How to improve bad nap routine? (3mo)

[McFloof]

I'd love to get some tips and tricks from fellow moms for my situation here: I'm a single first time mom to a brilliant 3 month old girl. I'd like to start teaching her to take naps in the same place she sleeps at night. Her nights are going well but I'm stuck in this super impractical process for her naps.

I start our naptime routine at the earliest signs of tiredness. She falls asleep (in her bed) after our routine fairly easily but wakes up after a few minutes. She then cries a little bit and doesn't fall asleep again (with or without my help). Soothing her while still in bed helps her once or twice to stop crying (but not falling asleep and still very fussy) and after that the crying gets worse instead of better, so she ends up crying at a level where I pick her up to console her. At this point she'll be very specific about positioning and movement and screams when it's not "right" (i.e. I stop rocking/shushing or don't hold her upright anymore).

If I hold her upright and rock her, she'll fall asleep in my arms, but I can't put her down after that without her waking up.
Whenever I change position (let alone try to put her down awake) the screaming becomes inconsolable, to a point where I have to use everything in my power to help her calm down at all. By this time it's usually one hour after starting the routine and she's clearly fed up and overtired.

She ends up sleeping in my arms all the time, just to make sure that she sleeps at all, since it only gets worse throughout the day if she skips naps completely. I'm not sure how to get out of this and I'm afraid she'll never learn to fall asleep in her bed (or anywhere else that doesn't move) if I keep this up!

A few notes:

I don't think it's reflux, since she's fine on her back as long as she doesn't need to sleep.

She sleeps fairly well in the carrier, stroller or car, basically anything that moves,but only as long as it moves.

TLDR: So the issue is not getting her to sleep in general, but getting her to stay asleep without needing me for the entire duration of the nap (I'm of course fine with spending time to help her fall asleep but it would be great to then have a few minutes to do chores etc while she naps).

Any advice on how I can improve my routine/timing/tactics?

Do you follow the same routine you use to put her to sleep at night? Dark room, white noise, swaddling, arm drop to check fully asleep before putting down can all help. But to be honest she is still very little, my first contact napped until he was about 5/6months when suddenly he wanted to sleep in his cot. I think it's pretty normal.

At 3 months it's quite normal to need a lot of help to go to sleep - movement and sucking (ie dummy) are the usual ways.

The key thing is to teach baby to sleep independently (not on you). Then when a bit older once used to independent sleep, start weaning down movement so that you're down yo just dummy sucking stationary. Then at that point you move to cot naps and work towards putting down awake with a dummy.

For now, I'd suggest bouncy chair or pram back and forth in the spot rocking for naps, plus dummy so there's no crying.

Try the app "Little Ones". It's got great schedules and self settling techniques that don't use cry it out - it's helped my 4 month old so much. There a free trial so you can see if it's for you. Hope this helps!

Thanks all!

Forgot to mention that she absolutely will not take a dummy/her own thumb/my pinky or anything else for that matter... She just doesn't care for it haha, the boob is all she'll allow in her mouth.

I'm following the same routine for night sleep and nap time right now but she'll still wake up a few minutes after being put down, no matter how long I hold her...

I'll definitely try that app, thanks for the tip!

Really hoping this is also just a phase that she'll grow out of, in case my efforts don't pay of!

I would suggest prioritising getting a dummy accepted. If you're aiming for independent sleep, there will be huge, huge amounts of crying without it - which is cruel when there's a calmer, gentler alternate.

There are lots of ways to encourage dummy acceptance. The key thing is 100% preservence and focus on getting it accepted. Search my username and accepting dummy (or similar phrasing) for more info.