4 month old - how do you manage daytime naps?

[Writerwannabe83]

I have a 4 month old baby and his daytime naps are totally hit and miss.

Some days he will practically sleep all day, other days he will be awake all morning but sleep 3-5 hours in the afternoon and other days he will just have a few 1/2 cat naps which seem pointless.

My question is this : where do you put your baby for their daytime naps and how do you encourage sleep?

My DS looked a bit tired at 11.30am so I gave him a nice feed and then put him in the Moses Basket which is in the living room. He didn't cry or scream, but just flailed his arms and legs around whilst laughing and chortling. However, 45 minutes later he is still doing the exact same thing.

At what point am I supposed to take him out and accept that he just isn't going to sleep?

In the end, after an hour of him being awake in his Moses basket and still giggling away to himself I just took him out.

Should I be putting him in his Crib in the bedroom and leaving him there in a dark and quiet room to sleep instead? But if so, would that not affect his ability to differentiate night from day?

Some and DH are getting a bit stressed by his sleeping routines (day and night) and am just interested in other people's experiences.

He just never, ever seems tired. On many, many occasions he can happily be awake for the entire day without having a sleep or even a small nap.

Mine also sleeps in the buggy/sling/car seat while out, though those sleeps always tend to be on the short side.

At 4 months dd would have 2 long naps we would put her in Gro bag in her cot ....close curtains etc. Although I was a slight routine freak even.... on holidays away. She would nap in car though if long journey.

Writer, I've commented on your bedtime thread and some of your previous ones and I have a baby just a couple of weeks younger than yours. I also have a 3yo.

Everything you say about your baby's sleep sounds exactly like mine - erratic and variable naps, not falling asleep until 10pm or later for the night. It's normal, normal, normal for a baby. They're individual little humans doing an enormous amount of growing and developing and undergoing huge changes all the time.

Some people implement a routine successfully. It's hard work but suits them. But it's not compulsory and if you go with the flow, you will not be condemning yourself to a bad sleeper or other negative consequences. There are pros and cons to both approaches. You don't HAVE to have a routine and really, a 4mo is not going to be affected by a 30 minute delay of bedtime.

When I read your threads, I worry about how much of your maternity leave is spent tormenting yourself about getting things wrong. As though parenting is a set of problems with only one right answer and you must do it the correct way every time. Please relax a bit and try to enjoy it more. It sounds like your evenings are spent in a dark room trying to persuade a reluctant baby to sleep and your days involve panicking over when naptime should be and why your baby isn't following a pattern. In contrast, with a similar age baby I don't think about it. We're out and about doing things with the 3yo all the time, we take advantage of summer evenings to all stay up a bit later and the baby just does what he likes, which varies day to day. Your husband is home for six weeks - what a great opportunity to share the work, relax and enjoy the lovely weather. Don't think of his presence as a 'nightmare' interruption to routines, do some fun things and enjoy your maternity leave. It goes so quickly! Structured routines are a modern day idea for babies, they are brilliant for some people but if it's stressing you out so much, just don't do it. Young babies are so flexible, portable and adaptable. He'll be fine going for a long evening walk with daddy and if they're out from 6-8.30 that's long enough for you to watch a film or have a bath or read a book - not fuming that 'bedtime' is disrupted when to a baby this age the concept is pretty meaningless anyway.

OP i used to get really anxious about DS1's nap routine and bedtime, and tbh looking back it was one of the first signs that i was struggling a bit with post natal anxiety and depression.

Not necessarily saying that this is the case with you, but perhaps worth thinking about? Do you feel anxious all the time and like you cn't stop worrying about lots f different things to do with your LO? Maybe speak to your HV for some advice if that's the case? I had a curse of ADs and some CBT therpay (on the NHS, referred by HV) and felt much better very quickly.

However, I think in a lot of cases the 'symptoms' of PND/anxiety are very similar to how it can just feel to be overwhelmed by your first baby.

I do tend to structure my day around when I know he's going to be tired - either to be at home or in transit is he can sleep in the pushchair.

I am trying to encourage longer naps so home is preferable to pushchair but needs must.

In response to the previous poster about set routines etc... Our "routine" is completely flexible around him, however is is pretty predictable when it comes to his naps. Because he's tired after 2 hours and because I try to put him to bed at a similar time each night then a "routine" has just emerged. If he was completely unpredictable and variable then I wouldn't try to impose a routine. As it happens I do like having structure to my day as I know I can get out and about rather than ever know if he's going to be sleeping in his cot when we need to be going somewhere.

I have found when you have an older child you end up with a pretty structured routine anyway - you get up at the same time every day, there are school runs every day, you put them both to bed at the same time. A 7-7 day with naps at 9/12/3ish comes naturally.

Thanks everyone!

To be honest I have never really been fussed about naps, just letting them occur naturally but it's hard when you see other posts saying they should be done at certain times, or reading that people's babies are in great routines, and also hearing it from RL people and I start to think, "if other babies manage it, why mine."

It's only from my two threads in the Sleep Forum that I have ever felt reassured that what I'm experiencing is completely normal and I shouldn't stress out so much. I thought the napping and sleeping issues were a 'problem that needed fixing' but only because other people have led me to think that way.

Today is a fresh day, I will keep an eye on his naps and try and make sure he has more than usual but I'm certainly not going to get myself in a tizz about it as like someone said, maternity leave is to be enjoyed!!

I definitely think if his daytime naps are variable and unpredictable and you "freestyle" them (totally acceptable!) then his bedtime also needs to be treated the same.

Structured naps = predictable bedtime

Great post Jelly, totally agree
If only there was a Baby Manual that they gave you when you left the hospital, that would make things a lot easier! . I think that's why I felt more comfortable taking the structured routine route - I wasn't confident about looking after a newborn at all, so I bought a book of instructions and followed them!

OP, there's no one way, no 'right' way, it's really just about finding yours & DS's way. The one thing you absolutely should not do is compare your DS to other babies & what their parents say they are doing, that way lies madness!

Thanks fledermaus. It's hit and miss! Last week I managed to put dd in cot when I knew she was tired (most prob overtired because if I put her down any earlier she won't go to sleep!) and rolled her onto her side and did exactly as you suggested and she went off no prob. Tried the same thing the next day and it didn't work! I used to rock her to sleep in my arms but that's stopped working too-she keeps arching her back and shoving fingers in mouth-never sure if it is wind and/or teeth pain because she'll only start making a fuss when I'm trying to get her off to sleep! Babies are so confusing.

Mrsmugoo - how do you structure naps when your baby fights it for hours?! If you have any ideas please let me know!

Meant to say - the only reason we do the naps every two hours is that ds is a complete nightmare if he gets tired - really grumpy, cries constantly. My dh missed the sleep cues this morning and I'm currently trying to calm down a very tired, very cross baby (not fun). And we brought in the set bedtime because he was naturally falling asleep and waking up at around the same times everyday anyway. If he wasn't like that I honestly wouldn't have bothered with any routine.

For balance, my niece is 6mo and doesn't go down for the night about 10ish and naps whenever she likes and it's not a problem for her. She's a lovely, very portable baby. They're all different.

Enjoy the rest of your mat leave .

My DS used to be a sleep fighter - I just accepted feeding to sleep / napping on me / going for long pushchair walks together him to sleep. He's only been doing predictable sleeps for a few weeks. He's 19 weeks now, probably started sleeping to a pattern about 4 weeks ago.

I've been trying to get DS to sleep for 2 hours and although he is so obviously shattered he just won't sleep.

I'm going to take him for a walk and see if that works.

I have a 30 minute rule for naps at home - if he doesn't sleep then I try later or take him out for a walk in the pushchair with the snooze shade on.

When you say trying, what have you been doing for 2 hours? Mine would flip out if I'd been "handling" him (rocking/jiggling/patting etc) for longer than about 10 minutes!

I lay him in his MB for 30 minutes, he just gurgled to himself. I took him out and rocked him/hummed to him for 15 minutes and it had no effect. I decided to try and feed him to sleep and although he was drowsy during the feed he didn't drop off. I put him back in his MB but 30 minutes later he was still wide awake.

I have been out with him in the pram for 2.5 hours but he has only slept for 30 minutes of that.

It has been 8 hours since he woke up for the day and in that time he has only had 1.5 hours sleep cumulatively.

Short of knocking him out, there's not much I can do.

Instead of trying to put him down awake, I would feed/rock him to sleep first off. Once he's already 30 minutes past when he was due a nap he is already overtired and will be harder to settle.

Feeding and rocking doesn't work though in the day - it has no effect on trying to induce sleep.

At night it is a much more successful technique but 75% of the time he then wakes up when I put him in his crib anyway. It's so frustrating.

I tend to put him down awake initially because he always used to self settle himself off to sleep, no problem, but it's a skill he seems to have forgotten these days

He's lying on his playmat now, yawning and rubbing his eyes so I know he's tired - I really just don't understand why he won't sleep.

Maybe he's just too high on life

Soooooo jealous of everyone who has good nappers

A nap time routine I started a few weeks ago and have refined a bit recently is working really well, now we have definite sleep cues.

Dark room + white noise + grobag = he is usually nearly asleep before I've even done the grobag up!

I think because I do this consistently 3/4 times a day, day in, day out it's now implanted in his memory.

What do you do though if you are out and about when he is due one of his naps?

I plan my day around it
E.g Tuesday mornings we do yoga at 10:30
He usually naps around 9:30ish, maybe later so I always walk there instead of take the bus so that he naps in the pushchair for the full 45 minute walk and we arrive with him having just woken up.

Last week we had a family barbecue - his morning nap was in the car in the way there. His middle nap I took him around the block in the pushchair , his last nap was in the car in the way home.

I can't just be out somewhere at his nap time and not be able to put him down for a proper sleep.

I'm so jealous of your napping baby

DS has only had 2 hours sleep in the last 13 hours!

He is only a catnapper though so I do have my own issues with his naps - 30-40 minutes tops so barely enough time to run a duster round or hang a load of washing.

But he literally can't function if he doesn't reset his clock every couple of hours with 40 winks.

Well I managed to get him to sleep 2.5 hours after he woke this morning

He fell asleep whilst feeding, I rocked him for about 20 minutes then successfully transferred him into his Moses Basket. He's still in there now and it's been 50 minutes since he fell asleep.

How's it going Writer? Have you tried white noise? It has to be louder than you going for it to work but I don't know what I'd do without it.

My DD1 was a nightmare napper but this time I introduced a dummy quite early (it didn't affect breastfeeding like all the books tell you it will) and that combined with loud rain noise sends DD2 off in minutes most times - although it doesn't always work if she's not ready.

I also use it at night, loud to send her off and then turned down low. I have learned to sleep with it on as it drowns out DD2's noisy grunting etc.