naps... what on earth am i doing!!!?

[Katekoom]

Ok, im feeling clueless right now and really need some guidance and reassurance.

Dd is seven weeks tomorrow, she goes down usually first time at night, we have a set routine and it seems to work (touch wood) but it does result in her being breast fed to sleep.

She used to go down for naps fairly well having at least one long one in the day, but recently I'm finding it impossible to put her down. She feeds to sleep and then i just sit there with her. Ive tried putting her down a few times and failed, so now i just don't bother. I know how important her naps are to ensure good night time sleep so i tend to hold on to her with the theory that she will sleep better in my arms.

I'm considering moving her up stairs into a darkened room for naps to try and establish a better routine.

But how do i get her to go down awake? It feels like an impossible task!!

At that age ds didn't go down awake was either fed to sleep or rocked in sling. Persevere with putting down if you want to /need to sleep yourself but I rested with ds on me often. He grew out of it eventually. ..

7 weeks is really early to be worrying about that imo. at that age the main thing is just getting as much food into them as they'll take, and if that helps them nod off, bonus.

I found DD progressed from falling asleep on the boob to going into a kind of sleepy milk trance after 3 months or so, after which I started putting her down only half asleep. Being fed to sleep early on, and lots of naps in the sling or buggy didn't do her long term sleep patterns any damage. It all went to crap after about 6 months but that's another story

Seven weeks is still very young, but maybe worth trying to work towards a routine or pattern where you feed her on waking? A friend of mines daughter got into good morning nap habits by her needing to pop her in her cot while she showered, her dd would happily lay there and be asleep by the time she was out of the shower?

I vividly remember buying a gro-anywhere blind around 6/7 weeks to make the room dark... It helped!

I stopped fighting the napping on me when DS1 was about six months old (and believe me, I fought!). Life got so much pleasanter when I knew I could park on my bum, cuddling a baby, eating biscuits fruit, watching something crappy on the TV. He carried right on with naps either on me or in the car/pram right up until he dropped his last nap a few weeks ago aged 2.8y.

DS2 is similarly cot-averse, so I've made friends with Netflix, or let him nap in a sling on me if I need to get anything done.

Yes, my house is a tip and the laundry is piling up, but I don't give a shit. I won't get to cuddle my babies for a very long time at all, in the scheme of things, and I know it will be the number one thing I'll miss when I'm back at work in a few weeks (they nap absolutely fine at nursery, in case you're wondering).