NO naps!! At a loss to know what to do

[kiwicath]

Ohrrr man, have tried to sort things out on my own but now need some major advice. I'll try to make it brief. My little boy is almost 6 months. He goes to bed without a peep every night at 7pm, gets lifted for dream feed at 10.30pm then sleeps till 6.30/7.00. No problems there but through the day he refuses to nap. Come 8/9am he gives major tired signs so take him to cool, darkish room, change nap, music, wind down then lay him in his cot smiling and cooing. I kiss him, walk out and then the crying begins. Have tried to leave him 15/20min to "settle" but to no avail. When I go in to sooth, he stops immediately, pats my face and begins to coo again. I kiss then walk out only for him to start up again. What do I doooooo!!!!???? He knows how to put himself to sleep as he does it every blumin night, he's not afraid of his cot as goes down brilliantly. Eventually I get him up, and carry on with the day. I try again an hour or two later but same old, same old. Going out in stroller impossible as 45-50C outside. He's never just fallen asleep on his play mat, or bouncy chair either. A 6 month old who stays so alert and awake for 12 solid hours cannot be "normal" or healthy - for me or him. Just scanned thru Contented Babe and Babe Whisperer but no help there. Please, please, any advice.

is he happy? does he seem overtired? If 'yes' and 'no', then I think maybe he is ok? Does he fall asleep at all during the day - what about during a feed?

I struggled with daytime naps for ds1 but it was extremely obvious that he needed them - reduced to a screaming wreck without sleep. I had to sleep train him to do it - initially up to an hour's crying - it wasn't pleasant and I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been clear this was the only way forward. He wasn't a good sleeper as a newborn like your babe.

I know your chap has been a star sleeper and I've heard of other similar babies who haven't needed much daytime sleep - could be he's getting such great nighttime sleep he just doesn't need it. Does he seem to need to go to bed earlier than 7?

Contented Baby has a case study of a baby who never naps... 7 months old? Where's the GF brigade when you need 'em????

He seems sleepy with eye rubbing, ear pulling and yawning etc but refuses to go off to sleep. He rarely cries when he's up even when tired/overtired just makes the odd growl. It's now just after 4pm in my neck of the woods and I've given him a boob where he's fallen hopelessly asleep. As a rule I try never to put him down asleep but what's to be done. So far today he's learnt that if he refuses to go to sleep on his own and cries long enough he'll eventually get picked up and (by this time he's hungry) gets a boob as a reward. I think he knows he's onto a winning combination - little tike! OOOOOOOhhh brother, he's awake again after only ten minutes!!!! Roll on 7 oclock.

Personally in your situation, knowing that he has no night time sleep problems, I would use the boob if it helped to get him drowsy and hence off to sleep. If you did that earlier on in the day before he was overtired you might find he slept for longer.
When did this problem begin? What did you do previously for sleeps? Has he just started either to need less sleep (so you need to adjust your nap schedule) or to become rather more alert and keen to spend more time with you?
And (rather off topic but I'm curious) - can you really not go out at all with him? Think I'd have been certifiable if I couldn't go out of the house with ds1!!

In the beginning (up till 3 months) he would go down for a nap at 9am as good as gold. Back then my only moan was that he'd only sleep for 45min max - Oh, for those days again!! He would rarely go down for a lunch time nap but would have nap in stroller between 4pm-5pm. Don't know why things started to change but little by little he wouldn't settle for his morning nap, so would go into him which would only get him more and more wound up. He'd chugg along nicely through the day where I'd try to put him down for a luch time nap - forget it! but would still at least sleep on his afternoon stroll. Now that it's hotting up, the only time I can get out is mornings till 11am ish. Strolls between 4-5pm are out of the question now as temps are still mid 40's that late in the day. If I leave it any later for a stroll his bed time will get pushed later and later. I knew come summer I'd be limited to my outside time so that's why I was so keen to get him to nap without props (stroller/car etc). If only he could go down for a nice 2.5 hour nap mid day I'd be the happiest girl in town. I swim with him every morning and he's an active little fella - I simply can't figure out why he's not on his knees come mid day - I know I am!!

So it sounds like he's never really needed a lot of day time sleep, and it may be more of a problem for you than for him, iyswim?
Would he have an earlier sleep if you got out in the stroller in the morning?
I can appreciate that you ideally want him to sleep by himself in the cot, and also that you need a break. However I'm not sure that for your baby it would be worth the kind of drastic get tough measures I used on ds1. My two babies have been very different with respect to how they react when tired - ds1 complete nightmare, so I needed to do something about it, ds2 just gets mildly grumpy. I can't imagine doing the whole sleep training thing on ds2, would probably just muddle through and hope that things settled down as he got older.
Anyway I'm sure someone else will have something mroe useful to say!

I agree with elliott that it may be that he just doesn't need a lot of day time sleep. Though this may change when he gets more active with crawling, then walking etc. My dd literally couldn't cope without daytime sleep. She'd either become hysterically unhappy or she'd just lie down and sleep wherever we were and it doesn't sound like your ds suffers like that at all. However I can understand that you need a break. Is there any way you can get him off to sleep in his stroller and then wheel him indoors to somewhere cooler and let him nap in the stroller? Even if it's only a short sleep at least it's better than nothing.

DD started not napping at about the same age.She did exactly the same as your DS & like him,would fall happily to sleep on her own at night & slept from 6.30pm until 8-9.30am.

I guess she didn't need daytime naps as she did such a long night sleep.Also she is the sort of child who hates to miss anything,so wouldn't sleep if out in her pram ect.

I stopped trying to make her nap in the end.I let her fall asleep on the floor if she needed to,but left it at that.Luckily,by the time she was 8 months & crawling,she tired herself out a lot,so I started putting her down for a nap after lunch & now she nearly always naps for 2 hours.Thankfully it hasn't affected her night time sleep & she will still do 14 hours if left undisturbed.

Silly question,but have you tried giving him his 6.30-7am feed & putting him straight back down in his cot afterwards? I did this with DD & it worked-she would sleep on til 9.30am,so it didn't matter that she hadn't had a proper morning nap IYKWIM (plus I got a lovely lie in).