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5 week old won’t nap in the afternoon

2 replies

HopingForBaby2 · 12/07/2023 06:12

Hello,

Hoping for some advice or tips on how to help my 5 week old nap in the afternoons please! She really fights her sleep to the point she will just have little 10-15 minute naps here and there and by the evening she will just scream where she’s so exhausted, but won’t settle to sleep for the night before 9pm.

Currently, her sleep routine is.. wake around 5ish for a bottle, sometimes she will go straight back to sleep and sometimes she will have about an hour awake and then nap, this is usually until around 9am depending on when she is due her next bottle. She will then have around an hour awake and then go back down for another nap for a couple of hours. Then once she’s awake she will just fight her sleep. If I’m out in the afternoon she will usually sleep in the car but obviously there are days when we’re at home, and I don’t want to get into the habit of just taking her out in the car to sleep! Once it gets to 5/6pm she’s exhausted but overtired. I do bath around 8pm (if I start bedtime routine any earlier she will wake up) white noise and bottle before bed every night and even then it takes a few goes to get her to sleep (she will fall asleep then wake up every 10 or so minutes), but once she’s asleep we’re lucky in that she will sleep a good 4-5 hours before waking for a bottle.

I know newborn sleep is erratic and I’m not expecting miracles, but I know she would be so much more settled in the evenings if she slept in the afternoons! Any tips for helping her nap would be great. We put up a blackout blind in our bedroom yesterday so hoping that may help today if the issue is the light in the daytime.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Helihelicopter · 12/07/2023 16:14

Could you pop her in the sling whilst you potter about at home or go for a walk? It might be difficult to get her to have long naps in the crib at 5 weeks old, so a contact nap might help her to snooze and not be so upset in the evening - a win for you both! Personally, I don’t think you need to worry about too much structure or creating “habits”, especially in such a tiny baby.

billiejollie · 02/04/2024 04:20

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