13 week old doesn’t nap during the day unless laid on me.

[Newmum246]

Hi,

My DS is 13 weeks old and the past 3-4 weeks he has started sleeping through at night for about 9-11 hours with the occasional wake up for a feed early morning. But he now doesn’t nap during the day unless he is laid on me! Some days I don’t mind if I have nothing to do and enjoy the cuddle. But 5days out of 7 I do want to be going out and seeing friends/family and just getting out of the house. But he won’t nap!!
He used to fall asleep in his pram or in the car but the second you stop moving he wakes up or the second I put him down in his basket or pram he wakes up. I’ve tried putting him to sleep in his bed in our bedroom but he doesn’t have any of it.
And come 6pm all hell brakes loose all because he’s so overtired!! And I feel like all he does is cry. He just doesn’t seem to want to sleep!! The other morning he woke at 5am and I managed to get him to have 2hours nap during the day both were laid on me and then he took forever to settle at night and was a very disturbed sleep. He has reflux but we seem to have it under control with help from the doctors.
I’m in desperate need for some advice as it’s really starting to stress me out and getting upset, most days I wish I was back at work already!! And what I’d give for 1hot cup of tea a day or 1 meal that isn’t cold or ruined or thrown down my neck a day!

Thanks x

My dd was like this. She would go to sleep if I took her out for a walk In the pram but as soon as I stopped at home bam her eyes were open.

I resolved to letting her sleep on me and settled down with films and netflicks.

She is now 8 months old and in the past 2 weeks will fall asleep in the pram at home. I found putting it by the back door with the door open so she could hear road noise etc helped.

I will be moving on to cot naps at some point.

They go through these phases but it does change so you won't be stuck like that forever I promise.

You can try putting your t-shirt or something with little one so they can smell you.

For a long time my dd would only fall asleep on me. So I would get her to sleep then transfer her onto dh or dgp and that seemed to work.

Hang in there!

My 12 week old is similar, sleeps well at night but only has decent length naps on me. I'm actually trying to enjoy the cuddles this time around because this newbirn phase is over so quickly!
My plan is to track when she usually has naps on me and get into a routine before I then tackle putting her down for naps. I figure once I know what time she needs to nap I can then start implementing a nap-time routine, which will be a shorter version of the bedtime routine. Then try putting her down drowsy but awake.
With my first we had great success with controlled crying, where we did all the routine, put her down almost asleep then she would cry straight away. We would leave her for 1 minute, go in to reassure her, then leave for 2 minutes, go in and reassure, then leave for 3 mins etc etc. Did it for night sleep first then naps. It worked beautifully but was so hard and I think my little one is still way too young. A lot of the sleep books recommend sleep training between 4 and 6 months. Until then I will try to enjoy the baby cuddle naps!

Oh yes and the other trick I found. Would lay a blanket on my legs which were propped up like an A and lay dd on it and then rock my legs back and forth till she was asleep. Then wrap her up and lay her down.

Also we managed to swaddle and lay dd in a swing when asleep and that seemed to work sometimes.

There were times nothing worked or I would have to try one of the above until she settled

Wait till they're properly fast asleep and gently transfer them to cot or whatever sleeping space you use at daytime. I did this for years with various babies- you get very good at it with practice.