7 mo seems tired most of the time

[MeadowHay]

Why does my 7 month old DD seem tired almost all the day? She spends most of each day crying and rubbing her eyes. She's always been a terrible napper so I put it down to that, however probably about twice a week she has a long nap of 2 hours, and even after 20 mins or so after that, she is crying and rubbing her eyes again! I don't understand at all how she can be still tired after a 2hr nap. I am trying to get her to sleep for longer at night in case that's why she is so awful in the day, but she generally sleeps between 9 and 11 hrs (it varies, we have a vague evening/bed-time routine but she often doesn't play ball, and the time she wakes in the morning varies too without any pattern regardless of what time we have her down for the night), with a few brief wakings for her dummy, which surely isn't bad for her age anyway? On a morning she is dead pleasant but then whinging and rubbing her eyes after about 30 minutes of being awake! It is a massive battle to get her to sleep anywhere other than the pushchair as well as she can't fall asleep without motion and at over 7kg rocking her in my arms is being close to impossible as she easily needs rocking for 30+ minutes.

She is going to the GP next week and last time I saw her she said she would do a referral to the paediatrician if her crying doesn't settle down at all after 2 weeks of ranitidine, which it hasn't, but I doubt there will be any medical explanation. Like how could she possibly still be tired after 11 hours of sleep, or a 2hr nap?!

Will she sleep in pram in the house? That's what my 6 month old is doing right now. He needs his naps or he whinges all day.
Also are you putting her down at regular intervals I use the huckleberry app, you put their awake times in it tells you the next sleepy sweet spot.

My dd was like this at 5–7 months. At 7 months we sleep trained and she suddenly started napping (and her eating got much better).

Do you think it is definitely tiredness causing her to rub her eyes? My son sometimes rubs his eyes when he has a blocked nose, or teething related

Lanc Yep, that's how I get here to do most of her naps, push her in the pushchair in the hallway with the hood down most of the way so it's as dark as possible and play lullabies on my phone. A good time she'll be drowsy enough for me to leave her to fall asleep herself after about 10 minutes, a bad time like earlier it took 25 minutes to get to that stage (she constantly picks up her head to look and check I'm still there, she's quite an anxious/clingy/sensitive baby already tbh), and sometimes I have to do it until she's properly asleep which could 30 mins if I'm unlucky. She almost always wakes after 20-45 mins tho. Not always - the 2hr nap yesterday was actually like that in the pushchair- but that only happens a few times a week, if I'm lucky. I will have a look at the app, but I'm not sure it will help - I try and follow her lead because I can tell if she's tired or not, but then it's difficult because she seems permanently tired a lot of the time .

Dame How was your DD sleeping at night, and what kind of sleep-traning did you do?

Her I'm pretty confident - I did think about other causes given the frequency of it, but it's not eye-rubbing alone, it's leaning back and turning her head into the side to snuggle in which is also what she does when she's trying to sleep, her eyes look heavy and tired, she yawns, cries/whinges etc. She doesn't have a cold or anything atm (or nothing that has come to fruitition yet) and she's been like this...well pretty much since birth tbh . She could deffo be teething, she has been chewing on her fingers more than usual over the last few days, but no teeth yet. She goes through phases of teething symptoms since she was 12 weeks old but no teeth yet.