Naps - timing it right - help please!

[curlyLJ]

No matter what I do, I just can't seem to 'hit' that window of opportunity for getting DD to nap, meaning I end up with her crying, me trying to feed her to either drowsiness or sleep, and it taking forever (or so it seems)

She's now been awake for 1h 45m and isn't showing any signs of being tired. Usually by the time she is, it has turned into crying and then I know I'm in for the long hard slog again. She's not yawning, staring, rubbing eyes or anything! Yesterday she was up for over 3 hours before I could get her to sleep

If I just put her down she will cry anyway..
I feel like I am doing something wrong.

I especially want her to nap well today as we had a rough night (she woke for a feed at 3.30am and was still awake at 5.45 )

Help please!!!

sorry, should have said she is 16 weeks old.

well, after I typed this I caught DD rubbing her eyes so whipped her into the pram and tried pushing to and fro in the kitchen.

45 mins later and no sign of sleeping. Grizzling commences.
Moved up to the bedroom into moses basket
Give a little feed to help her on her way. No such luck.
Looked like she had gone off, creep away
5 mins later full-on crying.

Have now, 2 hours later all but given up and she is back in her bouncy chair happily playing, me in tears of frustration.

What am I doing wrong?? Am I missing the signals?? What should I be doing when she rubs her eyes? I can't take much more of this...

Does the 4 month regression include naps too?? Am wondering if we are heading into this territory.

She has now been up for 4 hours without a nap - oh joy, what is the rest of the day going to be like...?

I feel your pain - DD was very like this - at this age we found that we needed to put her down for the first nap of the day much earlier than we'd realised - as little as an hour after she woke up! I know there are 'rules' and books, but be guided by your child - dd was never a big napper (and still isn't at 18mo - the subject of a different thread!), and I was both and of people who had babies who 'dropped off' on their playmats, or slept for 2-3 hours in the day. It just never happened here, worse luck - but try to put some structure on it and create a habit for her. Sleep cues? Music, white noise?

how does your DD sleep at night? how much total sleep is she getting in a 24 hour period - I found both the No-Cry Sleep Solution and Healthy sleep habits happy child useful - which I can't say of most of the parenting books out there.

Thanks for replying. She sleeps well at night (better if she is well rested from the day tho) from about 8pm through to 5 (on a good day).

I do use white noise and this works a dream at night,. In fact she has gone down pretty well at night for a long time. I use a similar routing for day naps but she just fights it.

She's grizzling again now - looks like I am going to have to take her out for a drive... it's the only foolproof thing for naps (it's just getting damn expensive!!)

ha ha - I love the way I sound like I know what I'm talking about - my DD just gone into overtired meltdown over lunch because I put her to bed too early (?) and I totally messed up her nap again. I am also sick of it and just want to be able to put her to bed at a given time and know that she'll go to sleep rather than listening endlessly to her moan, chat, cry etc and trying to make the judgement call about whether to get her up or leave her...grrrr

Yes, regressions can affect naps as well of (or instead of) night time sleep.

I'd second the Healthy Sleep Habits and No Cry Sleep Solution books (although don't read the HSHHC chapter on what happens if babies don't nap well - I think it overstates the case and will make you depressed if you have a non-napping baby.

You could try the first nap an hour after she wakes up so she's not overtired.

You could try taking her out in the pram / car at the earliest time you think she might be tired & seeing how long after waking she falls asleep. If you can do it a couple of times, you may be able to get an idea of how long to leave it after waking it is before she needs to sleep again.

Although I'm another who only sounds like I know what I'm talking about - ha ha.

hi
god its tough isn't it. i too had a real fighter.. and now she is not.( although no-one is perfect and she does kick off sometimes, like tonight!)

it will get better. i had to instill some routine to help myself get my LO to get her sleep and re-store my bloody sanity.

i did read the usual books and took the bits that helped me the most. some ideas that may work/help:

• IMO the self soothing is the key. encourage/practice to suck thumb, fingers or dummy to help get her to sleep. the reason she is fighting it maybe is she can't self soothe in the day. if she can at night, then you know she CAN it just needs to be helped in the day

• i know you said you tried the same routine as at night ( cause it works then obviously!), but maybe you could tweak it for day, so she doesn't think its nighttime! i used to have the same system for putting LO down (still do!) nappy change,draw the curtains, put in sleeping bag kiss and into cot.all the time shushing and sleepy messages.the same ones!

• try and clear a week and get her into a system for regular times for naps - i know its tricky if they don't wake up at the same time, but there or thereabouts will do. i know its ideal to do sleeps out and about, but if they are not a 'natural' napper then for me this proved impossible!! well the first 2 anyway.

-at her age try putting her down 1hr 45mins for sleeps regardless.if you persist and DO THE SAME THING, EVERY TIME, she will give in! and learn that this is sleep time

• i worked on this for about a month, until it 'came good'. but it did, it really did.i was in despair and went out in the car etc all the time.i had enough and vowed to make this the priority. obviously with just one its easier to do.

then its onto getting the sleeps long enough!!

hope this helps. empathise and wanted to give you some hope too that it gets better

Thanks for all the replies/suggestions - I think I will have to invest in those books and dedicate some time to this nap thing.

Part of me wants to just get on with what I want to do in the days (and let her take her nap if and when she wants to) as I don't want to be stuck in the bloody house all the time just to get her to nap. But then the other part of me just wants to get some sort of routine and not have this will she/wont she problem every day

tinks what age did your little fighter get better?

I've bought her one of those doorway bouncer things now (it's not arrived yet) in the hope I can use it to tire her out between naps

Everyone says the first nap should be quite soon after getting up but she just never seems tired/ready to. Also, do you get them up and dressed before this nap - if only leaving it 45 mins to an hour, it doesn't technically leave much time after feeding before they would be going down again??

Nothing to add other than I know how you feel. I recently posted...'obsessing over naps and still getting it wrong. Please help!' and had some really helpful replies that you might want to check out. I have over the past few days been more dedicated to sorting out my Lo's naps. I was going with the flow but admitted to myself that this no longer suits her or me. I need to now approx (won't be too anal about it!) nap times. Also wanted her to sleep longer than 40 mins. It's still early days but we are already making progress. Good luck

hi
came good about 5 months.
tiring them out between naps is also good! fresh air always helps too.
i know what you mean about being stuck in the house,but they do struggle more from 4 months to settle out, so it may help ( for the middle sleep anyway - the hopefully longest one and maybe be out and about for the other two?)

oh yeh - i dont get LO dressed for first nap.only after.

this all sounds familiar from when DD was little - some babies are just better at falling asleep than others, and with the ones that aren't good at it, usually it does resolve with time - but you do need to help the process along by having a good routine, and some structure. It's very tedious and you just feel at those people who say 'oh Jonny just drops off to sleep for 2 hours at lunchtime', or 'so and so just had a 4 hour nap!). But just as some adults would never dream of sleeping in the day (me!) others are perfectly happy to take a sleep whenever they can. It will be fine...

Just as I suspected, DD was a nightmare to settle last night due to hardly any napping yesterday... Once down (2 hours later) she did eventually sleep until 6am though, from 9pm - so a good sleep for all of us and we feel a bit more positive today.

She snoozed on the bed with me from 7.30 until 9am and then also went down for a nap at 11ish with a bit of help (boob, rocking in the moses basket) for an hour. I just need to get her to have either one more big or two short naps now to carry her through till bedtime [hopeful] but we are going out later and it is a 40 min drive to where we are going - am hoping she will sleep in the car if it's not too hot!

I have resigned myself to the fact that I really just need to persevere for a few more weeks and that she might just settle by the time she is 5 months (she is 4 months now). I can't stay in every day though, so am going to concentrate on making sure she has one good quality nap (in her basket) each day and the rest will just have to be on the go...

curly LJ I think you are doing quite well really - she is only 4 months...

I don't think I started noticing when DS napped until about 10 months. Definitely not at 4 months - I just let him nap when/wherever. If he was awake I put him in the sling or in the bouncy chair watching me (A jumperoo/activity station type thing is good too at 4 or 5 months+ depending on how good her head control is) and could still get stuff done. If he was asleep and I wanted to go out I just put the pram up indoors, put him into it and wheeled it out of the door (could do the same with carseat at this age) I'd get all my stuff ready to go before moving him so that I could just walk straight out the door and the movement of the pram usually sent him straight back to sleep even if he did fuss a little bit when I was moving him.

I am not really sure what you mean about good quality naps - surely sleep is sleep! Most prams look very comfy to sleep in to me. Surely newborns are supposed to sleep on the move?

Oh and if he had been up in the night and I needed sleep, I used to just lie down on the bed and sleep with him - don't feel like you have to be up all day just because it's daytime, look after yourself too

"I am not really sure what you mean about good quality naps"

I just mean a decent lenght really, as when out and about DD tends to just catnap either on me (if sitting in a cafe for example) or in the pram... I think her 45-60 min naps in her moses basket are slighly better as she wakes more rested IYSWIM?

Maybe as you say, a nap is a nap and i am just getting too worked up about them!

Oh I see, that makes sense - DS used to sleep for ages when on the move so I was probably just spoiled! But in general I think that any sleep is better than no sleep and I don't really tend to think about naps with a baby that young - they just sleep when they need to, surely? But maybe as I said I was just spoiled by the ease with which DS used to sleep If I ever have any more babies I'll probably be totally lost!

..they just sleep when they need to surely..'

WANNA BET!!! .

if only if only.... my LO fought hammer and tongs and i really had to help. many many days of endless crying and not sleeping, made a structure a must.

i wish that i could have popped out and about but it never worked that way. and made for a very stressful time. so i fully advocate trying to make that work, but some little live-wires don't like it!!