Naps Help Please!

[BadgerBum]

Long time reader, first time poster, so please be gentle!

My daughter is almost 5 months and has never been a fantastic sleeper but we’re now in about week 6 of the 4 month regression. She wakes every 1-2 hours overnight and pretty much has to feed back to sleep every time. However, this isn’t my main problem! The problem is naps (and by extension, bedtime).

Everything I read about night sleep says ‘sort naps out and it’ll help’ but naps are becoming more and more of an issue. For the first 12 weeks or so of her life I couldn’t put her down - ever. So she slept on me and I couldn’t even entertain putting her down, let alone putting her down and expecting her to sleep. After about 12 weeks we were able to start placing her down asleep, and then had a couple of weeks where I made real progress managing to shush her to sleep in her crib (with some crying usually, but not a lot).

Since this regression hit that hasn’t been possible, and it’s taking longer and longer to get her to nap. I’m starting to dread it. It can take an hour to get her to sleep, then she sleeps for 35 minutes exactly usually (this morning just 22!).

I can deal with the night time wakes but I would REALLY like to be able to put her down for naps and bedtime and it not be such an epic battle to get her to sleep. I spot her cues and have tried putting her down earlier/later etc, often it takes so long to get her to sleep that she gets overtired during the process, but if I start sooner she’s not tired enough and gets angry. I often end up feeding or bouncing her to sleep, but even that can take ages and still involves quite a few tears. I’m going back to work when she’s 6 1/2 months and my partner is taking over (shared parental leave) so we need to be able to put her to sleep without feeding. I feel like it’s getting worse not better… any advice!?!?

Cheeky bump and to add that she will sleep in the sling or the car, but I want to be able to put her down for naps at home and to put her to bed without it taking hours too! We have a short bedtime routine that I do the same each day.

Any advice anyone?? Having another miserable evening here having fed her to sleep and put her down, only to have her wake after 20 minutes. Currently feeding again now after 45 minutes of her screaming while we try and settle her :(

No advice but just a hand hold - my nearly 5 month old is queen of the 30 minute naps at the moment. She will go down in the cot but absolutely will not sleep longer than 30 minutes, and I fear it’s impacting our night sleep now too (which previously was pretty good!)
Just wanted to let you know you’re not alone! I try to tell myself it’s normal for them at this age but appreciate that doesn’t make the long nights easy!!

I am absolutely by no means an expert in any way, shape or form, but I really didn’t want you to be unanswered as my little one only napped on me until about 6months! What is her usual routine? Wake up time, attempted nap times etc? Does she sleep in your room? Normal cot, co-sleeper cot? X

The short nap thing, as frustrating as it is to hear (I hated people telling me this as I struggled to believe it) is totally developmental, i think it’s more normal at that age than not for naps to be short. I had a professional 38-minuter x

@MinnieMouse92 - did your LO just gradually learn to nap longer?

Thank you so much for the responses!

Her normal wake up time is between 7:30 and 8 (although can be earlier… probably average 7:30). First nap used to be fairly reliably an hour after waking, now more like an hour and a half although at the moment even that one isn’t very reliable! Then she can generally go about 2 hours of awake time before she gets sleepy again - I’m not on a routine as such but I try to not let her go over this. Trying to get away from the feed to sleep association but that’s not going very well.

I understand the short naps are very common at this age (although frustrating!), it’s just a disheartening when it takes double that time to actually get her down in the first place 🙈

To answer the rest of your message - she sleeps in a snuzpod attached to the bed at night, and I’m trying to get daytime naps in the cot in her room (fairly unsuccessfully at the moment)

Is it worth doing naps in the sling/car/buggy for a few days to get her sleeping back on track and make sure she isn't overtired? This might help her night time sleep - waking up soon after settling in the evening is a sign of overtired ness I think. Then gradually start working on one nap a day happening in her crib and build up from there? Just a thought.

@sittingwaitingwishing yes, to be honest I did some things that MAY have helped but I do think he’d have got there anyway! At the time because of short naps, he was having 4x 30-40 min naps a day. I was told that all the time I was offering those nap times, he was getting 4 opportunities to sleep in the day, so essentially didn’t “need” to learn to nap for longer. It worked like that for ages and I never wanted him to be overtired, so kept with it until he started refusing the 4th nap. So then I stretched his awake windows a little bit, with the view of just 3 naps. It was really gradual and not rushed at all but he got there. Another thing was at the 30min point, I’d go up and watch for when he would start to wake (his breathing would quicken) so that I was there when he woke to settle him back into another cycle. I’d often then stay with him, him laid on his side (he could roll), holding his hand and patting his bum each time he stirred (he was in a Next2Me cot so I would just lay on my bed). As I say, I don’t know if it helped but he did get there. He’s on two naps now, but even now, at 38mins he gets twitchy as that’s obviously when his sleep cycle ends. At nearly 11months we will sometimes get a short nap if something is bothering him at that point! But I definitely think there is truth in that when they are ready, they will go for longer. X

@BadgerBum - I went back on my tracking app last night to have a look and as easy as it is to forget when the phases are shit, it all came screaming back to me! Totally relate to the amount of time it takes to get them to sleep, I used to wrestle for 40mins for a 30min nap, it felt so futile. And then they’ve surpassed their wake window and I used to pull my hair out! I use the huckleberry app, it was mainly for tracking purposes but the sweetspot calculates roughly when they need to nap based on their age, average wake window and length of last nap. I used to hate the fact that I felt like I needed an app but it’s a handy guide! In regards to getting him to nap in the cot, when he was still in my room I used to put him in his cot and do stuff in the bedroom, whilst going back and putting in his dummy and patting and shushing him. Weirdly he started falling asleep better without me faffing over him, usually drying my hair or something. To be honest that would never work for him now, my presence just makes him think it’s playtime! He has to be in a dark room, on his own, with white noise. I’m a bit screwed when we have periods of rough sleep as because of this, I find it hard to settle him because if he’s upset and I go in, all hell breaks loose if I don’t get him up. So nothing in the world of sleep is perfect by any means. All I can suggest is trying the app and practice with the cot. Do you breastfeed? X

It’s also worth noting that whilst he does sleep in his cot, that is the only place he will have a longer nap now… on me or in his buggy or the car, once he stirs at the 38min point that’s it - he’s too aware of what’s going on around him to go back off. I don’t mind it, I’m just THAT mum that has to be home for his naps and don’t make plans to be away from home if I can help it! Others tell me I’ve made a “rod for my back” by encouraging cot naps, but the same would tell me I’d made a rod for my back when he’d only sleep on me. It’s just about doing what works for you and baby ❤️

Well an hour ago I tried for the first nap of the day to be a cot nap (it used to be the easiest nap so the best to try, the others can be sling etc). She started out calm and got progressively more tired and wound up, and now she’s feeding (hopefully to sleep) because it’s taken so long. I had been using her first nap as a chance to have a shower so that’s out of the window. It’s not like me picking her up helps - she gets so tired and frustrated that she’ll spend just as long crying in my arms.

I guess I’m back to sling and long walks (won’t sleep in sling in the house) like when she was a newborn, and showering when her dad is in the house. The ‘it gets better’ lasted a few weeks.

@MinnieMouse92 I don’t use Huckleberry but I do have a tracking app that I use for sleep and feeds. I do breastfeed and she won’t take a bottle (although again, it’s something we need to work on before I go back to work end of Jan). She’s just got a really strong feed to sleep association, I thought it wasn’t too bad since she used to fall asleep (with a bit of resistance) in the Moses basket, but it seems to have really cemented over the last month.

This is what I did, basically I went for a good one hour plus walk every day/afternoon. Slept like a log overnight. This was five years before this research article. I only went for a long walk every day because I was bored rigid. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1477238/A-daily-dose-of-fresh-air-helps-babies-to-sleep-longer-at-night.html

It’s all a bit hazy now, but if I needed to shower I would put him in his cot and go and have one. Our bathroom is onto our bedroom though so I could see and hear him. Sometimes I’d be finished and he would be asleep. To be honest, apart from the first few weeks where he just slept and fed, he didn’t really have a feed to sleep association. If he ever did fall asleep on the bottle, he would wake after 10mins. I just used to feed him and wind him to wake him up properly before trying to put him down. Separating the bottle from bed totally just didn’t make sense to me, especially as they grow and need more etc, I could never be sure that I wasn’t putting him down hungry if I fed him right as the beginning of his wake windows! Sorry, I have digressed. I can’t really help with the feeding to sleep part I’m afraid, hopefully someone else will be along to help with that one. All I can say is a lot of what you say about the length of time it took to get them to sleep etc is totally somewhere we were, and in all honestly I can’t remember WHEN or WHY it changed, it just did. It doesn’t mean it’s not completely stressful and frustrating at the time and I totally sympathise. We are having a bit of a patch of crap naps at the moment and I have no idea why! It’s hard

Are you living somewhere cold(ish) OP?

It won't work forever but I used to find that, if we'd been outdoors for a bit, suddenly going somewhere warm would make DD doze off. It used to work a treat.

Also (probably frowned on now as DD is now a strapping great teen), but we were encouraged to start introducing baby rice from about 16 weeks.

Good luck

@MinnieMouse92 thanks so much for your support - I know with most of these things it’s a case of waiting it out, or trying different things to see what works, but I appreciate the hand hold!

@Madcats I live in Sheffield so not particularly cold. I do try and get out for quite a bit of fresh air as I’ve also read it can help. Starting solids after Christmas so fingers crossed that also helps!

Today we managed an hour contact nap this morning, 40 minutes in the car at lunch, and an hour in the sling 4-5 (luckily there is a Christmas tree trail up where I live so I walked around and looked at that!). It’s still less than recommended but it’s quite good for her - fingers crossed for a better evening!

I haven't read all comments apologies.

When my lo went through this, I received some advise on mnet

• pram and rock in that in the home, when asleep slow down then stop then when starts to stir at end of cycle rock again - same principle for bouncy chair. Gradually over time reduce the movement or buy a pram jiggler
• sling
• dummy was quite useful, pop lo in place of sleeping, white/pink noise, dummy - keep tapping dummy while comforting lo in that place. When starts to stir do same thing as you did to get them to sleep again gradually reduce.

I picked my sort of own version tbh, as it worked best for us, in the pram for us, popped hand on her chest and tapped dummy..... Over time reduce and reduce. Pink noise is a must for us (heard stories of washing machines being put on empty cycle just to keep lo asleep) then when lo started to make a fraction of movement I was on her holding her chest and tapping dummy to encourage further sleep, sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't. Over time it did start to work.

At night, I popped lo in cot - hand on chest tapping dummy. Pink noise and did that - gradually reducing the holding overtime. I did it every 2 hours too killer but in a side cot thing I was able to hold her chest while dozing, and popped her dummy in for her too.

I found you have to pick your way that works for you both to get it to work and stick with it for period of time.

Someone mentioned its developmental - it is - I was literally on my knees and reading that I was sobbing but it does get better. I promise. In regards to shower which I still do on occasions. Bouncy chair in the bathroom - and hope lo falls asleep when your having a shower 🤞as it's like white noise apparently

Just reading the above post has reminded me, from early on, we used to put baby in wherever he was napping at the time and tap dummy, Pat his chest and shh shh shh on repeat. It’s just finding something that works for you both. Sometimes it used to take a long time for him to fall asleep, but just persevered and kept at it repeatedly. X

Thanks for the tips all. She doesn’t take a dummy but we’ve been working on her taking it, ditto bottle! She’ll have to figure that one out as I go back to work when she’s 6 and a half months and her dad is taking over. We’ve gone back to her napping in the sling the last few days. Feels like a backward step but I’m hoping to get her into the habit of napping at those rough times and hope that we can build up again… fingers crossed!