Please help me get my 3 month old to nap happily!

[Elednor]

First off, let me just say that DD is a dream baby at night and happily sleeps 6-7 hours in a stretch in her cot.

The problem is her daytime naps. She literally will not go to sleep on her own. She has to be at a weird upright or diagonal angle on your chest, pinned down with a dummy before she drops off. Sometimes she'll stir after half an hour, then need help to go back to sleep, other times she will conk out. Usually she sleeps for 2.5 hours, has a feed and up for another hour, then back to sleep again.

We've tried leaving her in her crib or cot with a swaddle, without a swaddle, we've propped the mattress, tried transferring her asleep and she wakes within a few minutes and then won't go back to sleep. She hates the slings we've tried, tolerates the pram for 15 minutes before screaming, we don't own a car so no driving her around to get her to sleep!

Now I don't mind her sleeping on me - a pain in the arse in terms of getting things done yes but she's still so little that I don't mind that! The problem is that she HATES sleeping on us too! She fights every step of the way, constantly burying her face in our arms or chest, screams and cries. On a good nap this will go on for a five minutes or so before she drops off, on a bad nap it'll be around 30 minutes.

We've tried getting her to sleep sooner, leaving it longer but nothing is working. I just don't know what to do anymore, her crying and not sleeping is affecting my mental health. She has problems with slow weight gain and is on ranitidine for reflux caused by CMPI which is now being managed by nutramigen AA but from birth to now it has been really hard for us all and I am struggling to cope. DD only leaves the house for appointments and a quick walk a few times a week. I have an older DD that I want to be able to spend time with as a family, but we just can't. School holidays are horrendous, but DH has been made redundant so he has taken over most of the care of baby DD and I'm now seeing someone about my mental health as I am now too anxious to stay with baby DD when it's time to sleep

Any suggestions gratefully received

Hello!
Saw that nobody has replied so thought I'd share a until someone comes along with help.

I also have a 13 wo and naps are good in the morning, ok at lunch and tricky in the afternoon. Set routines aren't for everyone but one tip that did help me in the early days and that we still keep in our minds is that DS is probably ready for a sleep after max 2 hrs awake. So, we often put him down around this time just to see if he needs a rest. Usually he does!

We also gave up on trying to get him to nap in his cot. He sleeps well there at night but for the time being he sleeps on the sofa on his feeding pillow. He has a soft Sophie Giraffe which he hugs and helped massively to stop his startle reflex waking him up (although it has faded now).

For the afternoon nap he has a dummy and will often sit still for a good half hour before actually falling asleep.

I tend to sit with him on the sofa but it gives me a chance to check my emails and come on here! It gives me some sanity and gives him a rest.

It might not be perfect but it gets us through :)

Hello..
We really struggled with daytime naps and now at 21wks it's only just starting to sort itself.. A bit.. I would say over the next few weeks it might settle down a bit??

I wasted a lot of my time (3 months I think) fretting over naps! I used to get stressed and totally worked up but in the end it all came to my DS naturally.
He is now 6 months and he had learnt to nap at 4 months after trying to follow a routine.
I guess I also learnt how to read his sleepy signals which are whines, growls and now eye rubbing!

Good luck!