Advice Desperately Needed re Naps/Bedtime

[Northernexile]

I would love some advice from anyone who has experience in this area. DD is 4mo. We are lucky in that she sleeps from 10-6.30/7am in her cot every night without fail. She even smiles when we zip her into her Gro Bag! However naps are a disaster, and she won't go down at a reasonable bedtime either. She needs 3 good naps or she is a grumpy little weasel, but she will only sleep on my/DH's lap. We have tried putting her in her cot asleep, but she wakes, and also sleepy and shushing/patting, but she just lies staring up at us. The mobile doesn't soothe her off as we had hoped either, and she doesn't drop off in the pram.

On the odd occasion that we have got her into the cot successfully she has woken after five minutes and been impossible to get back off to sleep, and therefore been hugely grumpy for hours. This also happens when we try to put her down after her bath/bottle at 7ish. She just refuses to go into her cot till 10pm! This means I spend most of my day chained to the sofa watching the housework pile up (and mnetting on the iPad ), and every evening juggling an over-tired weasel! DH has resorted to driving around with her for the last couple of nights, but that's not a feasible solution long-term!

Any suggestions on how to crack this would be fantastic! TIA

Naps in the day - why not try using the pram? My DD's only went in the cot at night time.

The pram has the advantage that at first you can push her to get her off to sleep and then leave her sleeping (after a while you will find they don't need the pushing), have you tried the pram with it moving?

Night time I would go with the flow a little more, if she is sleeping all night from 10pm-7am you are doing well.

Hi
Sleep and babies is such hard work. I think perseverance is the key. I started doin my bath, bottle and bed routine when bubs was about 2 months old. I would continue to resettle her in her crib til she went off. If she woke I would soothe her back by holding, patting, ssshhing whatever it took and never took her out of her room.
Naps are difficult, I've had issues with my little girl being a cat napper.......I've grown to accept this now. It was hard to get her in the cot in the day but again perseverance is beginning to pay off for me now and she starting to take longer naps.
Choose one nap in the day you will have your cot battle, and put bubs down when she shows tired signs. When my girly refuses or cries just a lot of soothing does the trick. She will eventually go to sleep.
The rest of the naps I do in the car, pram whatever.
You don't want to get into bad habits with car journeys etc.
Got fingers crossed for you

Thanks for the advice! Tried wheeling her round in the pram yesterday evening but as soon as it stopped she was wide awake again and ended up staying up with us, grumpy, till her last bottle! She went straight into her cot at 10pm though, awake, and settled almost immediately! She's so contrary! Think for this afternoon's nap I will just try putting her in the cot and doing pick-up put-down- she has to drop off at some point!

Hi

Firstly - contgrats on the 10-7 sleep. Very jealous!

Not a hugely fantastic suggestion or a long term solution (sorry) but have you tried using a sling to strap her to you during the day? Even if its just for half an hour to allow you to get a few things done? Im no domestic goddess but even I find it frustrating when the housework is mounting!

Good luck :)

Just a thought but might it be daylight related? It doesn't seem to get dark until well after 9pm and this has certainly sent my DS's bedtime a bid wonky!! Have you tried blackout blinds in the nursery? Also I bought a snooze shade www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0039NQ3TW for the pram which seemed to help. Good luck

One thing I remember was that by the time they show obvious tired signs, it's already too late and they are overtired.
Particularly first thing in the morning they can't actually stay awake for all that long. I can't remember exactly what worked at this age (I recall first couple of months around 1 - 1.5 hours from waking was plenty) but I wonder if you might have more luck getting her to sleep sooner?

Also don't forget they all go through phases of change like growth spurts. Oftehn when a problem feels like it might be permanent, by the time you've got worried about it, it goes again and you are onto the next thing.

I feel that a combination works best to help you stay sane - "stick to your guns" to some extent (ie. keep the principle that she does need to nap) and "be flexible" (ie. not insisting on a nap when she's unhappy and it just isn't going to happen - just resolve to try again later).

Good luck!

A sling could be an idea for during the day, if she would stay in one. She's a bit of a diva! I think the four month sleep regression may have also just kicked too. The last two nights we have managed to get her down at 7ish (highly unusual, but she's seemed knackered!) with her last feed around 10.30 as normal, but she has woken at 4.30 rather than 6.30 in the morning. Think I will just give up on any hope of a 'routine' for a few weeks!

Northern

Glad we're not the only ones going through the dreaded 4 mo sleep problem. My ds and dd are 4 months and ds's sleep is appalling (she is still a dream....!). Ds Has gone from sleeping til 6am to waking at 2am and refusing to go back down in his cot. Only solution has been to co sleep with him in the spare room and bf constantly throughout the night. Am looking for separate posts on this for advice as am a bit desperate.

Re naps during th day, this has never been easy for us and they are only now starting to show any consistency at all. We find the only way to get them to nap is to keep them awake after a feed, wear them out by playing with them in the jungle gym until they get tired and grizzly,then put them on my shoulder and rock them til they fall asleep. Then I try to really gently transfer them to their bouncy chairs (we got bright starts comfort and harmony ones which are really soft and comfy and tilt back into a kind of bed). It never used to work at all but now it works about 50% of the time!

I really feel for you re bedtime, and again this has taken a while to get right. In case it's helpful our routine is bf at 5pm, make sure they stay awake after this and play as much as possible. Lovely relaxed and warm bath at 7pm then transfer into a dark room where we give 6oz formula. They're both in bouncy chairs for this, it's the easiest way to do it with twins but actually when we've fed one each in our arms the routine hasn't worked so well because they don't like to leave our warmth. Then let them fall asleep in chairs and gently transfer them to cots. At the moment this is the only bit of consistent sleep time for ds! Took a while to get there but worked well after a couple of weeks.

Good luck!