baby never sleeps during day

[verytiredmumma]

Please help. Sitting here crying after trying to battle my 5 month old to have a nap for the last 5 hours. She sleeps well overnight c.10 hours and then is a bloody nightmare all day everyday.

I don't even know why I'm asking for help because I guarantee I've tried everything already.

Baby is crying and so am I

This has been going on for months

What have you tried?

It's wonderful that she sleeps all night.
Probably gets bored during the day, hence the crying.
Activities - music, play, singing, conversation, fun are in order I think.

I feel for you though, I know I liked to have a sleep during the day when my baby did. Felt quite deprived without it.

Go for a walk in the pushchair

Go for a drive

White noise (hairdryer use to put mine to sleep)

Feed to sleep

Sling, walking in pram, sleeping in my bed, feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep, etc, dummies, sleepyhead, white noise, gentle singing, car seat, bouncer laid flatter.

She won't stop screaming. I feel like everyday I am hurting her because she doesn't sleep. I know she is overtired but I don't understand how to get her to sleep when I know her tired cues and try to get her to go down as soon as she is sleepy. She resists everything and is so unhappy.

I literally spend all day singing, taking her out, seeing people, playing with toys, I cannot tire her out anymore

I use this chart

www.mybabysleepguide.com/2013/02/average-sleep-charts-by-age.html?m=1

My baby is usually on the top end of the awake time but this includes feeding time and settling to sleep time. She does cry but there are no tears, just shouting.

Try one technique and stick to it for all naps for one week. She’s not going to get it on the first day but by the end of the fourth she might get it.

I’d go for a general 3 hour routine

Wake up and eat
Play
2 hours later walk to bedroom closing all the curtains and doors on the way and saying night night. Put down to sleep awake. Every couple of minutes put your hand on her and shh.

Do jobs whilst she’s settling. Putting washing away etc is productive as well as distracting.

Naps are important. 10 hours sleep in 24 is just not enough.

That is almost exactly what I already try and she just fights it until she gets so worked up she's hysterical. She lies down ok and then starts shouting and I go back and forth settling. It lasts up to 40-60 minutes before she is really hysterical and I end up giving in after that. I don't get much done because I've barely left the room before she has spat her dummy about and is going wild.

This is what I mean when I say I feel like I've tried everything and there is no helping her. I know 10 hours is not enough I feel bad enough about it already. My health visitor couldn't suggest anything different either and said it was a phase. That was about 2 and half months ago. I am at my wits end.

Will she sleep if you hold her?

@Fieau nope ☹️ she's just been crying and pissed off even when I hold.

She's not even teething at the moment and isn't sick. Although even if she was it honestly wouldn't make a difference.

That sounds really tough. The only way mine naps is if I put her into bed beside me or if I hold her.
She also naps in car seat for school run and occasionally buggy.
Has she reflux?

That sounds so difficult, poor you. Just a thought and I may be totally off the mark but perhaps she’s a bit over stimulated if you spend all day singing, playing with toys, seeing people... I’d also pick a technique, the obvious is to do whatever works at night, and stick to it but would make sure I did virtually nothing else during that first week and would have a really quiet one at home. I also wouldn’t rush to go back and settle, give her a little while so to see if she starts to do it herself. She won’t immediately but she might (fingers crossed) eventually. The dummy might also be doing more harm then good if she keeps spitting it out then getting more upset as she’s lost it. And failing all else is there anyone that can take for an odd day and just give you a bit of a break?

She does have reflux and she has been on medication since 5 weeks old. It is slowly improving now and was a reason why she didn't sleep well in the beginning but she is pretty good on the medicine.

It is so tough. Genuinely nobody understands how hard it is. I don't even want to be here during the day with her I just want to go back to work. My family and dh don't totally get it either because Im the only one dealing with it on a daily basis for this length of time.

I don't have much actual advice but lots of sympathy.

Sometimes if my 5 mo old baby is overtired and we've had a busy couple of days we have a duvet day to catch up. We literally spend all day in bed, no pressure for him to sleep but just hang out with him feeding as much as he wants and he usually ends up having some longer naps than usual.

I can get really stressed if I feel it's time for him to sleep and he won't, so just removing any sort of timetable for it helps stop me getting worked up.

I've a friend from NCT whose DD has never been a day time sleeper. She might grab the odd short nap occasionally during the day, but I remember distinctly that every time we met up on mat leave my friend's DD would be wide awake the whole time and friend informing us how she can never get anything done because she just wont ever nap. If she did ever nap, friend would have to go into a dark room and BF her to sleep but even then she would usually get FOMO and refuse to nap.

Her DD is nearly 18 months now and still hasnt got into day time napping. Maybe some babies just dont want to sleep. Probably not what you want to hear (especially when you know she is over tired!).

On the other hand another friend's DD done nothing but sleep all the time, to the point she was worried and got her checked out (she was fine fyi).

Anyway, OP, I just want to remind you it will get easier hun. Hopefully she will soon start enjoy sleeping so you can at least have a bit of a rest (is bloomin tiring looking after a baby, let alone one that is always awake!)

@Fieau I do the same. Today has been one of those days. OP I sympathise so much. I'm sorry I don't have any advice. I genuinely thought at one point when my DC was crying and fighting her naps that I could just put them down and walk out. They're 6 months & they'll only sleep on me at the moment. I keep telling myself "this will pass" but it's so fucking hard sometimes.

I don't think all babies have read the chapter on sleep. Mine will absolutely not be put down to nap and it is really hard when I need to get things done.

How long after waking do you put her down to sleep? Mine gets taken back to bed approx 2 hours after waking in the morning. If I leave it any longer he won’t go back to sleep all day and will just get increasingly tired and grumpy.

Literally the only thing that works is for me to close the curtains, turn on Ewan the Dream Sheep, get in bed with him and feed him to sleep. He’s learned to associate the sound of Ewan with going to sleep and I think it helps a lot.

Depending on how she has slept overnight the shortest she is awake first thing is 90mins and longest is 2 hours (2 hours 15 pushing it). She goes to sleep usually ok at that point but wakes after 30-35 mins and the quite often doesn't go back to sleep for longer than 10mins for the rest of the day.

I wanted to walk out today. My partner is home and has her but I still feel awful and just want to give up. I feel like such a bad parent I don't want to deal with this anymore. It pisses me off no end when family or friends with kids tell me what to do because they have had babies and thus must know everything about them. MIL in particular thinks baby is just hungry to the point she would have me force feeding DD if she had her way. Do they really think I am choosing this and starving my child ffs???

I don't want to sound rude and do really empathise but from speaking to other mums and Hv this is apparently what happens with the eventuality of no naps in the day.
I absolutely feel for you and have been where you are and DS is now 1 but from 5 months onwards he had a morning nap between 10-11 which lasts about 30 mins and nothing else until his bedtime at 6 and this is still his routine x
I think some babies drop the 2 / 3 naps a day much sooner than others even though they are exhausted throughout the day x

Sending a virtual cup of tea and a hug ! x

@Zoe2411 serious question on that though... would you expect that to be the case from c.8/9 weeks old? And if the baby was happy to just have a short morning nap then she wouldn't be upset and crying until she fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion for a few minutes?

@Zoe2411 all I'm trying to say on that is I almost wouldn't mind so much if she did that and was happy to be awake. It would still be exhausting but I wouldn't have a grumpy tired baby on my hands which is so difficult when she is still resisting sleep.

My first daughter was exactly like this for the first 6 months. We went through so many options like you, in the end it just stopped at 6 Months when she started on baby food and she just automatically started sleeping through the night and 1 nap a day around 1pm

No advice but to just persevere, it will get better.

I'm pregnant with DC2 and absolutely dreading that stage again so lots of sympathy.

I imagine that she might be quite easily over stimulated. Put her down when she doesn’t look tired, 2 hours after she last woke up and for the most part, leave her to it. Some babies are just better left to their own devices.

Sympathy op.

The way I see it is that if she’s already crying so much through being overtired it might as well work toward something

I’m going through this with my second (7 weeks) atm and just hoping he’s not like his big brother (now 4) who literally did not nap for more than 30 mins at a time from 6 weeks. He was grumpy as hell a lot of the time too! But once he reached 6/7 months he stopped napping altogether and was much better all round. Like yours, both of mine have always been good night time sleepers and I’m just holding on to that atm!

But please don’t feel like a bad parent/failure we’ve all been there, I’ve come so close to walking out countless times, it’s totally normal!
All that works for mine is a brisk (almost jogging) walk in the pram, white noise on phone wedgesd by head and dummy in, replaced every few mins and held there! I find holding dummy while stroking head works (sometimes!).