Is it normal for an 8 week old to scream before a nap Every. Single. Time?

[JaneEyreFunfair]

She was obviously a lot more sleepy at first but now that she is getting more awake during the day, we can't get her to nap without a good 20-30 mins of rocking, patting and shushing. I wouldn't mind that so much, but it is also almost always accompanied by horrible crying, the sort that turns into high-pitched hiccuping screams.

She only really wants to nap in our arms or the sling during the day, although we can sometimes put her down if we wait until she's fully asleep.

Her routine seems to be :

Wake up
Feed
Short 15-30 minute window of adorable smiley interactive time
Starts to show signs of tiredness
Take ages getting her to sleep
Sleep for anything between 30 mins and 2 hours
Repeat

So, basically, every two or three hours, we have to go through the whole screaming thing again. It is making me not want to get out and about so much, as I don't want to inflict it on the public!

She doesn't have the same problem at night, although she does tend to wake frequently, but will normally go back to sleep straight after a feed.

Is this normal? Does it get better?

My dd was the same. The only way she would nap was by screaming blue murder on me until she fell asleep.

Remained the same until I sleep trained her at 6 months

Mine was like this. He was so unsettled. Felt like he cried all the bloody time. It started at about 3 weeks. Some babies are just generally more unsettled than others I think. ‘Colic’ is a broad term but a lot of babies just take longer to adjust to the world. The crying died down about 12 weeks and stopped completely at 15 (bar the normal
Level of crying for a baby 😂). What helped was wearing him in the sling, letting him sleep on me, baths, and putting him on the boob. What happens in the pram or the car?

Oh well, at least I'm not alone! I didn't think it fit the definition of colic, since it's not all the time, and seems to be pretty clearly linked to tiredness. I thought colic was more unexplained crying?

The sling helps, but there's still normally some screaming to get through. The car does normally put her to sleep, and the pram sometimes but not reliably.

I hope it does improve with time, but I definitely plan to try some sleep training when she's a bit older.

Yep. My youngest DS did exactly this, it was like he had to have a ten minute 'tizz' before he would nod off. It was quite embarrassing when out an about but then he would sleep quite happily in my arms or whatever.

He grew out of it from about six months I think and was a brilliant napper after that and still is at 15mo (put down awake twice a day and goes to sleep himself for 1.5 hours). I had actually forgotten the random screaming thing until I saw this post! Hang in there.

Thank you, it does help to hear that!