Feel terrible - how mean is this?

[cantthinkofagoodname]

4 month old DS won't nap during the day unless help and bounced (thus resulting in short, poor quality naps) and is awful at night even though we cosleep. He only gets approx 9/24hrs sleep. We are all at our wits end and I am near breaking point with sleep deprivation. He spends a lot of time in total meltdown and I've tried all the "no-cry" techniques - shushpatting etc with no luck. He feeds to sleep at night but won't during the day.

I'm exhausted. Today he's been yawning as usual since he woke up at 6am and won't sleep. I decided to try a new tactic and have just taken him up to bed, swaddled him, laid him gently down, and he immediately started howling.

I stayed with him and he cried for 40 mins solidly before falling asleep exhausted, with me lying next to him. He's now asleep, napping in the daytime, for the first time since he was 2 weeks old.

How awful is this? I feel like a horrible mummy now. I coulld just cry myself. Have I scarred him for life?

Don't worry, you haven't scarred him for life. Think of all the babies in the world who have had to cry to sleep for whatever reason, intentional or unintentional. From what you say, he is likely to be overtired all the time, so it is unlikely that you will be able to get him to sleep without some crying at least.

It is truly horrible having a nap-resister.

It is totally normal for a baby this age to need help and to need to be bounced to sleep.

When you say 'short, poor quality naps', how short is short? If he sleeps for between 30-45 minutes at a time, that is a whole sleep cycle and totally normal. Many babies only take short naps at this age but grow into longer naps later.

At this age, my DS didn't use to feed to sleep in the day although he did at night. It turned out that I was mis-reading his tired signs and I wasn't feeding him when he was tired & needing to sleep. I started feeding him around an hour and a half after waking up (which turned out to be when he was tired, although I'd not realised it) and he did start to feed to sleep after all.

Have you tried using a sling for daytime naps? Many nap-resisting babies will sleep in a sling even if nowhere else.

I do hope things improve for you.

And IMO, there is a big difference between putting your child in a room and leaving them to scream, and them crying when you're with them to provide reassurance. Really don't feel bad about it.

I feel your pain canthinkofagoodname as I have a nap resister too (see my other post!!)and although I haven't done this, I can see why you did as I have also come close - but I usually give in and pick her up!

Maybe tomorrow he will go down quicker and you'll have cracked it. Please post and let us know what happens as I might have to try this myself.

As he doesn't sleep enough during the day, crying like that was probably the only way he'd sleep. I remember when my DS was a few weeks old, we couldn't get him to sleep. In the end he'd cry for ages whilst we were holding him and he'd conk out.

My dd was like this and it will get better. It's useful to bear in mind that lots of babies need to cry to sleep - feeling tired feels horrible and they don't know that they're tired, just that it's not a nice feeling. You're not being awful - you've just been supporting him to learn to sleep. There's a school of thought that suggests picking them up when they're crying themselves to sleep actually wakes them up, and starts the whole cycle again, so drags the process out.

TBH, my dd slept in a sling/buggy on the move/care during the day for the first 8-9 months of her life, then decided that she liked her cot and that was that.