Day time naps - advice and support needed!

[nocturnalke]

Hi all this is my first time posting a thread and I know it's probs been done before. My baby is 3.5 months old and we are very lucky that she sleeps well at night with only waking for one feed. However during the day, her nap times are terrible and hard work. So she is usually up for around 1.5 hours at a time before needing a nap. I have been holding her in my arms because from day 1 she has never fell asleep on her own in the Moses basket or bouncer. So we just got used to rocking her in our arms. Now she's getting a little older, I want to establish her day time naps. I am so anxious she'll get into a bad habit and sleep on us and will be like 3 years old and still needs us to cuddle which is impossible as being back at work etc. Can people please offer advice or answer the questions below.

1. Do babies grow out of needing to be held for a nap? If so, when?
2. Is there anything I am doing wrong? Should I be putting her in her cot for day time naps whilst drowsy but still awake?
3. If I was to do the above and she cries do I let her cry it out and she'll eventually fall asleep? But then if she doesn't nap then she'll be overtired and be terrible in the evenings.

I'm started to get frustrated and angry at myself for letting this habit start :( any reassurance would be great. Thank you x

Google the 4 month sleep regression, your baby is likely in it right now. It won't last forever and do whatever you need to to get baby to sleep. You can't create bad habits in babies that small!

Thank you!! It's just nice to speak to others about it as well. I'll have a google!

At this age I found my baby would quite reliably go down for a morning nap in her cot 1.5 hours after waking and sleep for 45 minutes. So I focused on using that nap to get her to settle herself as she was so tired she would just drop off.

The second and third naps were much shorter and more unpredictable and I could only reliably get her to sleep if I held her or pushed the pram around. I ended up holding her a lot!!

I worried a lot about bad habits too but actually as she developed the naps just naturally changed by themselves - so by 6 months she would do a 45 min morning nap and then a 1.5 hour lunch nap. She dropped the 4pm nap herself at about 6.5 months.
So in my experience try not to worry too much yet as she's still tiny and their development plays such a big part in how they sleep.