Why does my 4 month old sleep sometimes and not others?

[mimou]

Our 4.5 month old is great at napping in the morning. About a couple of hours after he wakes up he looks sleepy so I put him in his bed and carry on doing chores and he happily goes to sleep. Mid-afternoon, he looks sleepy again, but if I put him in his bed this time he won't sleep. In the pram, however, he'll doze off without too much trouble. Late afternoon, however, it doesn't matter where you put him or what you do, or how tired he is, nothing works. Generally this results in about 3 hours of screaming until he finally exhausts himself completely. What is the difference?! And more to the point what can I do about it?

DD was like this. She is much better now. I am not sure if it is just that is she that bit older (6 months) or if it is because I try and make sure she is never up more than 2hours (sometimes 1.5hrs) so she isn't too overtired to nod off.

he's probably dropping the late pm nap
dd2 didn't ever have one after 3-4mo, although some days she seemed to need one desperately. we stopped trying once we worked this out, as trying to put her down just made her very cross. we tried to get out for a nice calming walk instead.

re the mid-afternoon nap - you may want to think about limiting the duration of the morning nap to 60-90mins, to ensure he's tired enough to go down for afternoon nap. this (mostly) works for us with dd2 (now 6mo). but i completely understand those who go by the "never wake a sleeping baby" rule. we only found this out after having a couple of appointments for which i had to wake dd2.

DS has been like this on and off for weeks - he's 6.5 months. Yesterday he settled for 5pm nap beautifully in his cot but the previous day he was awful and i resorted to driving him around! Sometimes he just goes through unsettled periods. It seems to be when he's working on a developmental milestone, or changing his sleep/ wake routine because he's become that bit older and can go a bit longer without sleep. Or sometimes it's plain old over tiredness! Babies are all about trial and error and a lot of guess work really. Sounds too young to be dropping a nap. I remember DS went through this at a similar age. I think it's because at 4 months their sleep patterns begin to change into more of an adult's one (it will still take several months before they really change properly so this is the beginning). Four months is also growth spurt/ developmental milestone territory. You'll have days when he settles brilliantly and others when you have to try anything to get him to sleep. At 4 months they're so much more aware of the world around them that they get wired easily and it's harder for them to switch off. Just help him and give him lots of love, attention and cuddles when he's a bit fussier than normal. It helps them get through it better and more quickly. I worried i'd spoil DS and he'd end up relying on me rocking him, driving him, pushing him around etc. He always goes back to self settling when he's over whatever's bothering him!

He isn't "dropping" a nap, because he's never reliably had one! It probably is more to do with being overtired by the end of the day, but I don't quite know what to do about it. He did have a nap today but that was because we were with my family and there were plenty of people about to look after DS1 while I fed him and then DH took him for a long walk. Normally I am on my own frantically trying to get the dinner ready at the same time. I do remember DS1 being like this and I used to walk for miles with him in the pram every evening, but in those days it didn't matter if I didn't make dinner and DH and I had to cobble something together after he'd gone to bed. Now I have to make sure dinner is on the table when the 2 year old gets home or he gets overtired and starts yelling.