day naps...... not long enough HELP

[laneydaye]

My dd is 5mths and not sleeping very well she usually has 3 x 20 min naps in the day.....
put her down and 10 min later shes awake.. do i leave her to fall back asleep... i can hear her and she isnt crying just making noise....

please help me...

cheers.....xxxxx

bump

couldnt stand it when the crying kicked in (wimp)....

she is so tired but wont let herself fall asleep......

does she sleep at night?

DS slept very little during the day but slept all night. During the day, he would only sleep on the breast, in a sling, or rocked to sleep in his pushchair and they were only powernaps of 30 mins.

apart from that... duno, every kid's different.

you'll find something that works for you both soon enough!

thankyou oatcake, she dosent sleep that well at night either, on the breast every 3 hrs..

well, perhaps just try and be strong and let her cry herself to sleep - I admit I did do that and he did get the message eventually.

bloody tough though...

try hoovering when she starts crying, then you can't hear her... don't be quiet around her

Headphones! There's another good one! With Nirvana playing loudly!

sorted! lol!

I would say it is worth leaving her while she is not really upset as she might be able to get herself back to sleep.

How long do you leave her before you go back in? Then what do you do?

today i left her about 10 mins not crying just moaning, then about 5mins full on crying.... then i bring her back down stairs......

when your lo starts crying I would use pick up/put down. Pick your lo up and when they calm down, lay them back in the cot. repeat as necessary until they go back to sleep (can take a while but at least you're not leaving your lo to cry alone)

If you want your lo to sleep well they need to go to sleep by themselves in the place you want them to sleep i.e. put them in the cot awake and let them go to sleep by themselves. It would be very disconcerting to go to sleep in one place and then wake up somewhere else. (I would use pick up/put down to do this too)

dd goes to bed in a crib (at night) awake...
im trying to put her down for naps in her cot in her own room so she will be used to it when we make the move.....

laneydaye, I sympathise as my 15wk ds is exactly the same as your dd. Frustrating as I know he's tired, but he will not go back to sleep! He's also feeding 2-3hrly at night. A good night is when he settles between these feeds.......

I've been having the same problems with my 12 wk old, 30-40 mins of powering napping....gr8 sleeper at night though will go 12 hours (with just one dream feed...) I can't do cc, gf and baby whisp excellent but not at the point where i want to try pick up put down! So i tried something else, I crept into the room and sat beside cot knowing her 40 min nap was nearly up, when she started to rouse i put her dummy in and changed her lying postition from her back and i slowly rolled her onto her side. She went straight back to sleep.....Not sure if this will help anyone else but its working for me

Laneydaye, my dd never napped during the day unless she was in the car or buggy and then nearly always woke up as soon as we got home. I think her nursery did get her to have a nap when she started there at 6 months old, but she still never napped for us at the weekend (tbh we were wimps too about letting her cry.) I think as she was my first child, and even though i had a lot of practice on my younger siblings, I had sort of expected that she would fall into a routine by herself. In hindsight, the fact that I did something different every day was a mistake.

When ds1 arrived, I had decided to be a sahm and was more determined to get him into a routine. This is what worked for me....

When he was a couple of months old, I started taking him out for a walk every morning at the same time (about 10am) and basically kept walking around our neighbourhood until he fell asleep. I then used to come home and leave him in the back garden (weather permitting). Once he got used to dropping off at this time every day, I started putting him in his cot (mostly asleep going down after a breastfeed.) He had 2 hour naps most days and gradually he went down later and later until it was an afternoon nap rather than a morning one. I now have ds2 also and used the same method with him.

Some babies don't seem to need much in the way of naps but I think as mothers we need them to nap! You need to be prepared to follow the same routine every day, whatever it is. This can be restricting on you but it might mean you get a couple of hours to yourself. Hope something works soon!