Discovering the world and hating napping!

[MissTwister]

My 9 week old (6 weeks adjusted) loved sleeping during the day - until 3 days ago! She seems to have suddenly discovered the world and has become much more alert which is great. The flipside is that she now refuses to sleep much in the day instead just staring excitedly around and wildly kicking her arms and legs. She is happy doing this for hours but inevitably leads to a major over tired meltdown by early evening!

I managed to get her to do about 2 hours in total yesterday and she fought that so much. Cue a tiring evening...

Any tips on how to get an excited baby to nap? Putting her down 'when sleepy but not asleep' is an absolute no go as she just lies there flailing around excitedly for hours!

You could try a swaddle to give that tight, secure feeling (like being held).

A dummy is a great sleep aid for a whingey, sucky baby.

Many babies sleep well to movement - bouncy chair, swing, carseat, pram.

Some like to be held to sleep or be in a sling.

The newborn stage is the easiest of all in terms of sleep. All baby needs is a full tummy and sleep should come easily, as you have found. Once out of the newborn phase and interested in the world, that's when the sleep "fun" starts and you need to try lots of tricks and tactics to get baby sleeps.

Putting her down 'when sleepy but not asleep' is not possible without giving her some assistance in independent sleeping after newborn phase. Some lucky parents babies just need a full tummy and they will sleep. Dummy and swaddle does this for us at night to allow independent falling asleep. Dummy and bouncing on the bouncy chair does it for daytime sleeps.

Thanks for detailed response Fate.

Unfortunately she hates swaddling and dummies! With the dummy she will sometimes take it for a few minutes but then spits it out - almost like she has trouble keeping it in but we have been trying this for a good few weeks now with no success. Any tips?

We bought a fancy expensive swing and she likes it for about 10 mins but then cries- certainly doesn't get her to sleep

Feeding is the only thing working right now...and she's suddenly wanting to do that ever hour and a half. Maybe it's a growth spurt!

Mine is the same...will eventually fall asleep after feeding and if I'm lucky I can transfer him to car seat / buggy and go out, or his vibrating chair. Swaddling certainly helps, I'll swaddle before I feed him. If he is dozy after feeding I'll cuddle him and pat his bum until he's in a deeper sleep. Also won't take a dummy, which may be a blessing really! He was a brilliant sleeper for the first 6/7 weeks but definitely harder to 'switch him off' now! Meaning a lot of his 'awake time' is very grumpy time! Also have a toddler around so when I've got both of them all day, I end up with an over tired baby by the end of the day who is so hard to settle!

Without doubt I think dummies are worth persevering with for the long term no crying sleep benefit.

My older children took to a dummy easily. But my youngest didn't initially and she needed 'teaching' until she understood what to do to get comfort from the dummy. That took her until about 7 weeks old (from about 3 weeks old, with constant perseverance). It just took time for her to 'get it'. No real tips aside from not giving up just because it's being spit out.

Swaddling is like marmite. Some babies love it, some hate it. It is great for occasional use when in over-tired meltdown.

Good feeding will certainly help with good sleeping. Could you time naps alongside feeds and try to feed to sleep every hour and a half when she feeds? Regular, frequent naps will avoid over tiredness.

Hi, my dd is 8 weeks on Saturday and we're just entering the too-excited to nap phase. My number one priority at the moment is getting her to accept a dummy, sleep in her bouncy chair and to do both with ds (21 months) in the room. I'm loosely using a EASY routine only for us it's EAST-Eat, Activity, Sleep, Toddler! She seem to be able to last around 20-30 minutes awake maximum so when she looks tired she goes into the bouncer, blanket tucked in around her, vibrations on then dummy in. I then hold my hand on her chest holding the dummy in until she starts to suck on it and bounce the chair until she goes to sleep. I then bribe/sshhh/beg ds to stay reasonably quiet for half and hour whilst keeping tv on so that there's some background noise. It's all a bit exhausting tbh but the alternatives as i see it are;

1. Buggy-not really practical to bundle them both into a buggy every 2 hours.
2. Nap on me- I did this with ds until he was 7 months but again it's not really practical with ds
3. Sling- I really don't think I could cope having her "on" me all day

However if any of the above work for you do them!!

By the way this is our bouncer;
www.mothercare.com/Fisher-Price-Woodsy-Friends-Bouncer/434621,default,pd.html
I like it because it's light enough to carry to another room and you can "rock" it with your foot.

Sounds almost identical to me 9 months ago when my DD was that age Nicky. Exact same priorities and also exact same Fisher Price bouncer (except mine is the older version - saved from use with older sibling).

Did it work FATE?? I've been absolutely tearing my hair out today as dd has gone to sleep well in the bouncer only to be woken by ds within 10 minutes. I really don't know what I can do about it- I'm resorting to dummy and tv for ds but even with that there's a lot of squeeling and shouting going on and she just seems to be a bit of a light sleeper. It's not the constant low level stuff it's when ds doesn't immediately get what he wants and shouts. I have a fear that he is cottoning on to this too.

It has Nicky

We had lots of crying from DD going to sleep until she was 7 weeks. Then 'getting' that she could suck on the dummy (which happened when she was about 7 weeks, after much hard work) was like a magic switch. Nights and all naps a million times easier.

I've taken things slowly, not pushing DD to anything she is unhappy with. She never cried on going to sleep. This meant a gentle transfer to cot sleeping with patting at around 5 months, then patting changed to hand on chest until she was asleep, then me lying next to the cot (on my bed) until she was asleep, then waiting by the door. Now, at 11 months old, I can put her in cot with dummy fully awake, leave immediately an not hear a peep from her. It's taken gentle time though.

Regarding toddler siblings - I don't have that problem so much this time around (my other three children are 11, 10 and 6 so are all at school). I have had the baby & toddler at home before though.

My vote is for as much noise, light and chaos as possible around that sleeping baby. I fully believe light/deep sleeping is down to nurture, not nature. I think you can teach a newborn baby not to be a light sleeper by having them sleep in noise and goings-on during those early months.

My eldest two are 14 months apart so I had to embrace the 'little baby and big baby' chaos at home. DC2 is the deepest sleeper I know. I used to put him to sleep directly under an overhead light, by the window, next to the TV, in the living room while DC1 played. Because he could sleep with all that going on, when he went to bed at night in a quiet, dark room he slept very, very deeply and always has done which caused a problem with bed wetting, but that is another story.

At the moment we have very little choice about the noise! She just gets lots of very short naps-not ideal but we'll work on it. She takes the dummy ok after much perseverance. She now sleeps very well at night- a bit too well last night after we've introduced a bedtime bottle of f and went from 10.30 to 5am . I woke up with mega boobs!

Sorry to hijack your thread op. How's your baby doing with naps? Have you tried dummy/bouncy chair?

Following with interest as my 6week old has slept for less than an hour all day. He is exhausted. He fed to sleep twice but never really sustained it. Nothing else has been successful at all - walking around with him on my shoulder, bouncer, pram, vacuuming around him. He's now so tired he's practically tugging my nipple off when feeding. Thank god he's been sleeping better at night. It's not even like he started off overtired - I tried to settle him less than 90 minutes after we'd got up this morning. To all intents and purposes I've been trying ever since. DH taken him off for a bath now to see if that helps.

Hi all, we bought a dummy for 0-2 months (she is 9 weeks) and she's taken to it with aplomb so I think the other dummies were just too big. This has really helped with daytime napping and she has slept hours yesterday and today - once she starts she can't stop!

Although on the flipside last night she woke up twice more than usual in the night which wasn't great - not sure if this is correlation or causation as I know they say that sleeping more in the day should help them sleep more at night. Keeping my eye on this and if it happens again tonight may consider interrupting her mammoth afternoon nap which was 3 hours today.

Muddywellynelly don't panic it may just stop in a couple of days as it did with mine!

Nickyeds my daughter did 8pm-4am the other night! Pity last night it was every 2-3 hours. How can it change so much!

The massive, mammoth daytime naps could be catching up on sleep. I'd give her a few days/week to settle before changing anything.

I also got some massive sleeps out of my DD in the few days following each set of immunisations - don't suppose she is post-jabs?

No jabs were a week ago so doubt that would affect it now. Will give her time to settle. Last night she did 1:15 and 5:15 so not too bad....

Which dummy did you get miss? DS is still refusing his. If another sort is preferable I'll try that!

MissTwister, you may have been right as he's slept loads today. Let's see how tonight goes. However it looked ropey until late morning when DH took him into a darker room and put on the age appropriate Sopranos and he conked out. I think over stimulation is the issue. My next trick will be pram with a muslin over it.

Nottalotta it was a MAM one