worst. Does he sleep in a sling/backcarrier/buggy? I used to force myself to go out with DD in the buggy at least once a day because she would sleep (although it would still take a very long walk). She was my first though so it was easier to get out whenever I wanted.