anyone else feel that they spend all day trying to get their baby to nap?

[sally01603]

I know no one ever said it was going to be easy but I feel that all day every day all I do is try and get my ds to sleep! As time goes on (he's 4 months now) my various tactics of getting him to sleep are becoming less and less effective. He's not happy when's he's tired and grumbles (and insists on being carried around!)
I know there is no simple secret to this but its becoming an obsession of mine. on coming home each evening the first thing my dp asks is "how much sleep has he had today?"

put him in his cot an leave him to it? if he's only grumbling not screaming that is

10 months later i have become hard-hearted. never could do it when ds was wee though

My ds used to make noises and cry a bit when he was put in his cot but I learned that he was just settling himself to sleep. (He was my second child and I didn't want to make the same mistakes I made with my first!) ha ha

Within five minutes he'd be gone if I just left him alone. He never settled while being rocked or pushed in the pram he just liked to be left on his own.

Give it a try. Put him down in his cot, leave him, go and make a coffee and listen to at least three songs on the radio before you go back and check on him and he might surprise you!

No, I gave up and she sleeps in her pram or on me usually. I think it can drive you insane otherwise. She's the boss.

Btw the Polar Bear's advice is excellent if your child needs to grumble to settle - ds was like this. DD, however, becomes absolutely hysterical if left, which is a shock.

Actually I have got to the point where I spend more time trying to keep DD awake than letting her sleep! But then she is 18 months. If we go out anywhere in the morning she will fall asleep in the car/pushchair for maybe 20 minutes and then not want her nap (1.5-2 hours) and subsequently be over tired. If we stay in in the morning then thats if for the day because she has her long nap and by then its time to collect DS from school, its 4 by the time we get home so no time to go anywhere.

I found with both of mine that when they got to about 6 months the daytime sleeping got into a much better routine.

help my dd is also 4 months and sleeps fab at night puts herself to sleep but in the day time she can't do it, if we're out she sleeps in car seat, pram but feels the need to cry before hand just to let you know she's going to sleep, but at home she just can't do it, she's been crying , no screaming now for 15 mins, i so don't want to pick her up as we don't at night. this has been going on for 2 weeks for her to sleep she needs to be out, why oh why? any suggestions. one very confussed mum (sad)

I'd pick her up, personally.

Have you tried other methods of comfort like patting or stroking her? Otherwise do as Aloha says.

From memory (now faint as DS is 4), when he cried I could usually leave him to settle - when he SCREAMED it was usually wind so I'd pick him up, pat him and jiggle him until he brought up some wind then would try again.

I found it impossible not pick up a screaming baby but found that when they're just crying in a mournful way it's because they're trying to get to sleep.

Isn't it hard sometimes but I think you know which is which usually!

I remember feeling very similar at about the 4 month mark where all previous tricks seemed to get less and less effective. Then one day I decided that my back could not take any more carrying, picking up, putting down etc. However was definitely not comfortable just leaving him to cry. So when ds got tired that day I put him in the cot, put ear plugs in (expecting a long protacted battle), and sat next to him with my hand on his chest. After just 5/6 minutes of shouting he suddenly went very calm, as if he had got it all off his chest and I was able to leave the room whilst he put himself to sleep. Once it was no longer so physically (& emotionally) demanding to get him down for a nap I became much less obsessed about how often/how long he napped.

Thank you muddlingthru for your kind words.
I would like to add that at night she has never screamed to sleep, and just recently about a week she has found her stronger voice. I don't want to come across as some sort of uncareing mum, and yes i had tryed staying close sh sh-ing but that just don't do the trick. i will try again tomoz as today i gave in and went out.

I don't bother with nap time - I carry my ds4 around with me & when I do need to pop him down for a moment I put him into his seat. No stress on sleep.

I know exactly what you mean, dd 3m sleeps fine at night and settles herself really well but we are still battling with the napping thing, I can see she is tired but she fights it all the way. I was very glad that my HV actually witnessed it at a recent coffee morning where she offered to taske her out to calm her (lol - took 30 minutes) I don't think she believed me before then, and now describes dd as having a stong personality!

Any kind of physical contact or even my voice seems to wind her up so I just pop her in her cot and tuck her in put on her mobile and leave, popping back after 5 minutes to tuck her in again and turn mobile on for 2nd and last time, if she really does need to nap it has never taken more than 15 minutes for her to go to sleep, and is normally under 10, she cries for this time but not screaming. I felt very mean at first but if I try to hold her rock her etc it just takes twice as long and she gets really wound up.

However if she is in her bugggy/carseat she will drop off no problem so I must admit to going out at some point every day as it can get a bit heartwrenching listening to her cry (it is quieter if I go to the garage to sort laundry!!!!! or listen to some music

I have just put her down for an am nap and she took 15 minutes to go to sleep cried for about 8.

Also, sometimes the dummy helps.

I was feeling like this with dd up until about a 6 weeks ago (she's just over 5 months now). She would only sleep in her buggy for a while, but I had to rock and joggle her to sleep in it and getting her to sleep often took as long as the nap itself . On a friends recommendation, we darkened her room with blackout (but not completely pitch black). I started just trying to get her to go for her morning nap (approx 1.5 to 2 hours after she woke up) in the cot and yes I did have to leave her to settle herself by whinging and crying - I used to set a maximum of 20 minutes and I didn't go in during this time, as that just used to prolong the process and wind her up which didn't seem fair. As others have said, this wasn't full on screaming, but on off crying (quite loud on occasions) and then sort of moaning as she started to calm down and drop off.

Once she had got the hang of this one nap in the cot, I tried it at lunchtime too. And now she has at least 2, sometimes 3 naps a day in her cot. She normally settles for them after a very quick shout in 10 minutes tops, rarely it takes 20 minutes, but not often anymore .

She would only ever do 30 - 45 minutes at a go to start with, but in the last few weeks, she has started to go for longer (up to 2 hours at lunchtime), although she does sometimes wake and need to settle herself again, and sometimes I still have to get her up if she can't manage this.

She still often has a short afternoon nap in her buggy, but I still have to rock her to sleep for this one.

I found it helpful to keep a note of sleep times, as I worked out that she could manage on a surprisingly small amount of daytime sleep (1.5 hours), without spontaneously combusting before bedtime. If we did have a really bad day napwise, I would and still do put her to bed a bit earlier.

I remember feeling like the whole day was a battle to get her to sleep, and it did feel really unrewarding! But it has improved and I hope it does for you too! I know it is really hard, but try to keep it in perspective and don't allow it to dictate the mood of your day. If she won't nap, maybe bung her in the buggy and go for a walk and try again later.

Sorry if I have waffled on a bit !

Hi

I know just what you mean. My ds is now 12 months but at 4 months I used to spend the days in tears as he would not sleep more than 30 minutes at a time in the day. Like you I would seem to spend a lot of the day trying to get him to sleep only to have him wake up 20 minutes later (especially if he fell asleep out in the car or pram). Walking in the pram did not work - still doesn't unless he is really really exhausted and then only 40 minutes max.

He was always exhausted by 5pm and would often be asleep for the evening between 5-5.30pm. He hated being rocked or held too tightly. I spent about 3 months (betwen 3 months and 6 months) holding an absolutely screaming baby every evening for between 10 and 40 minutes before he went to sleep (I just couldn't leave him in the cot as his screaming was so bad so holding him was my compromise though the scremaing still happened). He didn't have colic he was just tired, walking and rocking just made it worse as he'd go silent for a while then start again - and this went on for hours.

He was so tired and overstimulated he just couldn't shut off. He even had these tendences as a newborn (no evening colic though, he slept really well between 6pm and 10/11pm - after that is another story - he was up every 1-2 hours).

At abut 5.5 months I'd had enough. I realised that I was carting him everywhere and expecting him to sleep where we were. Well many babies can do this but mine just can't. So I resigned myself to imposing a routine (against my nature) I had figured he would come up with his own routine but he never did.

I woke him at 7am if he wasn't awake already. by 8.30am he was ready for a nap again (sometimes he would be ready at 8am - remember he had a large sleep debt and was exhauseted,). I realised that he needed a nap every 1.5-2 hours. That would mean sometimes starting soothing him only an hour after he woke upp so that he would be asleep in time - especially in the morning when he weirdly seemed to be most tired.

Over time this period extended but even now at 12 months 2.5 - 3 hours is the maximum he can stay up without getting tired and in the mornings he sometimes wants to sleep after 2 hours even now.

As you can imagine this was very restrictive as after feeding and changing there wasn't much time to do anything before he needed to be home for a nap again. I almost went mad from boredom for a while BUT within a couple of weeks I could see he was so much happier that I just did it.

My life went on hold for a while (I have to admit I found it REALLY difficult but it was for his health and my sanity.

Even now I don't often contemplate a whole day out as this means he misses his naps and gets really cranky - though he is managing this better now so we do break his routine maybe 1-2 twice a week maximum.

To get him to sleep was easier if I caught him before he was really tired but I still had quite a lot if crying. I would check on him periodically. I only picked him up if he was really distressed. Even if I did pick him up he would usually keep screaming - so I didn't do this often. In the end it was time and the willingness to be consistent that worked.

Now he is a much better rested baby and happier all round (he has been since about 7 months old).

I'm sorry I don't have an easy solution but you may find as he gets older he improves. Most babies cry less and sleep better at 6 months than as newborn (just not mine !!)

Anna