Help - DD's naps all over the place & I can't get her out of it!

[PeggyL]

My DD is 4 months today. She is FF and doesn't have a bottle past 7pm (she was having a feed at 10pm but then decided she didn't want this anymore but isn't hungry at night even though have tried to give her milk), she wakes up in the night for her dummy (this is a whole new conversation, so if anyone has any advice on getting her off the dummy that would be helpful too!) between 2 & 4 times and then wakes up around 5:30/6am.

I know she should be roughly having 3 naps a day but it just doesn't work out like that, Gina Ford says she should be going down at 9am but DD never lasts this long and then, because my DS is almost 3 and needs entertaining, we spend time darting all over the place and DD doesn't get proper sleep during the day (I should also mention that she is in a swaddle pod and very comfortable all wrapped up, trying to at least get her arms out but she's not very happy about it!) and definately doesn't sleep for more than an hour and a half around lunchtime. By this point she's fairly ratty and not in the best mood and so try and put her down again and she sleeps maybe 20-45 minutes and then basically cries till she has her bottle at 6:45pm. Just so confused about what to do, should I put her to bed much earlier at nighttime, try and be more ordered with naps (but don't want DS to suffer by having to stay in all day!) or try and resettle her (not sure how as she jsut seems to get herself in such a state!)...please help, got a splitting headache from all the crying with her today! x

I have never been able to do naps at set times as both mine have been cat-nappers, 30-40min max. 1 hour if I'm lucky. My dd2 is 4.5 months & ebf. I work on max time awake between naps instead. This is approx. 2 hours.

This means we can be flexible around 3 year old dd1 too. If she snatches a nap in the car or while put and about, I just go from when she wakes. It sounds like no real routine, but actually as she wakes at roughly the same time each day & naps for roughly same length of time you do get to know approx when she'll be sleeping.

She's an early riser too. This morning was awake at 5.15am and there is no way she would have lasted till 9. In fact, she was asleep again at 7am. She usually has 4 naps a day, today it was 5. But she's normally happy as larry in between & settles easily at around 7-7.30ish.

I don't think you can ever have set times. I've tried. My 5 month old is already down to 2 naps one in the morning and one In the afternoon. That's if he has a proper nap (2hr) if for some reason he wakes sooner and won't go back off the whole day ends up playing catch up and he's grumpy all from the first nap. It's so hard. You can't predict how long a baby will sleep for so how can you plan a day. I have 2 others and have to also work around school runs etc so nothing is ever routined. Even nights are the same. Some nights he will have a full bottle at bed and sleep ok others he's too tired for the bottle so wakes by 10 for another feed which then messes up the night feeds. God it's hard.

Well if u want to follow Gina ford I have no advice as I can't stand the woman or the pressure she puts on people.

3 naps in day? 1.5hrs at lunch, is good. I'm not sure I get the worry as surely it dozes off if in a pram walking, which doesn't interfere with ds? If you come in just leave them in their pram. Sleep counts if its not in a bed too. I've played with dd on driveway for 20mins before spotting cars to give dd2 bit longer!

My 4mth old does 9-10 sleep, 12-2, 4-6 roughly on a day we are in the house. This works whether I look at clock or not. May I recommend one day avoiding the clock and just reading baby? Then once down checking time. Bet it's pretty similar most days. Could also be yours doesn't want much sleep? Some don't.

What time does your 4mo go to bed if they nap til 6 wishiwasanheiress? Struggling with naps somewhat here too!