I have a four month old who has (almost) never napped anywhere other than in my lap post-feed or on the move. We are desperate to get her napping in a crib in the daytime. I'm not worried about it being independent sleep quite yet - I would be happy to soothe her to sleep then put her down if we could find a method that worked in the daytime but she does not predictably fall asleep after day feeds and when she does the transfer to the cot always fails. Unfortunately we've never really nailed getting her down with rocking/ssshhhiing etc. I am open to some form of sleep training for naps if that's what it takes but everything I've read says to do nights first, which I'm not keen on for two reasons - firstly, after a rough start to BFing (tongue tie, low supply) I quite enjoy that time feeding her off to sleep, and secondly I feel it's a bit unfair to expect her to learn to self-soothe at night when she starts bedtime so overtired due to lack of naps. Some other relevant points:
- Atm I try to get her as much day sleep as possible through lap naps and walks just to minimise overtiredness, but she wakes up like clockwork after 30 mins in the sling/pram and often lasts less than that on my lap. I'm already doing two walks a day (with at least 30 mins walking needed for her to drop off) so I feel like I don't have it in me to give her assisted napping for the amount of day sleep she seems to need
- She also doesn't love either sling (we have two types) or pram, so that's not exactly the soothing, cry-free nap alternative it could be even if I was happy spending 75% of the day outside. Using the sling inside is a total scream fest.
- We have tried the bouncy chair, she does not seem to find that soothing at all
- She's clearly a 'suck to sleep' baby so we're trying to get her to take a dummy, with a view to using that at naptime but so far with no success
- I think we're coming out the far side of the four month sleep regression. After a couple of fairly crap weeks, she is back to sleeping average 6 hrs at the start of the night but her sleep after that first long stretch is pretty terrible meaning she often starts the day overtired (hyper plus yawning her head off), which I think is nixing our best efforts to try and get her napping by obsessively watching wake windows
- She's in the 'four months old too busy to eat' stage which means especially at the start of the day, when we're aiming for a pretty short wake window, it can be hard to get her to eat enough before she starts getting ratty
- Currently stuck in a crummy one-bed rental flat (one reason we REALLY want her napping is to get a tiny bit more time/headspace to start the flat-buying process and get out of here!). Partner is wfh in the bedroom, so the proposed nap space is a travel cot in the living room - obviously not her usual sleep space and the same room where she plays. Probably not ideal ...
I guess what I really want to know is - is there anyone who has successfully attempted nap sleep training BEFORE night sleep training? Is there a reason the books say not to, other than naps being harder? Also, is it likely that she can be trained to fall asleep in a crib at naptime from a starting point of no-naps-in-crib? I am assuming it's easier if she is used to napping in the crib to start with, so has some idea what is expected, but without any way to effectively get her down that feels unachievable right now...
Help!?
Ps. I know controlled crying and similar is not recommended before six months and I'd probably want to try something more gradual first anyway. Not necessarily looking for a solution for right now (though that would be nice!), rather trying to get a sense of what is possible