Napping - what do I do if we miss the magic moment??

[tinierclanger]

My 12 week old is hard to get to sleep, and needs help, especially with naps. Sometimes I miss that golden moment when he will doze off, and he goes full circle and gets wide awake again and wants to play. What's the best thing to do? Carry on battling to get him to sleep, as I know he's tired really, or let him play, look around etc, and hope that he won't be too tired to sleep later?

Hmmm... it's up to you but my mantra with dd was 'you can't make them sleep', (but you can make yourself reeeeally stressed) so I'd go with the let them play for a bit and try again in a little while (ds, 13 weeks has just done the same thing. And is now fast asleep on the boob!)

You could either let him play for it or what I would try and do, if possible, is bung him in the pram and just walk until he falls asleep (only really possible if you have 1 child and it's not pouring!)

I'd let them play tbh

This happens to me sometimes with my 10 week old as he gets past the point of no return very quickly!

I usually spend 20 minutes trying to settle him and then either try to repeat the feed/play/sleep cycle but more quickly than usual (say 45 mins instead of 1.5 hours) or take him for a walk in the baby carrier which is almost guarenteed to sooth him to sleep. Neither are ideal but sometimes there's just nothing else I can do.