Baby won't nap in daytime

[bagelmonkey]

I seem to spend most of the day trying to get my 3 month old to nap during the day. She will sometimes get one 45-60 minute nap, bit it's hard work. Other than that she only gets 5 minutes at a time and gets increasingly overtired and fractious as the day progresses. She doesn't sleep that well at night either :-(
Will it cause any harm? I'm worried that my inability to get her to sleep during the day and to repeatedly get so overtired and distressed could have consequences akin to emotional neglect. Feeling like a bit of a crap mother at times.
How can I get her to nap? Nothing seems to work. I don't know what to do to help her learn to sleep.

I was in a similar situation to you and in the end I realised that DS would sleep if I took him out in the pram for his naps. At 3 months old, he could only stay awake for 2 hours at a time before he would start yawning and rubbing his eyes, so that was my cue to go out with him for a walk. Once he's asleep, I find that I can come home and he'll carry on sleeping in the pram. At 3 months old he had 3 naps a day like that... Not ideal for everyone to have three outings a day, but if I'm tired I just push him around the flat instead!!!

Bagelmonkey - Congrats on DD. In no way are you a crap mum! The fact you are expending all your time trying to help DD is down to the fact you care! I know how tough it is when nothing seems to work. My DS has struggled to sleep in the day. He is now 6months and just started to nap, without help in his cot. I can't say there is anything I have done apart from keep giving him a chance to nap in his cot, when it didn't work then it was pram, dummy, breast feed....anything that worked. And then one day he just did it. I never believed I'd see the day. Just wanted to give that as backdrop as I really do feel your pain as DS's sleep, or lack of, has been a bit of an obsession. I found it really hard to just enjoy him because I felt so consumed by him not sleeping. It really sucks but it won't always be like this.

What support do you have? Do you value your health visitor's opinion? Friends? Family? I have picked up some good tips - and at least some reassurance along the way from others.

It is true that an overtired baby will find sleep more difficult to slip into and will become more fractious. My advice is toss all sleep training books aside - whilst you may pick up some tips they tended to make me feel super stressed and a failure.

What have you tried to get her to nap? Sling, walk out in pram, feed to sleep, dummy. Is there anything that works? What do you have to do to get her to have her 45mins nap? What do you mean by she doesn't sleep well at night? What do you try then? What do you do at her bedtime? before a nap? Has she always been this way or has there been a recent change? SOrry to bombard with questions but would help to have a few more details in order to help.

Thanks for your help & support.
I'm happy enough with how she sleeps at night. Wakes about 2-3 times a night for a feed, usually falls asleep and settles easily again.
Will feed to sleep for one nap of about 45 mins and when she gets overtired will feed to sleep for about 5 mins.
Rocking doesn't seem to help at all, but occasionally will fall asleep in buggy. She falls asleep in the sling sometimes too.
If we need to keep going out for walks to get the naps in, so be it, but often I end up carrying a crying baby and pushing a buggy if she doesn't manage to sleep, so I might have to just walk very close to home!
HV I found a bit crap to be honest. Husband supportive in spirit but not always in his actions and not particularly useful. Means well :-)
My mum is very supportive, and friends, but no solutions.
She used to be very sleepy during the daytime but wouldn't sleep at night and it's just been a gradual transition, so hard to say how long.
I've been trying to work towards naps on a 2-3 hour cycle, so maybe I'll start by reducing the awake time between attempts and see how it goes.

Hi
my DD is the same. She's now 6months and I'm still finding it hard to get her to nap during the day other than taking her out for a walk. Like Bananamuffin I too have to go out, instead I just stay out all day which is hard when its raining!

She naps 45mins 3 times a day and with some reasons she's getting harder to settle in the evening now. She fights it.

A question to all, how do you go on with your life when you have to be constantly on move every 2hrs? What if you're with someone and having lunch or whatever? Do you stop everything and walk out??
I can't seen to time it right and find to hard relax and socialise with people...

Night time sound good and the fact she can settle again is fantastic. She does know how to fall asleep at night and that is a major, major plus.

Once she is fed to sleep is it when you move that she wakes or that she just wakes? Feeding on your side could help move away without waking if it is movement that wakes her. DS stopped feeding to sleep at 4 weeks - alas!

It sounds like trying to catch DD before she is overtired could be key. So perhaps after first nap (am assuming first one of day is most successful) then look to push her out in pram or pop in sling as soon as next two hours passes. I have found that spotting that first yawn or eye rub like bananamuffin suggests is key. So it may be 2 hours but whenever this happens is best. I watch DS like a hawk for these signs! I am not really one for imposing a schedule or routine, but have found jotting down when DS feeds, seems tired and then naps helps when things are really blurry. This has helped me figure out over a week how often and when he sleeps. You may find there is a pattern. DS used a dummy to suck to sleep for bedtime and naps and then I would whip it away once he was asleep. As he napped in his cot on a more frequent basis I would start to leave a 10/15min window to see if he could do it on his own without dummy. After a month he managed bedtime and 3 more months day time naps....so could be worth a try if heading out and about all the time is a pain, although the summer months make it easier! It is annoying when you have to actively work to get your baby to sleep and cannot get down time while she sleeps so I know this isn't ideal, but I ended up heading out for the day and working naps around it so I could have a life too

I hear you on the rocking bagel. Was at weaning class last week and other mums were agog when I shared that being rocked almost seemed to make him more upset. "Not even in your arms?" one asked pityingly. Yes especially not in my sodding arms! Argh.

Ok now I feel like bagels and muffins! Thanks ladies

Ahh bagelmoneky I feel your pain, It was around 2-3 months DD stopped just feeding to sleep for her naps. So I did all her naps in the pram. I recommend getting a snoozeshade (www.snoozeshade.com) for your pram - this will help drop off quicker and sleep longer. On the upside due to all the walking around I am 8 pounds lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight! And I have been eating cake AT LEAST once a day in all that time. Anyway at 7 months I go t fed up and decided it was time she napped in her cot - now at 9 months and I able to get 2 1 hour cots naps out of her each day. Getting the first nap of the day in early will help - what time does she wake and when do you try the firt nap?

Hello I can TOTALLY sympathis with this as my DD who is almost 3 months has also started resisting daytime naps. Before this I didn't pay much attention to her daytime sleep as she just fell asleep whereever I happened to be.. but all of a sudden - around this time in their development I think - they start to notice the world and it's too exciting for them! I've started to make sure I'm at home for nap times so that I can spend the 1/2 hour or so feeding DD to sleep and putting her in her basket where it's quiet.. I'm hoping this is just a 'phase'..

If they don't nap then the afternoons are awful aren't they? DOn't even get me started on the evenings! DH hates coming home and finding her grumpy - it's sad that this is all he sees of her until the wkend!

aichi I totally empathise! My life seems to now have to revolve around DD and when she needs to nap so I can't go out and relax.. my other friends with babies don't seem to have the same stress and I feel stupid excusing myself because I "need to get her home for her nap".. it makes me feel like one of those mums who is obsessed with routine and Gina Ford-type lifestyles! I'm all for a routine, but don't feel it should stop you going about things too.

Does anyone find that being out and about in the car disrupts things a bit? For example- I go to a tinytalk class in the morning after 1st nap, but then on the way home she sleeps in the car and this means by the time we get home I find it hard to get her down for her next nap! I wish I could relax and go with the flow..

Things I've found that help with naps

1. swaddling
2. When I've fed her etc. and KNOW she's tired I leave her to cry / fuss for a little bit (which I HATE but seems to work)

Great to know that others are having the same probs. I keep telling myself that it's a '3 month' thing and will pass!

I would first work on getting a nap routine going by any means necessary (even if it entails going out with the pram/sling/car three times a day) and then once that is established you can move towards having those naps in a cot.

If she's struggling to nap after 2-3 hours, start with a nap every 90 minutes - some babies need their first nap of the day only 45 minutes after they first wake up at this age and then the awake times lengthen as the day progresses. Get her into the pram for a brisk, bumpy walk at the very first sign or a yawn/vacant stare/eye rub etc even if you think she can't possibly be tired yet.

Once she is used to have 3 or 4 naps a day at more or less the same times, then you can try putting her in her cot at nap time rather than going out. I found lying ds on his side and patting his bottom quite firmly (so it made his head wobble a bit - similarly to when you are in motion) and shushing loudly past his ear really helped him drop off.

Zimm, thanx for the snooze shade tip! I've been hunting for something like this for ages! Have ordered one now!
I think 3 months is the ultimate age for nap time avoidance! My ds2 is 12 weeks tomorrow and has been fighting naps for a while. I've just managed to get him to nap in his cot. I had to go into him twice and give him his binky toy and let him suck my finger but he's now been up there for two hours! I think it is a struggle but worth it in the end!

My DD only has little naps in the day, it's impossible to get anything done isn't it? I've tried slings which are great when you're not knackered and just want to sit down with a cup of tea. I tried so much, anything I could think of and she's now getting in to a routine but she still needs movement to settle her. I bought this thing called the robopax ( when I was looking for an electric swing) the company make so many claims about helping your baby sleep I got it because I was at a loss as to what to do. It's an electric platform that rocks back and forth, and it really does help to settle her. You can stick the moses basket, pushchair, carseat etc on it and it gives you some time to sit and relax :) Look it up and see what you think. It's definitely working for me although when baby isn't tired baby isn't tired and you can't force them to sleep. Things will get easier.

I have just joined in hope to find a way out of the exact problem you guys are discussing. My DS is nearly 5M and refuses to nap for any great lengh of time though is knackered? Im at my wits end and seem to be constantly trying to get him to sleep and feeling guilty that im not enjoying playing with him but he is always so grumpy I know that he needs to sleep! I have tried everything even balancing over the cot side to BF. The cot is a deffinate No No.. he acts like im trying to put him down on a bed of hot coals! Glad to read i'm not the only one with an insomniac baby...

DD is almost 10 months old and is a dreadful napper. What I have been doing for a couple of weeks (and so far it is working) is:

2.5 hours after getting up we settle down together in the chair in her bedroom and she drops off. For a week I let her sleep on me. Did the same thing for her afternoon nap.

Now I let her drop off to sleep on my lap and then put her in her cot. If she wakes up I take her out of her cot and let her sleep on me again. Each day she sleeps a little longer in her cot.

It is slow progress but we're getting there. I know this won't be right for everyone, particularly if you have other children at home.

If we are out and she doesn't have a nap (she is so nosey she can't nap for fear of missing something) in the morning, I make sure that we have an afternoon nap.

It's taking a lot of time out of the day, and the chores sometimes have to wait, but I feel the effort has so far been worth it, as she is much happier.

She now naps for 1-2 hours in the morning and 1-1.5 hours in the afternoon. I also tend to drop off for a little nap at the same time, which is a bonus.

If we are out in the car and she drops off to sleep, I always have my kindle with me and park up somewhere so she gets her nap, or get her out of the car as quick as possible and we settle straight down on the sofa and she goes back to sleep.

I'm sure that many will decry this method but it is working for us and has taken months to get this far. As far as I am concerned at present, the most important thing is that DD gets the sleep she needs.

I have exactly the same problem with my 3mo. He sleeps well at night and can settle himself then. First nap of the day is good, but after that it all falls apart. It's a huge struggle to get a lunchtime nap, any nap in the afternoon or early evening and he's increasingly grumpy until he's screaming by 6. Bathtime and bedtime are an enormous effort of winding down. I've tried everything...sling, rocking, blackout blinds, robopax, snooze shade, white noise...nothing consistently helps, or for long. If he does fall asleep, he's crying again after 10 minutes. We have to go out in the car morning and afternoon to take his big brother to things, and he catnaps then for a few minutes which I think makes it harder to get onto any kind of nap schedule. By the time early evening comes round, I'm making my toddler his tea and trying to give him some attention too, and getting them ready for their baths, so it's very difficult to spend a lot of time settling the baby for a nap then that he so badly needs. Any ideas, or just reassurance that it does get better,would be much appreciated!

I had this problem with my DS who is now 3.3. He was a great sleeper at night but having M.E. made the days even more exhausting.

He would only sleep for half an hour (it was weird, you could set your watch to him) at a time, 3 times a day and it took me half an hour just to get him to sleep.

Unfortunately, it got better when he started crawling, at 10 months. It was a long hard slog for those 6-7 months but it did get better and he only dropped his daytime nap a couple of months ago. DD is now gone 3 months and after being an amazing day sleeper, she now seems to be going the same way. I am dreading it!!

Just an update on my earlier post about how I'm doing it. DD slept for 45 minutes straight in her cot today. So it seems to be working.

And this afternoon she fell asleep in the car. she woke up when we came into the house but let her drop back off to sleep in my arms and she slept for another 40 minutes on the sofa while I sat next to her.