Naps during the day

[AlexJane89]

Hi ladies, I need help with my 4 month old boy. At night he sleeps brilliantly. Hes in his cot, in his own room and only wakes for one feed. My problem is his naps during the day. He will only sleep in my arms! Every time I put him down he wakes instantly. He'll be going to nursery one day a week in 3 months time and I know they wont cuddle him while he naps

Any tips on how to get him to sleep in his cot? Thank you!

Do you swaddle of use a sleepyhead or similar?

Or, not of

No he just wears a sleeping bag at night. Can't reqlly afford a sleepyhead and I've heard its really hard to get them out of sleeping with a cosy dream or sleepyhead

Where are you trying to put him to sleep during the day? I was avoiding using my baby's cot as I'd read that daytime naps should be elsewhere. However after very little daytime naps I tried him in his sleeping bag and in his cot. Just like I do at night. Now we have 2 hour daytime naps! 👍🏼

I do exactly as I do at night. Put him in his sleeping bag, close the blinds and put him in his cot. He wakes up as soon as he touches the mattress! Hes too big for the moses basket now so have no where else to put him.

Do you warm the cot up at all before putting him in there?

He wakes up as soon as he touches the mattress

He needs to be going to sleep where he will stay asleep. So if you are chasing cot naps, that may involve shushing and patting and possibly a dummy. The idea is that baby goes from fully awake to asleep in the cot.

The shushing shining and patting is hard work though. Another option would be naps in a bouncy chair or pushchair so that you can use movement to get baby from awake to asleep in-situ

If you go for naps in something that moves, don't worry it won't be forever. By about 6 months old naps start getting longer and more spaced out. At that point it is likely to be more productive moving to cot naps.

Also bear in mind that SIDS recommendations say baby should sleep wherever you are for the first 6 months. That includes daytime naps.

Mine was the same when really little. What worked for me was establishing a routine pre nap and religiously sticking to it at the same time each day. To start with she was sleeping in my arms, then next to me on my bed, then eventually I tried her in the cot at nap time with shush pat and it worked! She was my first baby tho so I had time, couldn't have done it with my second so sorry if this advice is no good for you!

Don't worry about nursery though, they're like magicians at getting babies to sleep. I thought we'd have a nightmare but DD was fine! Good luck.