Need Nap Advice!!

[LucyLu1981]

My DD is 8 wks today and we have been following an evening routine for 4 days now - bath at 6.30pm bit of playtime then feed at 7.30ish from which she has been sleeping from then until 1am then wakes for quick feed and back down until 6am then either stays up til 7.30-8am or goes back down til 9am. Now this I am very happy with!!!!! (after weeks of bf every 1.5-2hrs this is amazing!) She has put herself in a 3hr feeding pattern during the day which is 15min feed, awake for 1.5hrs 15 mins crying then sleep for 1-1.5hrs what I would like some advice on is should she be being put down for these naps into her basket/pram - I have tried this and she wakes up immediately and then woke go back to sleep even on me which results in over tired grumpy baby!! Am I creating a monster just cuddling her through all daytime naps and only putting her down at 8pm each evening? All help/advice/experiences gratefully received! TIAx

Hi there - great to hear your dd is on 3 hr bf routine - clever girl!

We let ds sleep on me/dh/triangular bf cushion until he was 5 weeks then took him to moses basket in bedroom after then. By 7 weeks he was in his cot for all naps and overnight too as he had grown too big for basket.

We had a tough 3 days when we introduced this but we persevered (sitting beside him and shh-patting him until he fell asleep but only picking him up if he was getting distressed). He very quickly became great a going down for naps and bedtime went from 30 mins to settle to 20 to 10 and now he is asleep within minutes..

From my experience I would bite the bullet and try and get your dd to nap in her cot/basket. I really believe ds's good temperement is in part due to his good sleeping habits and it also lets you have some well deserved rest from them during the day!

Will she nap in the pram if you're out pushing it? If so, maybe you could do this to get her used to napping in the pram, then try putting her in it indoors? This is what we are trying to do with DS (9 weeks) and although it's still very much a work in progress (he will usually only nap for 30 mins in the pram, whereas it's up to 2 hours when cuddled on me), it is nice when he does have a kip indoors in the pram.

Having said that, today he has only had 3 x 20 minute naps all day, then been a bit of a pain to settle for the night, so maybe you shouldn't follow my advice

Thanks Foxy and Meg - I will try putting her down in pram as she does sleep in that when on walks (if she feels like it ) I guess like everything she will get used to it if I perservere! Think its the fear that she will immediately wake up if put down and not sleep again that stops me trying in the day.....what better excuse to do nothing than 'well I had to sit down while the baby slept!!!'

I had same problem with DS and what I found helped was if I leaned right over the cot/moses basket with him in my arms, and then ever so gently, moved my arm away from him, still rocking him with my arm under his back as I did so....kind of tricked him into thinking he was in my arms and then moved arm away and he stayed asleep....takes a good couple of goes but worked for me in the end....tried letting him nap in the pram but found that when he napped in his cot, he had much better sleep and was much less grumpy