Poor daytime sleep

[Toomanymuslins]

My 3 month old is great at night and had started to sleep quite long chunks from 9-5 which I didn’t expect. Not every night but sometimes.

During the day though it’s harder. He will typically sleep after his first feed of the day but it’s only for ten to twenty minutes. Then for the rest of the day a longer nap is car or pram - but the pram isn’t guaranteed to send him off.

Today I think he only slept about 2 and a half hours in the day which doesn’t seem anything like enough for such a young baby? Plus when he naps in the house it’s only on me! I don’t really mind but it is a bit annoying as I can’t do anything!

Any advice or is this the trade off for him being good at night?

It's the trade off for sleep at night.

Try doing naps in the bouncy chair, with s dummy.

Makes sure you pay attention to awake time (the time between naps) to avoid baby getting into an over tiredness cycle.

Awake time should be around double nap length, plus or minus 15 minutes. This includes settling time. So for a 30 minute nap then I would put into bouncer for a nap after 45 minutes awake; to allow for 15-30 mins of relentless bouncing until asleep.

Then when baby first stirs from sleep, restart bouncing to try and resettle back to sleep. If this doesn't work and baby wakes, note the time and work out when to next start working on the next nap.

I don’t think he’s ever had a day time nap that wasn’t on me since he was really tiny. I would never be able to get him to sleep in a bouncy chair.

I’ve read this about awake times but if they won’t sleep even though they ‘should’ it’s difficult to know what to do!

Do you have a sling? When my DD was a baby I bought one of the wraparound slings and it was an absolute lifesaver! Baby can sleep soundly on you while you carry on doing whatever you need to do

I would never be able to...

Babies change all of the time. The most significant change in baby sleep comes at 3-4 months old (with the move from passive sleep to active sleep cycles), and changes will be frequent and significant many times aside from this. So the phrase "I would never be able to..." won't be the case for anything to do with sleep.

You haven't been able to up to now. But with some effort (and it may be significant effort needed) you may be able to now. Or in a few weeks/months time.

So, if you want to get baby sleeping more independently (or just better/longer in your arms) it needs some active work from you. Sleep won't be passive and just happen, you need to work at it.

What do you do now to get baby to go to sleep? How do you resettle back to sleep is waking?

Some well recognised things that help babies sleep :

● Sucking.
• Feed to sleep (for parent dependant sleep).
• Dummy (for independent sleep).

● Movement.
• Rocking to sleep (for parent dependant sleep).
• Sleep in something that moves, ie bouncer/pushchair (for independent sleep).

● Security by feeling enclosed.
• Physical Contact in your arms (for parent dependant sleep)
• Swaddle or sleepyhead* (for independent sleep)

*supervised sleep only, according to safe sleep guidelines

Whatever you decide to do, have the mindset that you'll need to work (hard) to get that elusive sleep from baby. The thing that many parents realise with hindsight when they look back to early days, is that they didn't really try consistantly enough for long enough (I'm a sleep consultant, I hear tgis A LOT).

If this was my own child, I would:

• Note the time when last waking up and work out next approximate nap time.
• Full Feed upon waking up (not saving the full feed until sleep time).
• Wind/nappy check etc.
• Floor time, inc tummy time. I tend to do this time nappy-free.
• Do anything you need to do as an adult (ie housework, trips to shop, cooking) during this awake time.
• At first grumble, pick up for a cuddle and to see if anything is wrong (wind). Then put back down for floor time. If you get a second grumble it's nap time - sleep can now be the only reason for the upset since baby is fed, winded and comfortable.
• Offer top-up feed then into bouncer with a dummy.
• Set yourself up on sofa, with a pot of tea, the TV remote and something you want on the TV, bouncer at your feet.
• Using your foot, start bouncing. Non stop, even tempo ideally at your resting heart rate speed. Reinsert dummy as needed

(- Dummy is vital if you want baby going to sleep without crying. Babies will cry when upset and being ready for a nap means upset. It's impossible to cry while actively sucking. So without sucking, expect crying as a no-other-option thing unless you feed to sleep).

• Just. Keep. Going.

Don't give in. Don't slow down. Keep reinserting dummy and keep the even tempo bouncing going. Eventually your baby WILL drop to sleep. Sleep is a biological necessity and your baby does need it.

Meanwhile you watch a boxset and drink tea while sat on the sofa doing nothing other than bouncing the bouncer with your foot while watching Breaking Bad.

I was just about to create a thread with this same thing OP, my 7 week old has been the same all week- it’s so frustrating.
@FATEdestiny Im going to try your advice, it seems really useful! Have you got any advice on how to get a baby to take a dummy? My baby is mostly BF but does have 1-2 bottles a day so I thought he’d happily take one but he won’t. Today I finally got him to sleep for a bit by letting him suck my little finger so he likes the concept of sucking to sleep. He used to feed to sleep well but he won’t now. I’ve got 5 different types of dummy on the go but he’s having none of it and I feel it’s not practical to shove my finger in his mouth whilst bouncing him etc.

Try to think of the dummy teat as the nipple and treat it like when you get baby to latch. The golden rule when latching is you do not "Just shove the nipple in anyhow". The same goes for the dummy. Baby should be actively reaching for the dummy and actively sucking it.

So when giving the dummy, don't just put it in baby's mouth. Tickle cheek with dummy teat to get baby to turn for it or tickle upper lip. The idea is to get baby reaching for the dummy with their mouth in an active way.

When then putting dumny in mouth, aim upwards towards roof of mouth to trigger sucking. Also, tapping gently on outside of the dummy triggers the sucking reflex.

Until dumny is fully accepted, try giving it when baby is happy and awake, not just when sleepy and grumpy (in time you reduce to just sleep time, but not for a while yet). Try at all different times, almost constantly.

I found the cherry teat dummies are good for a newborn, rather than orthopaedic. But there aren't many cheery teat ones around. Other people swear by mam dummies. Just try several.

It really is worth putting significant amount of effort into getting dumny accepted. IMO dummies are AMAZING. They are the most effective tool for no-crying independent sleep.

Some other things if you're a dummy novice:

Encourage baby to actively suck art times they have dummy (until asleep). You don't want it passively just lying limply in baby's mouth. If not sucking, tap on outside to trigger sucking reflex. If that doesn't work remove dummy (It's doing nothing) and get baby to "relatch" to it, by tickling cheek/lips and get baby to reach for it. You may need to repeat this over and over when first getting used to dummies.

Dummies are for going to sleep and serve no purpose once baby is asleep. So you'll notice baby's eyes going as tgey drop to sleep, and sucking will slow down and be infrequent. Don't tap to encourage sucking at this point, you'll just disturb baby's sleep.

As we (Babies and adults alike) move into a deep sleep, all our muscles relax. This includes the mouth and jaw muscles in baby. So as baby goes to a light sleep dummy sucking will still happen but infrequently. When in a deep sleep, mouth muscles slacken and dummy will drop. It's meant to, it has served it's purpose at this point. Don't reinsert dummy now, you'll disturb baby's sleep. Better to actually pick up dummy and move away from baby, so that he/she doesn't end up lying on it and feeling uncomfortable. Keep it to hand though, ready for when baby is stirring out of deep sleep, to resettle back to sleep.