6mo refusing to nap - should I give up?

[rainyandwindy]

About a month ago, DS transitioned onto 2-3 naps a day, with a short 30 min nap in the morning, then a 2 hour-ish nap early afternoon, and sometimes a 30-40 min nap late afternoon. It used to be fairly easy to put him down by rocking with a dummy. He has never been able to self settle and I don't believe he is ready for that, developmentally.

Since then gradually things have gotten worse. Now his naps are completely unpredictable. He refuses the dummy, and rocking does not help. He seems to want to be held and just look around the room. Then eventually he gets upset, and I don't know whether this is because he is tired or because he isn't tired and doesn't want to go to sleep. It takes an hour or more for him to finally fall asleep on me. He will then sleep for anything between 20 min - 3 hours, morning or afternoon.

I have tried putting him down earlier or later to account for possibly being under/over tired but it doesn't help. I have tried to watch for sleepy signs, but it isn't helping so I guess they aren't predictive of wanting to sleep. He used to sleep well in the pram, but now it only works 50% of the time and the other 50% he screams and I have to take him home.

I feel like giving up on trying to get him to nap altogether. It is just so stressful and I feel like it is making us all unhappy. FWIW, I don't think there is anything else going on with him (like teething) as he is happy enough the rest of the night, and ironically sleeping better than he has ever done at night.

Anyone else have this problem, and what has been your solution for solving/coping?

He'll be exhausted at night, which will account for him zonking out.

I definitely would not give up, your son is likely to need daytime naps for a long time to come, at least 2 more years. So preserver and get him to sleep in the day as much as possible.

If the transition to 2-3 naps per day (I assume from more frequent shorter naps?) was the catalyst for the problems, then if it was me I'd go back to aiming for shorter frequent naps.

Dummy refusal for a baby that normally has a dummy is almost always because of either (a) hunger or (b) difficulty breathing through the nose (ie snot from a cold)

My ds was like this around the same age because he was starting to get more interested in the world around him, wanting to roll around, commando crawl, grab things, etc. I pushed through it and after a couple of months (sorry!) he was back to napping as usual.

The thing with the dummy, is even when he did take it, it was when he wanted comfort and to go to sleep. Now it's just like he doesn't even want to, he's just super active and wants to look around everywhere. Sigh.

That super active looking around everywhere, what could be described as "wired" could actually be wide-eyed utter exhaustion. He's likely to develop and learn more and be more alert and active than he currently is with plenty of sleep, not less. Just like all people in that way, sleep deprivation is not conducive to healthy development. But you are the expert on your child, not me.

Your 6 month old definitely needs sleeps in the daytime. Quite a significant amount of daytime sleep too. He is at least a couple of years too young to consider dropping daytime naps.

As Trinpy said, lot and lots of physical things being learnt at this age. Developmental changes like this do change things, nothing will stay the same. You just have to roll with it and work out new things that work.

Giving up naps because his naps have changed is not the answer.

He might not want a dummy any more. One of my twins gave hers up at the same age, so I seized on the opportunity to ditch it.

I second what everyone else has said about naps - he sounds too tired to sleep. Try and get him to sleep whatever way you can, in the car, in a buggy, white noise in the cot, whatever it takes.

Probably not what you want to hear but both my DC refused to nap at home from about 4m and never did again (except on my shoulder occasionally). But they would usually nap in the pram or car and on the days they went to nursery (which they started at 6m). I decided that it was more exhausting stressing about it than it was to just keep going - though was very jealous of friends who got "time off" while their DC slept.

I'm having the same problem with my 7 month old! He's so alert and aware of everything that he's so distractable!

I'm having the same problem with my 7 month old! He's so alert and aware of everything that he's so distractable!

I will keep persevering, but I hold out little hope for having a predictable routine! I do need to find a better solution because I don't want to stress him out. Yesterday he had one 3 hour nap in the pram (and fell asleep very easily), but then refused to take an afternoon catnap (tried cot and pram for an hour in total).

Today we had a 20 min morning nap (took an hour of trying cot, then pram, then cot and finally dropped off during a bottle). Then there was a 1h lunchtime nap in the sling while we were out, and finally a 30 min late afternoon nap where he fell asleep during a bottle.

Blackout blinds in his room. Plus gentle white noise or something

Try having a nap routine - morning nap, take him for a walk. Post lunch nap, in his cot with blackouts etc.

Babies are naturally routine creatures. Your son will naturally develop his own routine.

The problem when you don't have a routine is you tend to swing from one extreme to the other, exhaustion and over tired, rather than striking the happy middle.

Once in a routine you don't need to wait for tired signs, you know baby will be tired at a set time so you put them to sleep. If you wait for exhaustion to strike (like falling asleep in middle of a bottle) then baby has been tired for a good 60 minute previously so you could have put him to sleep an hour earlier than you did.

I have blackout blinds in the room and have been using Ewan the dream sheep for white noise from birth. He also has a teddy which he snuggles with.

Believe me, I would love a routine. We used to have one as I mentioned in my OP, he just doesn't want to adhere to it. It used to be morning nap in cot, lunchtime nap in pram.

I have tried putting him down much earlier to account for overtiredness. It didn't work.

Just waving at the other wits end mamas with non napping babes! Reading OP was like someone looking in my living room window and watching me and DS! I even wearily chuckled at the familiarity of it all.

DS has quite literally just screamed himself to sleep (whilst I cried on the sofa) and it felt awful... Determined to try something new next week, there has to be some light at the end of the tunnel right?

Sorry to hear that septbaby, it's so hard isn't it? I almost feel like it was easier when DS was waking up every hour or two in the night! I had some success with rocking him in the pram in the house or back garden. I guess it was quieter and I stayed within his sight so he felt calmer. That has made me think it might be due to being unsettled because of a developmental leap (according to wonder weeks this age is where they realise you can walk away from them). I still used his props (cuddly toy and Ewan) when in the pram. Not sure it will work forever, but it has provided a couple of days of respite. Good luck.