4 month old seems to sleep best at night if no naps during the day - anyone else had this?

[arolf]

my DS has recently decided to sleep occasionally at night (yay!) he's still waking every 2-3hours for a feed or a shushing, but all in all, it's a massive improvement from when he used to just scream all night long when not feeding!

anyway, we've been trying to get him into a routine of sorts, with the recommended 3 hrs or so of naps during the day, then he'll sleep better at night.
but not him. on days when he naps well, he'll be up every 45 mins-3 hrs during the night. he'll then be a horror the following day, refuse to nap, generally look furious, and then he'll have a 4 hour sleep at night, then maybe 3 HOURS, THEN 2. THEN UP FOR THE DAY.

sorry, caps lock, feeding and typing.

has anyone else experienced this? if so, should we just go with it, or persevere with naps and night time shushings/feeds?

I should probably add, my parents have said i was like this as a baby, but I am now and always have been an appalling sleeper - if my eyes close for longer than a blink during the day, i do not sleep at night. and can never go back to sleep once awake, so am utterly exhausted at the moment!

I think you may benefit from reading this book. It's written by a sleep expert with over 30 years experience in the field of children's sleep. Lots of advice in there. Read the reviews and buy it if you like the sound of it. I didn't use his sleep training method, I used the baby whisperer one, but everything in this book is spot on. And at every age and stage of my kids sleep problems, there is advice in there.

At this stage they probably will sleep better at night on no naps as they're exhausted but IME it will all come back to bite you in due course. For a variety of reasons.

Neither of my children slept through until 9 months, subject to teething of course or getting a cold. It is hard but it does get better in the end.