How to get 3 month old to nap

[MissABW]

Hello everyone!
I’d love some advice on naps. My 3 month old is in a reasonable night time routine with us but he very rarely naps in the day - he’ll nap in the pram during a walk or in the car seat during a drive but he’s very hard to get to nap otherwise. I’m aware that babies of this age normally have 1.5-hour wake windows and my baby will often go hours and hours (eg 10 hours) without a nap!! Often he’s quite active and playful and doesn’t seem bothered by this but sometimes during the early evening he’ll suddenly be overtired and cry a lot.

We’ve tried rocking, doing a nap routine - dimming the lights, singing twinkle twinkle, hand on chest, rainmaker, white noise, etc - how else can we encourage naps without leaving him to cry?

On a related note, he won’t sleep in his next to me crib or Moses basket. Since he was born he has only ever slept in his bouncer - any tips for getting him to sleep in a crib other than warming the mattress and making it smell like me?!

Thank you so much!

Abbie

We're just giving this thread a bump for the OP in case anyone's around with some advice and support.

Hi OP have you tried a sling?

When my DS was that age I generally fed him to sleep, he’d sleep for a few hours if I let him sleep on me but he’d probably only do about 10 minutes if I put him down.

A sling worked well, I could get on with things around the house and he’d happily sleep for a long time in the sling. I just had a stretchy wrap one.

3 months is still tiny though!

When my DS was older, my DH could rock him/cuddle him to sleep.

I started to transition him to sleeping in his cot by feeding him until he was almost asleep and putting him down then.

Have you tired swaddling? My ds napped a lot better when swaddled. If your ds is only sleeping in the bouncer and car seat it might be because he feels more cocooned so swaddling could help.

Hi @MissABW I can’t really offer much advice but my four month old has never been in line with what ‘wake windows’ he should have. I tried following then when he was about 3/4 weeks old, after a few days I realised I was just stressing myself out.

I do know people who have great success putting baby down for a nap after the correct wake window but just thought I’d mention that they don’t work for everyone and every baby is unique.

Now I just watch for his sleep cues and attempt a nap then. My DS only naps after a feed and then sleeps being cuddled, or he will sometimes nap in the sling/pram/car. We sometimes get to 2/3pm without a nap - but those days he is tired, he just won’t sleep.

The only thing we stick to is bedtime, but just because we do ‘bedtime’ at the same time each night doesn’t mean he actually goes to sleep!

Is your little one sleeping in bouncer for overnight sleep as well? Or just daytime naps?

Lynsey Hookway is really good on Instagram, she talks a lot about normal infant sleep and how to cope with it.

It’s hard but you are doing a great job x

Do you have the app Huckleberry? I found this really useful.

Probably not what you want to hear but I have two friends whose babies did not sleep in their cot until around 15 months, no matter what they tried. They walked day in day out, all day long to get their children napping. 😬

Do you wrap him in a shawl or a cot sheet before you put him down?

Hey three month old here too! She will rarely nap in her bed and either naps in my arms or in a sling (sometimes in the buggy on a walk). She’s my second and last baby so I’m a lot more chilled about it all. with my first I drove myself potty with routines, schedules and ideas of what I should be doing. Weirdly she’ll go down at night in her bed no problem (for the most part). We’ve got a next to me crib attached to the bed also. Will he take a dummy? Again weirdly mine won’t at any other time than when I’m cuddling her for a sleep and she’ll nuzzle down in the nook of my arm.

Thank you all for your kind responses. I’ve been a bit nervous to swaddle as he’s on the verge of rolling over but he definitely likes a cosy environment. I haven’t used my sling indoors yet as I have an annoying one where you need help to get in and out of it! I’m not the biggest fan of dummies so I haven’t tried that yet.

@Lemongrass9 Thank you for the support! He only sleeps in his bouncer during the day too (or pram/car seat) but this is when we rock him go sleep in our arms then put him down (I know we should put him down when he’s drowsy rather than fully asleep). I’ll look up Lynsey Hookway!

@Chanel05 it’s good to understand it’s normal! Do you know what sleeping arrangements your friends had? We have the “off duty” person in bed and the “on duty” person napping on the living room sofa next to baby but I can’t do 15 months of not sleeping with my partner! I’ll try the app :)

Wait until he’s old enough to need fewer, tightly controlled naps where if he sleeps too long he won’t go to bed, and where you want to leave the house instead of being chained to a cot. then you’ll find he’ll suddenly want a three-hour cot nap

Sorry, no help! DD was a nightmare. Slings, feeding to sleep, cosleeping, relentless bouncing, pram (never worked), car. I promise one day naps won’t be the bane of your life. It’ll be something else instead!

@MissABW honestly don’t worry worry about putting him down drowsy. I wait until DS is fully asleep (around 20mins after he initially drops off) before putting him down. Even then it doesn’t always work. Obviously if you want to try drowsy but awake go for it but just want to let you know it’s totally okay and normal to not worry about it. For us at least, this is the way we all get the most sleep, which is our current priority.

Having an off duty/on duty system works great for lots of people but we don’t so that we at least get to share a bed!

I get ready for bed before bedtime feed at 8.30ish and then after I put DS in next to me (usually around 9.30pm as I wait for him to be fully asleep) I go to sleep. My husband stays up and usually comes to bed around 11.30ish, and he just sleeps next to me all night and I just sit up and feed when DS wakes (sometimes hourly at the moment 🙄). DH stirs sometimes but just rolls over and falls asleep again. If you can manage to get your little one in the crib this might be a bit nicer for you as a family?

I know if you are formula feeding it’s more than just sitting up to feed but if you are ff could you try the ready made bottles for overnight so it’s less disruptive to your sleep? You could always swap sides of the bed each night to be ‘on duty’ as it were.

Obviously this is just what works for us, just saying what we do to give you ideas of things you might not have thought of/tried. But you do what works for your family and don’t worry about what everyone else is doing x

Sorry for such a long post!

For both of mine naps happen/ed in a covered buggy with white noise, being rocked back and forth in the kitchen. Never even attempted cot naps because I didn’t want to be tied to the house - though I needn’t have worried, since DD1 never napped longer than 28 minutes at a time until she started dropping it at 18m. DD2 appears to be going the same way…

I’m retrospect, don’t listen to me. I’m clearly crap at this whole nap business!

@Lemongrass9 Thank you! I’m breastfeeding and would love to do what you’re doing but baby just won’t go in the crib and I don’t want to let him cry. Maybe I’ll just keep trying him and at some point he might be receptive to it!! :)