Baby won’t nap I’m going insane for the love of god help

[Manumama]

Please please please I’m gone past my wit’s ends anybody help.

This baby WILL NOT NAP.

We have been sleep training our nearly 9 month old for the past 10 days or so, Ferber method but with the dummy. He now goes to sleep very well independently (albeit with dummy) at night time and largely sleeps through except when he loses his dummy: we go in, give him it and he’s off snoozing immediately again.

The issue is with daytime sleep. We tried the same Ferber training at day time, but he never once actually slept with it, no matter how long we try for. The only way he was napping so far is by rocking him in the baby carrier with white noise on in a pitch black room and dummy. You’d rock him for a good 20 mins and he’d eventually fall asleep and you’d transfer him into the cot and he’d have a good nap.

Now for the past week this has also stopped working. I rock him this way for sometimes up to an hour and it’s just not working anymore.

He does not sleep in the buggy, even with the blackout cover on. He does not sleep in the car. He looks completely knackered but will not sleep, no matter what I do.

I am so frustrated I cry daily.

I have been thinking sod it, I just won’t try any more, he can stay awake all day. But the truth is, he is a very needy baby who won’t just be happy to be in the jumperoo. He wants constant crawling or holding. So really his naps are just a break for me or at least a chance to shower or eat or literally do anything else. I cannot live like this.

Right now he’s upstairs crying in his cot while I’m downstairs writing this. I just had to leave him for a minute because I couldn’t bear it any more.

I am at a loss.

Please anybody with ideas or solutions. Please help.

Side note - we only keep the dummy at sleeping times, not during the day. We tried to get rid of it but he just seems to stubborn to let it go.

@GroovyChick87 they really get creative with their sleeping patterns don’t they 😅

Babies change alllll the time in terms of their sleep. I would have thought the lack of daytime sleep is a result of him sleeping more at night. I know it’s exhausting, but for everyone’s sake try not to think of it as power play, babies don’t do that. Try to shift into acceptance mode, don’t have an expectation that he will nap, and just go about your day as normal, including opportunities to nap (I would recommend in the buggy) but without pressuring yourself or him to sleep. He will nap if he’s really tired, and he’s getting a rest in the buggy if not a sleep.

@Tattletail we have been dropping his third nap more or less and he’s been having 2: one morning after school run, one afternoon after lunch. I’ve been basing my awake windows on the app which seemed accurate so far but as someone mentioned, maybe he going through some developmental stage 🤷‍♀️

@CrazyCatLady008 sadly no buggy, car seat, car, bus or train ever worked with this one, my only hope was the carrier but he’s now turned his back on that one too!

@Tootjaskoot i am worried at night he’ll be overtired and won’t sleep. We’ll just have to see what happens at this stage, it’s not like I have much choice! He’s just so cranky all day though.

I think it's important to remember that apps can't account for everything and your baby has absolutely no idea he's supposed to live, or sleep, by a rule book. However well-intentioned it might be!

I think expecting a 8.30 nap is too early, if he's sleeping through the night that's amazing, I would say he might need a nap more like 10.30-11am

Our baby’s daytime sleep has always been all over the place but in some ways it’s a good thing because I have no expectations of routine so I don’t stress. Yesterday our 11mo slept for half an hour all day 😬 unfortunately he also wakes up every 2 hours at night and got up at 4:45am. If I think about it I start obsessing about what I can do about it and in reality, I know it will change on its own. It won’t be like this forever. I say that to myself a lot. Good luck with the afternoon nap and try not to stress if you can 😊

I might be missing something, but why does he have to nap? I had one who slept through from 5 weeks (11pm to 6am) but did not nap during the day. Tye most they did was shut their eyes for 10mins for an infrequent power nap (and I mean literally 10mins). Out of all my kids, this was actually the best as 7hrs of unbroken sleep at night was such a small trade off for no naps during day. It didn’t seem detrimental to them in any way health wise. They are now an adult and funnily can run really well on a very limited amount of sleep if they want/need to.

Oh god I remember the bloody naps. OP you have my sympathy. I was obsessed! I’m actually following to find out if your baby naps this afternoon!! Fingers crossed for you…. Maybe it turns out your baby only needs one long nap instead of two

It could be a sleep regression. There is one at 8/9 months. Also babies vary massively on their sleep needs. My second DD seems to need a lot more day sleep than DD1 did.

At 9 months this was our rough schedule.

Awake 6.30am ish
Nap 8.45/9am for 1.5 hours
Nap 1.30pm for approx 1.5 hours
Bed 7.15pm ISH.

If he is now sleeping better at night is he sleeping for longer and therefore less tired in the morning? X

Also DD1 was the same in some way absolutely refused to nap in the pram after about 6 months. I could have pushed her around all day, made no difference so solidarity there x

@AllTangledUpInTinselAndTiaras that’s true actually, they don’t give you guideline if baby is teething or going through a regression or whatever so expect everything to go smoothly.

@ScabbyHorse this was only cos he woke up mega early and tbf he did look tired! But also he resists naps at any given time of the day 🤷‍♀️

@Icanttakethisanymore oh lord I really feel for you! We did have night time sleep regressions and they hit hard! I hope things will settle soon for you and you’re right, there’s not much we can actually do other than keep going!

@HoppingPavlova maybe yours just need little sleep naturally! Lucky for them now they’re adults! They say babies all need to nap as it helps with their development and keeps them not cranky, but then again, everyone’s different so maybe yours just didn’t need it so much. Mine typically used to nap (though tricky to put him down) so I think he does need it, just going through a phase.

@Newyearnewnameagain20 aw thanks! Well I did manage to put him down this afternoon in the end, he went to sleep with the carrier/dark room/white noise blasting off lol. Took 35 mins of rocking but made it in the end. Let’s see how long he goes for! X

update! He had 43mins and awake again 😭 you can’t make this up

@Tryingtoconceivenumber2 that was our routine until about a week ago! I’m holding out to see how it goes x

I think 8 months is a notoriously bad time. It’ll get better 😊 x

He wants constant crawling or holding. So really his naps are just a break for me or at least a chance to shower or eat or literally do anything else. I cannot live like this.
I feel this in my soul but honestly I’m very jealous of you that you get any put down nap time at all: my baby only contact naps. I just want to put her down and shower. Glad you got a nap in this afternoon.

My second dropped to one nap at this age. He had great bed time sleep so I was fine with it. He just really wanted to explore so I let him. Some days he was tired but he was happy tired and we just had down time instead of naps.

My first was so terrible at night, woke up every 2 hours til age two so he napped a lot in the day.

It's just very baby specific. If he was so tired he would have slept. He sounds under tired. If you would prefer for him to nap in the day you could cut down his bed time sleep but it sounds like he is in a good routine.

I was very stresses about sleep with my first but now I don't put them to sleep. They just fall asleep when they exhaust themselves. It's easier for me this way and they are happier too.

@YellowHatt i feel for you, it’s so hard isn’t it! Hopefully just a phase? Do you wear a carrier? Today’s map was short but I got to eat and put stuff into the dishwasher so that’s something! My little one doesn’t even like being in the bouncer or any chairs etc so it’s full on! We’ll get there x

@Wonderlust233 sleep is by far the hardest thing song with new baby feeding! Thing is, he just had a little nap and his eyes are so swollen from tiredness and he’s so loamy and grouchy and clingy, I think he’s also annoyed he didn’t sleep longer. But we move.

@Manumama If you have room for a play pen it might be a good idea. You can get some lovely looking ones and it would allow you to get in a trip to the loo or five minutes to make a cup of tea or a sandwich.

I think expecting an 8 month old to nap perfectly on a schedule, in the cot without assistance every time and sleep through the night is unreasonable yes.

Trying for a nap at 8:30 when he sleep through until 6:15 seems crazy to me. My baby is only slightly older and would only go down at 8:30 if he was up from 5.