3 month old SCREAMS before naps

[Tiredandlosingit]

First time poster and ftm to dd who is 3 months old. I really am reaching my wits end and I don’t know what to do.

dd has always been difficult in the evenings when it’s come to bedtime she has always cried a lot when we try to put her down for the night (it could take up to 3 hours in the newborn weeks) but she always loved a good nap. That was until she started teething at around 10 weeks. She’s cut one tooth and is working on another and it’s made her sleep go haywire. She was practically sleeping through before the teething.

i have no issues with her not sleeping through the night as she’s only 3 months but I can’t cope with how she fights sleep at every opportunity. Every nap is a battle which is her screaming blue murder sometimes for over an hour. Then after all that effort I’m lucky if she sleeps half an hour. It is destroying me having my girl screaming in my face 4-5 times a day. She’s clearly tired but fights falling asleep. I’ve tried shortening her wake windows, keeping her awake longer but that hasn’t helped. She can’t fall asleep without help but I just get screams and flailing limbs when I try to soothe her for a nap.

sorry for the long post but I am really struggling and feel like a failure. Any advice would be massively appreciated.

tldr; my 3 month old fights all sleep and screams the house down.

What do you mean by 'try to soothe her for a nap'? When mine were 3mo they just fell asleep when they wanted to - so usually either on me, in the pram or in the car seat. Are you trying to put her down in a cot? I wouldn't bother with that, just let them fall asleep when/where they like and take advantage when it happens.

My DS was like this.. we did lots of walking with him in the pram.. was the only way during daytime. Have you tried a dummy ? Also found bathing just before sleep seemed to help . Hope it passes soon

Same. I didn’t put any of mine on a nap schedule until 6+ months, and even then we went with the flow

they slept when they felt like it. I wouldn’t have wasted energy trying to make them nap so young

the only nap I tried to encourage was with a walk around the block early evening. They tended to fall asleep due to the motion and it saved them being wired and possessed in the evening

We don't have a nap schedule. When she starts to seem tired I hold her and rock her, pat her bum give her a dummy which used to be enough to send her off to sleep but now she screams even though she's clearly tired. Her eyes will close but she'll fight to stay awake

Thank you! She's just totally lost the ability to fall asleep without help. I can walk her in the pram for 45 minutes and she'll fight sleep pretty much the whole way but she does fall asleep eventually just not for very long

My now enormous teen did this until he was 4m old

that was when I got into a more structured routine (Gina F… for me a life saver!)

you don’t have to be as prescriptive as her method, but it does help teach your little one what the plan is.

don’t wait until your child is tired to go to sleep, so a bath at 6pm, then feed, then bed. Get them up at 7am, feed, change then nap for 30 mins (iirc) lunchtime only allow 1.5 hours nap, another if they need it (mine did not need this extra nap for very long at all) and then start the bed time routine.

your baby sounds like it’s losing its mind? It’s over tired, bring everything sooner and get them in the right space to fall asleep sooner, rather than through sheer exhaustion

good luck love, we know this is really hard!

that was all from memory, but have a look. I was clueless, alone and I thought that a routine might help me learn first and foremost, and it really worked out well for both of us! Took about 10 days and ds was a transformed baby.

the Contented Baby handbook I think her book is called

Is she in pain from the teeth? Have you tried painkillers? Sometimes they just need to let it out and there's nothing you can do to stop it, it's like when we just need a big cry.

I do try her on the calpol but she's very reluctant to take it. She holds it in her mouth then spits it all out 🤦🏻‍♀️😂