Nap time terror

[Kay1341]

I'm looking for some advice. My boy is 3.5 months and he has always been "a bad sleeper" (always up at least 4 times a night, hardly ever naps longer than 30-40 mins) but recently nap time has become more and more difficult. In the evening he settles fairly nicely after bath, change and a feed. When we try and put him down for a nap he gets really upset. This happens regardless of time, and even if we make sure we answer to his first sleep cues. He starts crying the moment he realises it's nap time (any cradling, shhh-ing, lullabies etc) and cries for ages. Most times he starts crying again once we put him down too. Sometimes I manage to feed him to sleep, but even that doesn't work for every nap.

Any advice? He doesn't take a dummy and has grown too big to swaddle. White noise makes little difference. We keep the room dim and quiet leading up to the nap. He naps when he's on his carrier, but he hates the pram and mobile naps don't really work for all the naps he needs.

He is still very young. Best to let him sleep when he wants to, there are no rules about napping at that age.

Might be the 4 month sleep regression? Try and ride it out, it changes all the time with babies. My DD only napped for short periods of time at that age (45 minutes max). As she got older, she napped for two hours (18 months onwards).
What’s his mood like if he doesn’t nap?

Bluerussian, if I just let him sleep when he wants to, he'll get max 30 minutes a day when we go out for an hour for a walk. Surely that's too little?

I can cope with short naps, but often we spend over an hour just trying to get him to nap, some days even more and it's both frustrating and makes me feel really sad when he gets so upset about it. He usually gets quite hyper if he doesn't get his naps (compared to when he does). Then it's hard to do anything with him, he seems very unfocused, makes high pitched noises or cries a lot.

Unfortunately for some parents and babies daytime nap's will be a tricky and often frustrating experience. Sometimes it can be an option to arrange nap's around outings so that he can sleep in the sling or pram (although I did notice you say he is not a fan of the pram). Your LO is a little too young for sleep training at this point but you could start encouraging him into his basket or crib and staying with him whilst he settles to sleep, often placing your hand on their tummy and doing some soft shushing can help them to feel supported whilst settling to sleep.

Could be acid reflux

Is he propped up? Head above stomach when you put him down?

We had similar from 0-8 months with DS who slept ok at night but wouldn't sleep in the day at all.

Found it stressful particularly because SIL's baby slept for 2 hour naps morning and afternoon from birth and she always insinuated I must be doing something wrong.

What worked was the pram (just kept going with it pacing the streets and eventually he associated it with sleeping). But that ties you to several hours of walking per day..
He would also, with some persuasion, sleep on me so I'd darken the room and feed him and have him doze on my chest for a couple of hours.

He is now 13mo and those days are a memory. Sleeps in his cot for naps now- well sometimes 😁

We thought about reflux before, and had his basinet and baby box mattress raised. He slept better in the baby box than he does on his crib now (he's too big for the baby box) but he won't nap on the basinet that is still raised even he did as a newborn. We can't lift the crib mattress, I wonder if it's worth investing in another sleeping place for him. But why would acid reflux only bother him during the day and not at bedtime?
He falls asleep better on our big bed, but now when he's not rolling it's not safe to leave him there.

The crying really starts way before we put him down, even holding him in cradle hold and sshh-ing kicks him off. If we just put him down before soothing first, he'll kick and babble in the crib a while before he starts crying. When I sit there and comfort him, he seems to think it's fun and just smiles and babbles more!

Nice to hear it can gets better though, hopefully for us too!