Can anyone recommend any baby sleep guides

[singingpinkmonkey]

Hello,

Does anyone have any baby sleep guide books they can recommend? I have a 10 week old son who I have been having a nightmare getting to nap during the daytime.

I'm at the end of my tether with it and my poor baby is so overtired, I feel like I'm lettting him down.

I have tried using a dummy, sling, bouncer chair and rocking him to sleep but all of these seem to just aggravate him.

I also sometimes have success with walking him in the pram or taking him in the car but even that seems to be failing now. Today he has had the grand total of 1.5 hours and that's been a series of catnaps!

He sleeps relatively well at night but am convinced he would sleep better if he had a decent nap. I'm hoping that a sleep guide might give me some new ideas or techniques to try. If I could afford it, I would pay for a sleep consultant.

I just feel so sad that not even a mummy cuddle can lull him to sleep, he just screams until he his exhausted.

Thanks as always for any pearls of wisdom!

I don't have any book recommendations. All children are very different and every parent has a slightly different take on her parenting style. So I cannot see how any 'one size fits all' book can work, regardless of the ethos it follows.

Follow your instincts and trust in yourself, ignoring what you thought you "should" be doing and doing what works best.

Some bits of advise to help you amend your expectations to something more realistic:

• car naps are fine. No problem with short (20-40m) naps. At age, that is normal.

• babies this age don't need stimulation. Sitting watching you is plenty enough. So dont over stimulate with rattles, moving toys, millions of bright colour, lights, sounds etc. Time will come for that when you have a crawling, grabbing baby. For now, less is more.

• babies like: sucking, rhythmic movement, being close to you all the time, calm, low level background noise

• don't underestimate the basic need for constant feeding. Especially if breastfeeding. Babies need calories. A fully baby will be a sleepy baby. A well fed baby is more likely to be a deep sleeper.

• a well mother matters just as much. If you are stressed, feeling anxious, feeling sad or down, speak to your doctor. Baby will feed-off such feelings.

Thank you FATE. I think my problem stems from reading too many different manuals/guides/web pages when it comes to my baby. I am terrified of creating "bad habits" and it's sadly ruining my time with him.

Glad that you think car naps are fine as I have been relieved that he evens sleeps at all in the day so was dreading the idea of stopping those.

I have tried getting him to sleep in a darkened room with me but he just fights it until we both get upset. So, as much as things like the 'The Baby Sleep Guide' advocate getting the baby to sleep in his crib , it's something I struggle with.

Thank you for your advice, I appreciate you taking the time to respond!

At this point he'll be having teeny weeny micro naps rather than proper proper naps. You'll probably find he'll start falling into his own routine soon enough x

Usually around 4 months they have a growth spurt/rewire/sleep pattern change. They start to sleep more like we do (though sadly more often than not as much as we would like!)

"Car naps" was a mis-type, it was supposed to say "cat nap". Although car naps are fine too!

Don't worry about short naps, just make them frequent.

When you talk about things aggravating him (dummy, bouncer, sling etc), I'm not sure if that is unrealistic expectations. See, a baby who is tired Is not just going to calmly close eyes and calmly and silently go to sleep.

You do have to work to get baby to sleep, especially and over tired baby. The aggravated you mention are probably as a result of baby being tired and wanting to go to sleep. Not the method of getting to sleep.

Something in baby a mouth to suck (nipple, dummy, bottle) will mostly calm the crying. But without this, there is likely to be crying and upset as baby goes to sleep.

Personally I don't like to hear this crying do so if I wasn't feeding to sleep, we gave a dummy. That then reduces the upset, but still won't mean baby just goes to sleep, just like that. You still need to work at it.

This mostly comes down to trusting your instincts. If you know baby is tired, then just keep going through all the agitation. Be relentless about it. Just keep going - something to suck and movement - relentlessly and non stop until asleep.

I've read quite a few sleep guides and found them useful because they show
a. there is no one way of doing things which will suit all babies
b. you really do know best because no one knows your baby as well as you do.

If you really do want to do some reading, "3 in a bed" and "the contented little baby book" give you an idea of how extremely different approaches to sleep can be, and how important it is to do what you feel comfortable with and not what some random book tells you to do. If you want a moderate, down-to-earth approach, "the no cry sleep solution" is a good place to start and gives a number of different ideas.

Thank you so much for all your responses. I definitely have some food for thought here.
I will try and remain calm and not get stressed as that will make it worse.

Motherhood really is the most amazing but difficult thing I've ever experienced!

I don't think you can create bad habits in a 10 week old. Don't fight to get him to sleep in a crib, it's not worth it if he doesn't like to. He might be having a growth spurt and as FATE says might need to feed a lot. I would keep him close, try to relax and be guided by him, he will sleep as much as he needs to. I have also heard good things about The No Cry Sleep Solution if you want a book.

Be relentless about it. Just keep going

This. My daughter still, at six months, whinges her way into every nap. I recognise it as her "fighting sleep" sound now, but still have to bust through ten minutes of it as she drops off. Bouncing works for us, feeding keeps her quieter, but I've learned to just keep at it till she goes off. She's still not great at staying asleep very long but I just keep an eye on limiting the gap between naps. They can cope with surprisingly little time awake! She still needs to go down after two hours up! It'll be even more little and often with a teeny one! Try not to worry.

Just to say, I started posting on these sleep boards when my son was around 10 weeks old and I was stressed because he just wouldn't nap and would scream and scream, and he wouldn't even nap in my arms. But he did sleep well at night.

At that time a poster did suggest it might be possible my son had reflux, and as it happened my son had been taking medication for reflux type symptoms but the doctor at that time had requested we wean him off the medication. As soon as I started giving him the medication again he suddenly started napping. It turned out he had 'silent reflux'.

Now, I don't for one minute want to suggest that your baby has reflux, but what I would always advise now is to make sure there's nothing health-wise that you think is preventing your baby from sleeping soundly. Once you've ruled that out I think you can start to build a good sleeping pattern.

I've read them all none I would say are better than a mothers judgement, however when your a first time mum you just get so overwhelmed in the desperate hope that something will work.

Tracey Hogg was the one I remembered still my first did not nap or sleep for three years

10 weeks is still so small, now I'm a bit more experienced I'd say wait until 4 - 6 months before trying any sleep training / routine, if you have a sleep / nap refuser.

Well I was sceptic about any sleep training guide because I have the worst sleeper in the history of babies but I've heard a lot about guide "How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone" by Susan Urban. The method is without CIO so that's convinced me. After 4 days my LO sleeps like an angel (nights and days). I still can't really believe it but it looks like we did it. I even got rid of night feedings so I am super SUPER happy!

AvrilG can you please give me a link to a website where I can find this guide. And when can I start this method? My baby just turned 3 months.
thanks

I got it here: www.parental-love.com
The author says that this method is for children over 3 months.