Grumpy 4 month old hardly sleeping during the day - driving me insane

[peggotty]

He sleeps ok at night but only sleeps for about half an hour at a time during the day. This means that he often either wakes up grumpy or is grumpy only about an hour after he wakes. It is a fight to get him to sleep during the day, but he tends to have 3 or 4 of these pathetic catnaps. Toys only entertain him briefly, the rest of the time he has to be carried when he's like this. At what age do they cope better with being awake longer? I have a 3yo dd who wasn't great sleeper during the day either but she wasn't as grumpy as ds with it! She's also suffering as my attention is almost always on him when he is grumpy/whinging when tired. I'm just not enjoying him because of this but am hopeful that it is just a 'young baby' thing iykwim? I also feel guilty because I'm leaving him to whinge and grizzle quite a lot as I find it hard to do ANYTHING which helps him.

Anyone!? (desperation!!!)

oh I sympathise - my almost six month old DS the same - half an hour almost to the dot then wakes up. No Cry Sleep Solution suggests sitting by them and then soon as they make slightest stir to do whatever it takes to get them off again - rock them/feed them/push up and down in the pram, and if you've caught them early enough, ie before they've properly woken, they should go back off to sleep again. If you do this for a few days the idea is that they can then get themselves off without you having to do anything. Whether this is true is another matter! I am trying it with my DS - rocking him in his Amby soon as he makes first stir - sometimes it works and he goes off to sleep again for another half hour or so. Or you could try Baby Whisperer pick up put down - I'm going to attempt this at some point too when I am feeling strong ... hope it gets better for you!

also I think that they just get better anyway as they get older - my DD was a half hour napper for ages then about the age of one she started to go for much longer.

Thanks for replying Piper! He does sometimes fall asleep if I catch him in the early stages of waking up, but not for long. also with having another child, it's really diffucult getting some kind of 'nap routine' going iykwim as I'm not always in the same place at the same time. He does usually sleep in his pram tho, wherever we happen to be, it's just the enviroment that is different. Well that's him stirring after his 2nd refreshing half hour sleep better go and attempt to entertain the little sod darling.

I know exactly what you mean - also have a two year old DD, and am finding it hard to get a routine of any kind going for DS - though have realised that it may be exactly what is needed, otherwise he is always going to play second fiddle to demanding DD and will never get proper sleeps or regular feeds - we're so all over the place at the moment ... at least yours sleeps in buggy - mine is very unpredictable and often still yells his head off when in there!

I'm having a very similar problem with my 4 month old, only in addition to getting him to stay asleep, I'm also having trouble getting him to sleep during the daytime. Often we'll have an hour of trying to get him to nap for 10 minutes kip.

He's usually a good sleeper at night as well, just not tonight .

I struggle to get him to sleep during the day, and it usually involves me rocking and/or feeding him to sleep, however this completely binds him to me. Don't get me wrong I love spending time with him, but occasionally I need more than 2 hours away, however, because of his inability to go to sleep either by himself, or with anyone else, even my husband can't look after him while I get my hair done.

I'm hoping this is a phase he will grow out of, but until then, I guess I just try every trick in the book

my ds was the same until aroud 9 mths when he settled into 2 x 1 hr naps in the day time. it used to take me about 40 mins walking to get him off to sleep in the pram and then he'd wake as soon as I stopped!
i think it may well be a young baby thing. It is so frustrating though, isn't it?

I have exactly the same problem. My 4 month old DS fights sleep in the day like nothing else. He will scream and scream when he gets overtired. At the first signs of tiredness I put him in his pram but it takes a hell of a lot to get him to sleep and even then its for 25 minutes tops. He needs so much more sleep but he gets himself so wound up that his sleep cycles are so short. Can totally empathise

My dd was exactly the same - it took me longer trying to get her to have a nap than she would actually nap. I tried everything, and I mean everything to get her to sleep longer but nothing worked. I spoke to other mums who's babies were similar and they never found anything that worked but they found that as soon as their lo's started mobilising then things got better on their own.

As soon as DD started to walk - those pathetic 20 - 30 min naps started turning into a 2 1/2 nap in the morning then another hour in the afternoon

I got quite stressed with the whole sleep thing - especially as she seemed to wake me up every 1 - 2 hours in the night too . I was absolutely desperate to have some sleep but instead I had a baby who would have me up all night and sleep for 20 mins at a time in the day......no wonder I was so stressed!!!

In the end i just relaxed with it and she got better by herself. I tried to get on with my day and she would have her little naps as I was off somewhere in the car and popping to the shops with her in the buggy/pram. I completely gave up any effort in trying to do a routine or structure as I kept failing miserably at it.

If you are especially knackered though - take her to bed with you and cuddle in together and they tend to sleep much longer then and you'll get a bit of kip.

Remember, though THEY WILL GROW OUT OF IT!! My lo is now 17 months and is a super sleeper. I gave up trying impose a routine in the early days but she now she has settled into her own.

Those ring slings were fab - a mate gave one for me to try and it was great for keeping lo cuddled and happy - as she moaned whilst being put down. I then had my hands free to get stuff done.

Spent two hours this morning trying to get DS to have a nap.

While previously he would sleep in my arms, now he just refuses to sleep full stop.

I gave in and although I said I'd never do controlled crying, that's what I tried (or at least a variation of it). I put him in his cot with his comforter, the curtains drawn and his music box playing, and left him to it. I went back every 3-4 minutes, then every 5 minutes, and it took him 15 minutes to fall asleep. However he only slept for 10 minutes, but this was enough to make him wide awake when he woke up.

We carried on our routine as usual for the next hour (baby porridge, nappy change and play in his bouncer) then as soon as he yawned and rubbed his eyes, I repeated the above again. This time he was asleep within the first 5 minutes. He's still asleep an hour later.

I wouldn't have considered this approach if he didn't obviously hate being cuddled to sleep at the moment.

I just hope we will have it cracked soon, for his sake as well as everyone else's

Hi,
I sympathise - DS was exactly the same, napping for no longer than 10-20 mins at a time during the day. He's now 7.5 months, and although he's still very unpredictable at sleeping, he's definitely much better. He started to improve at around 6 months, and I'm pretty certain it's because he's now more physically ctive and tires himself out more. He now usually has two naps a day, in the morning and at lunchtime, and will generally have 2 hours of sleep in total. No predictable pattern, though - sometimes the morning nap's long and the lunchtime one's short, or vice versa, or they're both roughly the same. And sometimes he still has two short naps and needs another sleep in the afternoon.

What I would say is that, like you, we tried everything to get him to sleep better early on, and absolutely nothing worked. I really think it's just one of those things.

As for the coping better with staying awake longer, DS is definitely better now, though still not brilliant. We still have a 'witching hour' between about 5.30pm and bedtime when he's knackered and grizzly, and he can still be whiney during the day if he's having a bad sleep day. But I'm optimistic that the upward trend will continue .

Hang in there!

Advice from Mums please.

I am taking care of my grandson for one afternoon per week -he is now 10 months old.

I need something for him to take his afternoon nap in- but have limited storage!

His mother has the Quinney Buzz and Zap, but the first is cumbersome for me to handle, the second dosnt allow him to lie flat.

I was going to look for a secondhand 'something' that would be suitable.

Any suggestions please

hmm

Hi Peggoty, ds was like this at about 12 weeks and I remember feeling really frustrated about it. He was tired, I was tired etc. So, I decided a wee bit of sleep training was needed. I also felt I needed to tackle two things because not only was he cat napping, he was cat napping on the breast. So first of all think about what your aim is for you ds and how you want to go about it.

My aim was for ds to nap in his cot during the day, but I wasn't going to try controlled crying.

I started off by identifying his sleep cues (yawning, rubbing eyes etc), if it got to the stage of the 1000 mile stare before I noticed he was tired, that was often too late.

When I picked up on these (I really did wonder how I had missed them before!) We would go up to his nursery, I would swaddle him (he hated it at first), put on his mobile, and have a breastfeed in my gliding/rocking chair (this chair helped soothe me as well as ds!). When he dropped off I would then place him in his cot. If his little eyes popped open as soon as I put him down, I would pick him up and continue the feed. Then when he dropped off I would put him in his cot again. Tbh this happened quite a few times on the trot, but I tried to remember 'this is all new for both of us and it will be worth it'.

Eventually it would progress and he would fall asleep for 15 mins before waking up, I would then go in and feed him and put him in his cot when he fell asleep. Each day/week he would sleep for a little longer, until it would turn into a full nap. Hurrah!!

This worked really well for us, and because he had those nap cues (swaddle, music from the mobile and a feed) as soon as we went into his nursery he would start to drop off. Within a few months dp was then able to put ds down for his naps, as dp would mimic the cues (apart from the bf!) That was when I really felt like we had cracked it.

When I started to do this I made a point of cutting our outings for the first week, so I could concentrate on getting us used to it. Then as things got better I had a bit of an unwritten rule that he would have at least one nap a day in his cot.

Sorry for the essay, I hope some of this helps you xx

This may not be the answer for everyone - but I think it was around this age that I realised with my ds that by the time I noticed he was grumpy, it was already past the time he should have gone to sleep and then found it harder and harder to do so.

This became clearest to me in the morning, when he really couldn't stay awake long, even 2 hours was too long. If I put him to bed when I first noticed the tiniest whinge, eye rub or whatever, regardless of the time, he went off to sleep more easily and this set us up for a much better day. Also allowed us to get a nap in before going out (and me to go back to bed quite often too!).

He's now four, and my dd (14m) has been very similar. In fact she still fades quickly after about 2 hours awake and will have a good sleep at this time and then a much longer awake period later in the day.

Good luck to you!