3 month old fighting sleep

[MistressPhoenix]

Hello
My three month old daughter has been sleeping through the night since around 8/9 weeks, which makes me very lucky, I know!
However, I've always had trouble with daytime naps - she fights sleep in her cot, in the pram, anywhere that is not on me. She always used to fall asleep at night very easily and would sleep through. The only problem I had was that no matter how much I tried, the earliest she would go down for the night was between 11.30.pm.and 1 am. If she fell asleep in her cot any earlier than that she would treat it as a nap and wake up 30 minutes later.
For the last week, she has started fighting going to sleep at night even at her usual bedtime and we have been up until 2 and even 3am some nights trying to get her to sleep. We've usually had to resort to letting her fall asleep on us then transferring her into her cot once she is asleep but this usually takes a few attempts as she usually wakes up as soon as she's put down.
Just looking for some advice really - my partner thinks this is all normal and we just need to wait it out and she will sleep better again in her own time, but I just feel like her sleep is all over the place and feel like a bit of a failure to be honest.
Thanks for reading.

Definitely read up on baby sleep. Baby sleep site is very good.

Children and babies love routine. It would probably make your lives easier if you had a set bedtime. We had one from the day I got home from hospital. Lights dimmed really low, curtains drawn (it was still daylight) at 7pm and no joke her circadian rythm was established super quick and has helped her with sleeping each night.

We bounce and shush on a birthing ball to sleep, it now takes 2 mins of the this and the she's out unless it's a sleep regression and it can then take 20 with whinging and refusal but eventually she gives in and nods off.

I know MN is against feeding to sleep but we always make sure she has a "bedtime" bottle half an hour before bouncing to sleep, without it she'd sleep like crap. She's 6m now sleeps 7-6, 1 feed at 3am.

Just re read your post, YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE And all babies are different xxx

If she isn't napping much I would suspect she's really overtired which becomes a vicious circle as it's harder to get her to sleep, and its now disrupting her night time sleep.

You might need to be really persistent getting her to nap throughout the day after 60-75 mins of being awake. Be really on it and start working on getting her to sleep 50 mins or so after she wakes up. Use any strategy which gets her there - rocking/dummy/feeding if needed. Just make sure she naps so she can catch up on some sleep. Hopefully a better daytime pattern will mean she then adjusts her nighttime naturally.

Babies sleep patterns do vary widely but it does sound like she is very sleep deprived which is probably contributing to your night time issues. When she is awake in the daytime make sure she gets plenty of daylight to help her regulate her circadian rhythm.

Definitely recommend using the Huckleberry app xxx

Thanks for the advice.
I do think the naps during the day are the issue as I can only get her to nap in anything for 20 minutes at a time - it's like clockwork. And can sometimes take up to an hour to get her to fall asleep in the first place. I may just forget that for now and go back to letting her nap on me.

The problem is - if she naps on me she will happily sleep for 3 hours each time. Should I wake her up after an hour, two hours ?

I contact napped. It was the only way I could garauntee she'd get enough naps to sleep well at night.

I'd Google how long should av3 month old nap for and recommended wake windows. Once you read the up on it and try your best to do it as much as you can it'll all fall into place.

It takes 20 mins once rocked or bounced to get into a deep sleep to transfer into cot.

If they're waking up too soon it's because of cortisol as a result of inadequate sleep.

Update -
Naps during the day have been good for the last couple of days. Combination of contact naps, or napping in the car seat and pram when I've been out and about.

I've managed to pull bedtime back to between 11 and 11.30 pm.Both nights I did put her to bed around 9 without a fuss but she still woke up 20 minutes later.

She shouldn't be overtired now though as she is consistently napping every 1.5 - 2 hours (or has been for the last two days)

11pm still seems really late, but it's 1000 X better than 1/2/3 am!!

That's really good. Honestly check out baby sleep site online as a guide on how to the average day rhythm is like for the age of your baby and maybe move bedtime earlier by half an hour each day.

Are you breastfeeding?

What is your nighttime routine?

I'm not breastfeeding, no.

Routine is something along these lines - bath, pyjamas, bottle (around 7pm) then I usually read to her and put her in her next to me cot. Usually goes to sleep easily enough (if not over tired) maybe roughly 7.45-8pm. Wakes 20 minutes later, wide awake. Usually try again half an hour to 45 minutes later, usually less successfully this time. Generally ends up having another bottle at 10-30 ish then try to put her down again after that. By that time it's between 11pm and 11.30 pm and she's down for the night then.

Try rocking /bouncing to sleep and holding her for 20 mins and then place her in her cot /next to me.