Napping

[mom2ben]

Does anyone have any advice on how to get my little one to nap for longer than 30mins during the day? I can time it to the minute when he will wake up and nothing will settle him again - he is normally all smiles! I have tried all methods and I'm at the end of my tether! I am currently following the Baby Whisperer routine so I normally feed him every 3 hours and then have an "activity" for about an hour before putting him down (after seeing a couple of yawns!). He falls asleep with no problems but just won't make it past 30mins. I wouldn't mind this except by the end of the day he is very overtired as he only gets about 2 hours sleep in a day. Touch wood, his night sleep is much better and he is sleeping from 7pm to about 6am (we dreamfeed him at 11pm).

He is 12 weeks on Monday.

Thanks in advance!

This is very very common - sounds like my SIL's baby to the letter! Firstly, make sure he is in a dark room, completely dark if poss. Maybe try feeding him before he goes to sleep so he is def not hungry.

If all else fails and you really want him to sleep longer you could try controlled crying. Google it to find out how. 12 weeks is a bit young to do that though... they say wait until six months but I think you can do it at 4/5.

You could also try putting him in his pram for his naps and when he wakes up giving him a rock to get him back to sleep. My sister used to do this with her babies, she would put them outside in the fresh air in all weathers and they loved it.

Good luck!

He's exactly like my boy! I can't get anything to work either though. He goes from 6.30 until 6.30 but takes 2 feeds one at 11 and the second at 3.

I am beginning to think he may be just doesn't need it. He has 4 30 minute naps a day. May be more if we are out for long enough in the pram.

BTW controlled crying is controversial - and very hard to carry out because you basically have to leave your baby to cry and it is torture - but it does work.

I'm not sure that controlled crying would work as he doesn't appear to be tired so don't think he would fall asleep again. I also don't think I could bear to hear him cry for too long! I might try it when he is a bit older if I need to. Inscotland - I have also thought that maybe he doesn't need anymore sleep. Maybe I should just be happy that he is sleeping so well at night!

If he gets overtired at the end of the day it might be a sign that he is not getting enough sleep. Yes leaving them to cry is horrible!

Could you do his feeds every 2.5 hours so he gets more cycles of feed/activity/sleep? Then he might have five 30 mins sleeps a day instead of four. And more feeds during the day should mean less waking at night.

My lo is 20 weeks and gets plenty of sleep during the day (4-5 hours) but she still ususally has a meltdown at bedtime and nothing I do seems to change this. So, maybe your lo does only need a smaller amount of sleep?

We had similar problems a few weeks ago with an older baby and only managed to break the overtired cycle by putting DS to bed earlier. We put him down half hour earlier and ignored first two "wake-ups" in the morning for 10/15m to see if he would go back to sleep (he did) for 3 days and then he seemed to get over it and started sleeping longer.

Not sure if it will work for you but could be worth a try?

Thanks Gabster - I think I might try that. Unfortunately my husband only gets home from work at 7pm so I have been holding out putting him to bed until he's home so that he gets to see him but that isn't really fair on the little one. Besides, he is in such a bad mood by then that it hardly seems worth it! Hubby is out tonight so I might start the bedtime routine earlier and see how I get on.

He also has a dummy which I am debating to get rid of. I am really nervous though as I don't know how he is going to settle without it! It is also really handy to use in the morning to get him back to sleep until 7 but I think it might also be causing problems with his naps. I noticed that you are on another thread about giving up dummies and it's given me some confidence about trying!

Hi mom2ben - yes, we used to put DSs bedtime off for the same reasons - totally understand. But you never know, if you can get him back on track, you might be able to put his bed-time to 7pm again. I think the important thing we have found is when he naps badly during the day, you have to get him down early in the evening. DH is sometimes upset when he comes home just as I am putting DS down/have already done so (especially if he rushed home) but he realises how important it is now and we often get some "daddy time" in the mornings.

As you say, I dumped dummy, but I don't want to influence you as your DS is still so young - I would definitely worry about getting his sleeping back on track before tackling anything like that. But of course, you are welcome to come on the other thread and talk about it - Becky77 was in a similar position to you I think.

If you are worried about settling him etc., I can really recommend a book "The No Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantly. Lots of really useful stuff to help understand more about baby's sleep, nicely written, has some really good techniques for ditching the dummy etc and helping babies to learn how to self-settle. And like it says on the tin, no crying necessary. Wish somebody had told me about it a lot sooner.

No matter what you do though, let us know how you get on!

Well, I started the bedtime routine at 6 tonight and there were fewer tears than usual. He has been sleeping since 7pm and his dummy even fell out and he carried on sleeping. Normally we have to keep running up and putting it back in. I think you are right - I am going to put off taking the dummy away until I have sorted out a proper routine. I might, however, try and use it less during the day. I actually bought the Elizabeth Pantly book but haven't had chance to read it yet - I might make an attempt this evening!

Hey, glad to hear this evening was smoother - will keep my fingers crossed for you. Settled down with the book and relax - it's really easy reading and made me laugh loads!

I should probably start my own thread, but my problem is this. We can be all nicely bathed and ready for bed and I go to feed her, but she doesn't want to feed and starts screaming, and I mean really screaming, when I try to put her to the breast and then carries on screaming for another half an hour or so until she eventually feeds. After this she'll usually go off fine. This seems to happen every night whatever time I try it at and I just can't seem to get the timing right. Any ideas? Can people give me some idea of their routine timings between the second to last feed and bed?

Mom2Ben - my DS was exactly the same. Only ever slept for a max. of 30 mins at a time in the daytime - you could time it! I could never get anything done - I used to race around for half hour trying to get washing on etc while watching the clock knowing he would wake any second!!

I'm afraid that it took until he was properly on solids (around 6 months) to start having longer naps. I think he didn't have a proper fixed routine until we introduced solids, as I was breastfeeding and found it difficult to fix his mealtimes. Once on solids, his mealtimes were more fixed, and he started taking 2 longer naps of around 1 hour each in the morning and afternoon.

He is now 13mths and is still having his 2 naps a day. I think he needs a very fixed routine, as whenever we go away or disrupt his day in any way, his sleep goes haywire!

My advice is to either try and establish a very fixed routine for feed times and hopefully the naps with improve, or to sit it out until he is on solids...if you can wait that long!