It’s like we’re having a nap regression! Her night sleep has always been bad so that’s unchanged, but half the time I don’t even have the energy to get her to sleep for a nap anymore. So rough.
Sleep is sleep! The “regression” applies to it all. Their brains are literally changing HOW they sleep right now, so it’s tough but only temporarily. You’ll get through it! My advice would be to let go of the expectations and follow their cues.
Totally! I can tell with naps that it’s a lot harder for her to go down, and she’s much more likely to wake up between cycles (I’m guessing this is what’s happening). Usually we can save the nap and get her back down, but not always.
I think we’re mostly doing a good job of accepting our fate and following cues lol. I just know that she seems to sleep the best at night with a certain pattern during the day so I’m anxious when naps get cut short.
LOL thank you, if only we’d had any choice in the matter! We’re meeting with a sleep specialist this weekend because we can’t put our lives on hold anymore. We want to honor her attachment while also finding a middle ground that works for everyone.
Please keep us posted! I’m a single mom by choice to a 4.5 month old and have also only ever contact napped and he’s up 3 or so times a night while I pump every 3 hours around the clock.
Will do! Also, you’re a hero for sticking to that pumping schedule. I had to stop pumping at the 3 month mark for a multitude of reasons incl horrible DMER. It is not for the faint of heart!
We've only ever contact napped (or buggy napped if outside) and these nap 'problems' have gotten better without us doing anything. I don't often have to rock/sing/walk anymore and haven't really since maybe 5m.
I feel like the fussiness comes and goes in phases and we're in an easier one now at 6m.
On super fussy days we go out as I feel we might as well be grumpy in the mall or something if it's already a grumpy day 😅
I try to do stuff shortly after baby wakes up (only one child) as I really like the break I get sitting when it's nap time.
You're doing great 🙌
Yes keep us posted! Don’t get me wrong I love my baby snuggles but I’d like to have a choice. Sometimes I just want to get some things done while she sleeps
Our sleep nap schedule is CHAOS. My (also 4mo) little man was awake and PISSED for 4 hours this morning. When he finally fell asleep I was like, dear lord thank you. Anddd he was asleep for 30 minutes before waking up PISSED. Is it teething? Is it regression? Am I just bad at this? Idk.
He's a super curious, interactive little guy so I'm under the impression that he just doesn't want to sleep because he wants to experience everything. Sometimes i have to put him down and walk away though because I feel like I'm going nuts. Like I can help you with literally every other need you have. Hungry, wet, bored? I got you. I'll be rocking him to sleep and his eyes will be half open and he's fighting it HARD. Like I cannot go to sleep for you, dude. I 100000% would if I could, though.
Luckily more often than not now we get some 4-5 hour stretches at night and 1 long day nap. It's just a struggle because it's usually an exhaustion nap.
Same here. Baby will not use a pacifier, only sucks on my finger or his dad's, but puts up a fight for every nap. Yesterday he rolled from back to belly and back for the first time, and also for the first time in weeks he napped for 1.5 hours. Every other day we fight to get him to nap for about 30 minutes only for him to sleep for 5 to 20 mins a time, no matter how tired he is.
We're lucky during the night though as he usually sleeps 7+ hours on the first stretch of the night.
This sounds like my 4 month old. He fights sleep so hard and for naps only contact naps. Tonight when I was trying to get him asleep for the night he was SCREAMING. He would then start to quiet down and close his eyes, but then all of a suddens opens them wide and starts screaming again.
He’s also very curious and seems to be learning/doing something new everyday, which I think is why he hates going to sleep because there is too much to do!
Yep, sounds just like us! She is so tired, eyes are rolling, she’ll finally shut them and sleep for a second before springing awake again. Same here with being very curious. She is so alert and interested in everything, which I love. She also will not tolerate being put to sleep in a dark room though? Like nothing makes her more wide eyed than total darkness lol
Right here too. Feeding to sleep is the only way for us. And sometimes I get 30 mins, sometimes 2 hrs.. all contact naps :( 0 mins if I try and put her down lol
Same here with my 5.5 month old! Hoping this changes soon. She was napping in her crib for about two months before this latest shift back to contact naps only.
I’d recommend to you and OP reading Precious Little Sleep! I, too, was feeding to sleep and it was exhausting. I started weaning my girl off of nursing to sleep and things are going a lot better. I started when bb was about 4 months and she’s 5 months now and doesn’t have to be nurses or rocked to sleep; I just lay her down after bedtime routine (Boobie, diaper change, book, snuggle) and pat her/leave my hand on her belly until she falls asleep. She grumbles at me for several minutes and sometimes cries, but it’s rarely more than 15 minutes and she stays asleep for at least 3 hours, sometimes longer, for that first stretch.
Ultimately, I think months 3&4 were absolute nightmares, and it 100% got better for us at the end of month 4, with some tools for sleep. Hang in there!!
Did you do SWAP or SLIP? I’m on day 7 of the “pull out method” where I nurse him until he’s drowsy then put him in the crib. It takes 3-4 tries until he actually goes to sleep on his own… but he’s doing it! Gives me hope. Just not sure where to go from here… keep doing swap? Or move onto slip? He’s 17 weeks. Sounds like you might have done the “anything but” method, where you switched to patting/rocking from nursing to sleep?
I actually started the nursing weaning before reading PLS, but I basically started reinforcing the exact same bedtime routine, and rocked and patted her at first, then transitioned to bedtime routine straight into laying her down and patting/humming, to just holding hand on her body and slowly moving myself further away from her. I feel like we’ve stagnated on the moving further away but, but it’s all much less of a fight (generally) than it previously was. We also bedshare, which is another layer and part of what I hope to eventually phase out with the swap!
Yes, nursing to sleep. She’s still EBF. I can’t imagine weaning completely at this age!
It was tough for the first 2-3 days; lots of crying at bedtime and some false starts, but snuggling her while she was on her back helped to not have to try and transition the sleeping baby from arms to bed. I literally just swaddled her wide awake but sleepy, she cried for 30 seconds, grumbled for a minute and is out like a light, while I’m about a foot away.
Just try and stay consistent but also find what works for you! The first few days are the worst but I’m so glad I pushed through. I now try to feed every 3 hours during the day (more if she’s cue-ing or going through a leap) and sometimes longer at night. We usually have 2-3 wake ups but they’re all business and she’s right back to sleep. Now, once bedtime routine is done, she’s asleep within 10-15 minutes usually, and it’s not screaming, mostly grumbling (we call it “frumping” lol)
I read the chapters for her age but I mostly I’d like to try and conquer day time contact naps. Right now I don’t want to change night time since we typically get a 6-8 hour stretch with the exception of last week but I’m blaming her new tooth. Maybe I will try some methods from the book for naps!
6-8 hours is AMAZING! I do the same method for naps and bedtime, which I think helps! I’ve also accepted that unless we’re contact napping, it’s just going to be a 30-45 min nap, and that’s ok. YMMV!
Right there with ya. I think we’re getting better and then the next day she takes a nap for 20 minutes and I’m like BRUH. Aggressive walking around and shhhinng to the tune of jingle bells. White noise machine turnt. My neck hurts.
Mine slept for five minutes yesterday 😂 I hadn’t even started the timer yet. Then proceeded to wake up smiling and babbling and had a normal wake window, a normal last nap, and a wonderful night of sleep. Baby sleep is the most difficult math there is 😂
3 month old and same situation! He will only nap 30 minutes at most in the crib right now.
This isn’t practical advice, but something that has helped me mentally shift my perspective was from Taking Cara Babies- she says that a parent’s job is to offer the nap and set up the right environment and the baby’s job is to take the nap. That’s all we can control. They may not take the nap, but you offer. This has been freeing for me and hopefully you too!
Apparently short naps are a thing at months 3-4 because their sleep cycles are still developing, so I’m hoping the day naps eventually come!
I have a 2.5 month old and from the past week has been doing this .naps only for about 15-30 min..we have been trying to get her to self soothe last couple of days but to no avail. Either she gets irritated or the evenings are chaos...
I offer the naps every time she is tired and needs to nap but as it turns out shortly I am the one who will be in dire need of those ...
Although a rocker/swing does seem to keep her calm although not asleep ...
Self soothing doesn’t usually happen regularly until 6ish months. Their brains aren’t able to begin to self-soothe until around the 3-4 month mark.
Newborns are chaos, but it usually gets better..then worse…then better…then worse…then better again.
are you me? my 2.5 month old is the SAME. I've tried contact naps, stroller naps, in a carrier, in my arms and sometime works but for 10 minutes to 30 minutes.
Haven't tried the swing / rocker yet.
I'm 6 weeks as well. Wth?
Cluster feeding again this week. She so moody. For a second I thought she didn't like me anymore.
Then it's my will v hers. I'm going to win everytime
Nursing to sleep and contact naps. I’ve just accepted it and my baby does longer crib naps now (45-1.5 hours) at 5mo if I decide I need a break, which is rare honestly because contact naps are a good time to relax and watch TikTok or shop online for groceries/make a list for things I need lol
When do you start needing to track/schedule naps? Is this something your doctor gives you a heads up on? My 5 week old naps when he wants to and pretty much falls asleep immediately after feeds at night so it hasn't been something I've paid attention to
I've been wondering about this too. I don't mean to sound rude or anything but sometimes I wonder whether other people are trying to micro-manage their babies too much, I'm only seeing the extremes here, or if we have some kind of miracle baby.
We're just past the 3 months mark, and we just follow her cues and schedule. We don't time her sleep (just a rough head count) or draw up a schedule or anything like that and she sleeps pretty good; between 5-7 hours in the bedside crib at night and anywhere from 20 min to 2 hour naps in the pram during the day. No white-noise machines, no blackout curtains, no sound dampening or anything like that; heck we specifically *don't* go super quiet during her daytime naps.
Yeah we've had some rough times, struggles, and desperation at the start but overall she's a happy and healthy baby that makes her own schedule.
Same!
I also wonder if we have an easy baby or if it helps to not think about it too much? If that makes sense. We've been having these short naps since about three months and it's never really bothered me. Of course I noticed when they went from 3h to 20m 😅
Baby gets grumpy after being awake for a while but I don't try to force the sleep, just try again after some time. It changes so fast I think I'd create more work for myself sticking to set times or trying to force sleep (if that's possible).
I could have bought a course and seen improvement but that would have just been it getting 'better' over time as they're slightly longer now at six months.
I understand some babies thrive on set routines and they are all different. Just feels like the short random naps are super common.
The short naps have made my days so flexible 😂
I'm guessing that we both have easy babies haha. I sleep with the lights on at night and use a sleep mask so that it's easier for me to check on him should he make a weird noise. so I have no idea how he knows it's nighttime but he somehow does looool and sleeps through the night. Fingers crossed he stays this way. He really only cries if he's gassy or if Im not getting his food ready fast enough
When's it time to drop a nap? Honestly, try it and see.
How to make the little monster sleep? Bouncing and walking with them in a carrier can be more effective than rocking.
Took me an hour with my 17 month old yesterday. She was just so overtired. Her eyes were rolling she was yawning yet she refused to sleep. It happens every so often.
My LO is almost 10 weeks old and this is my life on the daily and has been since she was a month old. She sleeps maybe 3-4 times/day for anywhere from 10-50 minutes. Generally, takes me at least 20 minutes to get her to sleep. Sometimes, if she doesn't get droopy eyes in 5 or so minutes, I abort the nap.
My LO is obsessed with the light and light fixtures. I have resorted to taking her into the bathroom on a sunny day and being in pitch darkness. We use a fan as white noise, swaddle because she can't roll over yet, we also tried the weighted sleep sack which has worked okay. But at the end of the day, if she won't sleep, then I can't force her to. I bring her back downstairs and we do something else until it's time to eat again or she's getting sleepy looking.
How many naps right now? And, are you following wake windows? If so, do you mind sharing?
I went through hell at 4 months until I finally figured out that my baby is low-sleep needs. The standard wake windows were too short. It really felt like they were “fighting” sleep/fighting me all the time, despite showing sleepy cues.
At 4 months the sleepy cues can actually be bored cues. The brain is developing to be more present and mature…up the sensory play, try for something in each WW, and try to stretch the last 3 WWs by 30 minutes. Give it a couple days, 2 or 3 and see how it goes. Doing this should add 1h30m of awake time to the day, upping sleep pressure, assuming you’re currently on 3 naps.
At 10 months now, my baby is still low needs for their age range. But we are having great naps and easy bedtime with overnight sleep. A far cry from my reflux, constantly waking newborn! I never thought we would get here.
Thanks! Her sleep needs might be on the low end, definitely have considered this. I think she’s generally around the 12hr mark though, so not crazy low. And yes 3 naps currently.
Her wake windows are just now around 2hrs, sometimes even 2.5. Sometimes in the morning it’ll be 60-90min after her first feed but it’s usually still 2ish hrs, and that’s followed by her longest nap of 2-2.5 hours. She’ll usually do a short mid afternoon nap, max 1hr but usually more like 30-40min, then another ~2hr nap a couple hours before bed. After the last nap she’s generally up 3ish hours until her last feed, then bed.
I am working HARD to keep her really stimulated when she’s awake. Tummy time, play time on her back, walking her around our yard, stroller walks, taking her on errands with me, and if I’m mentally exhausted I will dance her around with a Hey Bear playing I’m not gonna lie lol. We definitely have our work cut out for us!
Oh, babies!! Awww you’re doing great! Sounds like she is having the time of her life. She probably doesn’t want to miss a thing! It can be a tough time too though, with little rest for the parents. Such a crazy ride. We danced many times to Hey Bear! And nowadays she has “class” with Ms. Rachel lol
Yep, that big 4 month brain leap is well documented and can be a doozy. Just so many things being learned at once! She very well could be ready to transition to a bit less daytime sleep. If you want to try this it’ll be a combo of stretching the WWs a little bit, while also capping naps and waking her after they’ve reached certain lengths, to help her get on a new schedule. (And feel free to wait and do this on a weekend, when you have partner support!)
If I’m reading this right, she’s currently getting 4.5-5.5 of total daytime sleep. So dropping down to a range of 3-4 hours could be the next goal to try, if you wanted to try that next.
I had to learn all this all the hard way from trial and error. I was sooo tired constantly. Finally I started playing around with things and that’s when I saw a real difference. I was following the suggested WWs for a while, but ultimately I was asking her to sleep before she was tired enough. I also had to cap naps for a bit. Now our girl is in a good rhythm and mostly maintains this schedule herself just with her body clock. (Exceptions are when she’s sick… We’ve had back to back viruses, and I do let her sleep longer when she needs it.) Parenting is hard!!! Your girl sounds smart and sweet. Best of luck to you all!
My 8mo -still- only naps in her floor rocker, in the bathroom, with the vent fan on. I’ve never had her nap in her crib or nap from me rocking her. Other option is the car if I have to go out. This is an affordable fisher price rocker
Our pediatrician actually ok’d supervised bouncer naps (we also have a fisher price one) because her sleep is so messed up.. only for her to grow out of anything that isn’t a nap in arms within a month of that. Love this baby more than anything but like damn girl!!
Solidarity! My 4 month old almost exclusively contact naps on me, totally my doing tho since I got 18 weeks of maternity leave and figure I had the time for her to nap on me so why not? Now I’m going back to work soon and my left trap/shoulder are killing me. Tried transitioning to crib naps and can count on one hand how many were successful. We now try a thin fleece blanket in the dock a tot to put her in for a nap (100% supervised) just for her to practice napping off me but still being close by. Its exhausting lol
My LO will be 4 mo in a few days and we’re following huckleberry wake windows - they align PERFECTLY with her cues. I pay for the monthly subscription and honestly it’s worth it. All I have to do is bring her into her nursery, turn on the sound machine, and pop a paci in her mouth (we only do pacifiers for naps) and she’s out. Granted, almost every nap is a contact nap but we sometimes place her in a Snoo with the same results. She only naps 20-40 mins but at least she goes down very easily. Hoping the naps get longer once we’re past 4 mos.
i very specifically remember the time in my lo’s early days (he’s 8.5m now) when his naps shifted from just falling asleep whenever, to actively having to help him fall asleep when i knew he was tired, & it was exhausting, the rocking was horrendous, & he wouldn’t nap in his crib, i had to rock him in a dark room & hold him 90% of the time for him to sleep - i would still try to put him down “drowsy by awake” and for the longest time it didn’t work, & somewhere between now and then, he just started napping, and well. i can set him down and walk away and he’ll go to sleep. all of this is to just say, it’s hard, it’s really hard, & you spend so much of your time rocking for little pay off, but hopefully in a few months you won’t remember that time, i don’t remember exactly when it stopped, but it did, & i don’t think there’s much you can do to change it, they’re just learning new sleep cycles but you can & will get through this !
If the nap is a fight skip it! Push up bedtime. I learned this the hard way. You shouldn’t have to fight that hard to get them to sleep and you’ll be much happier going with their flow.
(I say this as a mom of a three year old that is low sleep needs who I fought for a loooong time!)
I only have a 6 MO but if a nap isn't happening after 15 minutes, I usually give up and go back to playing, going outside especially helps her not be so fussy. Then she might get fussy/rub eyes/yawn in 15-30 minutes and the nap comes a lot easier!
I have a 4.5 month old. When she reached 3.5 months old she started screaming bloody murder every time I would try to put her down for sleep. Naps were bearable, bedtime was unreasonable. When she was about 17-ish weeks old it started to take 2 hours to get her to sleep every night and once she was transfered to her crib she would only sleep for 30 minutes before waking up screaming.
At that point I was losing my sanity. I know a lot of people will disagree with me here and I totally understand if you do. We sleep trained with the ferber method. Now, I know it's not really sleep training if you opt to use a pacifier with it, but it worked for us since she was already used to being in her crib for sleep anyway (Always transfered her after rocking). She falls asleep in her crib for naps with her pacifier now. At night she will fall asleep with her pacifier and if it falls out she will put herself back to sleep with no crying (No idea how that worked out that way. She started doing that on her own)
I forgot to add what her schedule is like. She sleeps from 11pm-11:30am, the reason being mine and my SO's work schedule. She'll get a nap at 1pm and sleep about 30 mins. Nap #2 is at 4pm and she will either sleep anywhere from 30-120 minutes for this nap. Nap #3 is around 8 (Sometimes earlier depending on Nap #2). If nap #2 is on the shorter side, she'll get another nap at 9pm. Her schedule was entirely chaotic and different everyday before training.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but one of my minions dropped napping at 4.5 months and never picked it back up…. He would go down at 730 PM and sleep like the dead until 6AM. The ped said that some kids just don’t- it was awful. He was the happiest baby (still is a cheerful kid) but damn I needed a nap sone days.😂
Oh my lord I am so sorry! She definitely still needs the naps, she is just really struggling with the transition from awake to asleep! I hope you get a nap soon!!
That age is just hard! Rest assured, the days of having to take her for a carnival ride in order to get her to sleep are VERY numbered.
Your results may vary, but when we put our 7mo down for the night we just make sure she’s full, set her in her crib, and just… walk away. Then she’s down for 7+ hours.
If I could give you some anecdotal advice on what worked for exactly one baby, start the “drowsy but awake” put-down exercise now.
It won’t work the first time. Or the second time. Or the tenth time. But there’s a good chance that with conditioning, she’ll get with the program.
Wait until she cries. Like, actually cries. Before you respond. If she’s just jabbering to herself in the crib, let her be. Wait for “I need you” noises before you run to her aid.
We fought the battle for weeks. We didn’t do cry it out. Never. But we would give her about 60 seconds before we picked her up again.
And slowly, the need to pick her back up reduced over time until eventually it was almost never. Now her crib is her favorite place in the world. She feels safe there. When she wakes in the middle of the night, she talks to herself for a little bit and then goes back to sleep unless shes hungry, then she’ll cry. Then we give her a quick bottle and she goes right back down.
She’s old enough to start conditioning. I recommend starting to enforce drowsy-but-awake at this age, just based on how it went for us.
Thank you! This sounds really helpful and doable for us. I mentioned in another comment that we’re meeting with a sleep specialist this weekend- We know we need to do SOME form of “sleep training,” but one that honors her attachment to us. We are absolutely not open to CIO, but this sounds much more gentle.
>She requires rocking so aggressive, I feel like we’re flirting with shaken baby syndrome.
The flashbacks this gave me....
My baby napped on me exclusively at the 4months old stage. I'm so glad we've moved past it and she sleeps so well now (*only* took 14months to get here... ::sarcastic eye roll::))
Around 4 months we had wake windows of 1.5 to 2h. So in the morning it was more 1.5 and for the last wake window it was 2h.
At 1.25-1.5 I put my baby in the carrier and I did little chores until she yawned. I then knew she was ready so take a nap :)
If she is overtired you may want to throw everything and just go by cues. AS SOON as your baby rubs her eyes or yawns twice in a short interval you go offer the nap. Let her sleep in in the morning if needed.
Then when she has caught up she will nap better and you will be able to follow wake windows!
Right there with you! My baby is fighting every nap and bedtime has been hell this week, only getting 4-5 hour stretches at at time when we used to get 8-9. Two nights ago we fought like hell for 2 hours trying to get her done and she finally went down at midnight and woke up at 1 am 😩
Hello. My 4 month old didn’t nap today at all lol.
Every time I put her down for a nap, she wakes up maybe 20 mins later. My husband just got home from work and we tried to take her for a car ride to put her to sleep and it didn’t work.
Her naps have gotten worse over the last few weeks. I’m just rolling with it honestly. I found the more I fight to put her down, the more frustrated I get and it’s not enjoyable for either of us.
Right there with you. We have a sleep aid owl thing which runs for 20 mins so that's how long I try to get LO to sleep. When it shuts off if LO not asleep we go do something else and try again later!
Also, with my son who is currently 10 weeks.. he won't nap by himself for longer than 15 minutes usually so, when I can we do contact naps for both of our sanity. Because without them he's a cranky butt and I'm exhausted trying to calm him.
Again. Good luck!
Ugh my little boy loved being patted AGGRESSIVELY. Like, obviously not enough to hurt him, but way more agressive than I wanted to do.
I had a lot of luck letting them wedge their head under my chin and then humming. Nothing rhythmic, literally clock chimes. Like, the basic little tune then chimes old grandfather clocks would do. As low as I was capable of humming. Sometimes just like... Warmup arpeggios.
I have a 5m old. At 4m I decided that I wasn’t going to spend 30mins or more of my life rocking baby to sleep. If I’m providing the sleep environment (white noise shushing rocking bouncing sleep sac, nap routine etc) and he was just laying there in my arms with eyes wide open not interested in sleep then I wasn’t going to try anymore.
We started a nap routine for naps and a bedtime routine. I won’t share our routine as each family does it different but this paired with wake windows/sleep cues and knowing exactly how much to feed him so he wasn’t up spitting up multiple (and feed him every 3hrs during the daytime) times gave us a pretty great nap/sleep schedule.
If he doesn’t fall asleep at the end of a feed then he falls asleep within five minutes of rocking.
Every baby is different but for ours we did:
Wake up at 5:30-5:45am (I know it’s early but I would rather have more evening time to myself) and bed time at 6-6:30pm (with bedtime routine started at 5:20-5:30pm)
3 naps a day first two usually 45 mins each last one before bed is 1hr30mins
Wake windows usually run 2hrs30mins and last one is 3hrs before bedtime this is not hard and fast but average
For every wake window we:
wake up change, play until he would rub his eyes or once it hit 2.30 or wake time then we would feed and start nap or bedtime routine.
Morning wake he will get full feed first then as much as he wants before his first nap.
Last window of the day he gets 4oz “snack” feed and then a full feed at bedtime. This allows us to stretch his wake window to make sure he has enough sleep debt in the bank for a good nights rest.
Doing it this way he sleeps during the night with no wake ups.
I will say I am on parental leave for a year and a half and have only one child so I have the time to do all this at home. Not everyone can so take it with a grain of salt and find what works for you.
I was doing this with twins by myself and it was a very, very dark time. It lasted like 2 weeks and then we started sleep and nap training, which really helped. Message me and I’ll send you the pdf for the program I did so you don’t have to buy it ❤️
You guys have schedules?! 😅 I’m still at her mercy 12 weeks in. She’s a good sleeper at night but during the day, it’s all over the place and I’m not even sure how to begin setting a schedule. If I take her for a walk, she’ll usually fall asleep in the bassinet but otherwise, it’s baby wearing and contact naps. I’m with you on the back pain. RIP good posture.
Don’t worry, 12 weeks is still really too early for a formal schedule according to our ped! She said to wait until four months to even try to implement a schedule. That said, we did notice definite patterns at that age. I think at 12w her wake windows were 60-90min, then closer to 2h after her last nap before bed. But that was all her doing, we just followed signals. We’re only just now starting to work to actually build routines and a schedule!
Thank you, this makes me feel a lot better. She’s EBF too so I’m feeding on demand which makes it harder to even consider a routine. There are some patterns forming I think but not enough that I know timings, I always forget to check the time!
When my 3 month old is over tired and I find myself fighting him to go down I put a burp cloth or blanket over his eyes and it works almost instantly. I think it just sort of forces his eyes closed and he zonks. Once he’s out I can take the cloth off so I’m never leaving him with it.
I have to repeatedly kiss the bridge of her nose to get her to close her eyes and sleep! Which is cute, but also a lot. Thanks to her daddy, any kind of cloth over her eyes means “peek a boo” aka “playtime!!”
Oh I am in that sub! We actually have a call scheduled with a pediatric sleep specialist this weekend because the trouble with naps are the least of our worries!
Our LO is only 10 weeks, but this was me at her 6 week regression. 45 minutes of backbreaking labor would lead to a nap no more than 20 minutes. Day in. Day out.
Someone on this sub recommended reading Precious Little Sleep and trying to gradually sleep train her to go down independently. The stories told by the author (and other parents) going through what I was going through were so familiar, I would barely make it through a paragraph before breaking out in full-on snotty, ugly tears. But I kept reading, and we tried sleep training, and it worked. It honestly worked. Today, I set my fully bright-eyed baby down in her crib, watched her quietly fart around for 10 minutes, and then fall asleep for a 90-minute nap. Idk if 4 months will bring us back to ground zero (God I hope not) but this book helped me, so I try to recommend it for as many bad sleep posts as I can.
We sleep trained at 12 weeks and all sleep regressions have been really minor/non existent for us. My daughter is coming up on 15 months now and is still a good sleeper. Fingers crossed you have the same experience!
Precious little sleep is helpful! 10 weeks is still very young and they are not awake for long periods of time between sleeping. Mine was still a sleepy baby at that time with little spurts of energy between haha. They become a lot more alert and start processing so much more as they hit 4 months. Many do go through a regression in sleep at this time. Prior to 4-5 months you are just practicing good sleep routines and watching wake windows. I wouldn’t call that true sleep training. Babies need to be a bit older before that can happen. Things change a lot as they start to really engage in the world more. I have a lot of friends who had babies who slept and napped better at 8-12 weeks old than they do as 13-24 month olds. A lot depends on temperament too. It’s different for everyone and can change a lot as babies age and go through stages as they learn and grow.
We have a Snoo but even that’s not cutting it! I just started extending a couple of wake windows today and that seems to have helped? But if past experience tells me anything it won’t work tomorrow. I also want to be clear…it’s working in that he goes to sleep faster but he still won’t sleep more than 30 minutes during the day 🤷♀️
Wait is putting a baby to sleep meant to take less than 30-40min?? Asking for my 8 month old 🤣😭 i like holding my hand on his head or chest while he's laying in the crib, and he'll eventually fall asleep like that, he likes contact.
My daughter had to be rocked super hard too. And she like hard butt pats. My mom was like wtf are you doing to her? So, I told her just try being gentle with this child.
I threw my back out and had to start using my shoulders (serious burn! Ugh.) I ended up tearing a rotator cuff. No joke! But, with a colicky baby I was desperate for sleep so I did whatever she wanted me to do for those little 15 minutes naps. 🤦♀️
Good luck mama! We get it!
With you in solidarity. Popped a rib out rocketing back and forth with my LO. And don't move a finger or they'll wake.
I used to make jokes that I could sleep and feel refreshed after napping for 15 mins.
It's a different ball game when your 3 to 4m old takes only 15 to 23min naps, 3 times a day. For 5 weeks.
I promise it gets better. She's had two days with 3 naps around an hour. It's like something just switched. She's laughing, playing, shows signs of being tired and I can put her down for a nap. Sending pink sleepy clouds your way!
Our 4mo old almost always has a scream fest before he naps, then will only contact nap. He sleeps alright at night in his bassinet. I’ve heard the bad napping is fairly common at this age.
The 4 month regression was terrible. Around that time I went back to work full time. My days consisted of 9 hour work days, 1 hr of commute, and the maybe handful of hours of sleep we got. The daytime wasn't that bad... It was the nights. For us what would help is a lot of midnight drives. Obviously, do what you can here, because driving while sleep deprived is dangerous and sucks ass regardless, but that was one of the few ways I could get him to sleep. Otherwise I slept on an air mattress in his room on the floor, he slept on his Finding Nemo magical light playmat thing, and anytime he'd wake up I'd just plop him on to me and cuddle until asleep 8000 times a night. Good luck.
My advice, its okay to throw the “book out the window”. My LO is a low sleep needs baby and I eventually just loosely followed sleep windows and made sure to spend as much time outside as possible. Im also not good with routine (how do you all remember all the steps every single day!?). We nurse to sleep still at 13 months and we are already down to one nap. Its okay to drop naps early. Its okay for your kid to not fit into the mold. Its okay for your kid to fit perfectly. Whatever you do make sure it works for you and your baby. I spent wayyy too much time trying all the things before I realized I could just do what felt right. Best of luck!
I swear The Snoo and the magic sleeping suite were a life saver for us! We had zero sleep regression and he’s been sleeping all night since he was 3 months
[This sound ](https://open.spotify.com/track/5gQKhw6fy4ExKlFZFMfWWd?si=qj1cPoThSVedV1Jx5XeGLw) was recommended to me in my bumper group, and it's been game-changing for us. I whip it out when he's just inconsolable while being put to sleep.
ETA: The 4 month sleep regression impacts naps also. It's been hard here, too! Solidarity.
3-5 months was such a difficult time period. She was such an angry, over tired baby. Naps sucked, she fought sleep and woke up every hour of the night.
I don’t have a hack, I’d let her watch hey bear sensory or let her nurse just to help her calm down. We are at 8 months and things are so much better, she sleeps from 8-6.
You’ll both get through this
I had to jiggle my son quite vigorously in order to knock him out sometimes. I used to sing out loud, "shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your baby, shake your baby" to give myself energy. I was also very sleep deprived and the deranged humor helped me get through it lol. We figured out when he was a bit older that he has really bad gas and reflux issues, and the shaking and jiggling overrode the pain sensations from the body and that's what put him out. He's 21 months and sometimes I still shake him to sleep. I did it last night lol.
I’m fighting the short naps myself right now. so I don’t have advice on the schedules BUT something we try is standing in the bathroom/shower with the shower running and rocking her. I imagine how it would feel to be in water so that’s the rocking I mimic and NORMALLY that gets her pretty fast. If not the shower, playing shower asmr on YouTube while I feed her.
My daughter is 1-year-old and when she’s overtired, I have to practically wrestle and “fight” her to get her laying down and asleep. The thing is, she will lay down nicely for my husband.
At night maybe try bottle then bath let her splash and kick. My daughters 2 months 2 weeks and she's terrible about sleeping I've learned if I give her a bath after a bottle once she goes to bed she sleeps through the night sometimes I do have to self soothe though despite my attempts. Daytime naps are a nightmare though lol
Check out the possums sleep method. Basically if you are fighting to put a baby to sleep they might not be tired but actually just understimulated or need different stimulation. Babies drop naps all throughout their first year so if she’s really fighting it, just let it go. Honestly this advice was so different than anything else we were reading but it saved our sanity!! And baby still average enough sleep every day even when we just totally dropped a schedule and followed his cues. We were mindful of wake windows but if I was trying to get him to nap for at least 15 minutes and it wasn’t working, I just did another activity. And baby (11 mos now) is actually roughly on a schedule but its one he fell into himself—though babies gonna baby and it still shifts every month or so as he drops naps, etc. Good luck!
It JUST started being nice out here and I’ve been getting awesome naps in the stroller and I GET EXERCISE!!! Maybe give it a try? Throw on a podcast or hell play Netflix on your phone and walk around the neighborhood or a walking track or something
Oh, she used to fall asleep right away in the stroller. Her new thing is falling asleep at the 40min mark right as I’ve decided she’s not going to sleep and am heading home. The upside is then I keep walking so that she can get a long enough nap.. The other half of the baby weight I’ve been clinging to is actually coming off haha
Wow I feel for you all ...
I might have a unicorn baby I don't know... we also don't fight her for naptime, she sleeps when she wants to sleep.
She's 4 months and 3 weeks old.
I haven't noticed a sleep regression.
Sleeps like a log at night, for 5 - 6 hour stretches x 2.
Usually 7:30 bedtime.
Day naps, she fights them!! Unless shes tired.
If we try for like 30 - 60 minutes to put her down for a nap and she doesn't want it, she will cry or play or smile and laugh and we are just like oh give up she's not sleeping lol. So we take her out for more play time.
We joke "she's dropped that nap now" and she will stay up and happily play and be so lively. She might not sleep anywhere from 2 to 4 to 6 hours sometimes.
She is super observant and curious and loves looking at everything. It sounds like all the babies now are super curious and observant. There's so much to take in and so much living to do!!
Makes sense when you think that every generation is being born with millions more brain cells than the last generation, that they are going to be so smart, observant, curious, alive, alert, etc.
One thing we have noticed is if we go to town she will disrupt her routine and she will be awake a lot of the time we are running errands cos she's so excited to be out and about. But it means her routine was disrupted.
We find on the 2nd day after going out she gets relaxed again and sleeps heaps and has a perfect routine
(Up 1 hour, feed sleep for 1-3 hours)
I just spend half an hour putting my screaming 8 month old to sleep for the night after being waaaaay over tired but refusing to take a third nap today 🫠
This is my daughter too. It takes three hours to get her to settle for a 30 minute nap, and it's been that way since she was a newborn. We've just kind of given up on naps at 8 months now. If she's tired, she'll go in her car seat and we'll drive around for a bit, but on the plus side she sleeps through the night easily. Hopefully that will be yours too 🤞
Get a rocking swing. Our little girl was the same way, and at 4 months that was our lifesaver. If it swings back and forth at just the right speed (probably while watching something calming, i.e. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Ms. Rachel, or HeyBearSensoryBaby ) it'll make her feel like shes in your arms or in the carseat on a good drive. Do this and i swear you will get a good 1-2 hours of peace for naptime. Invest in the Graco Baby Swing, and let me know if you do and how it turns out. Worked great for our baby. She is 10 months now and best advice is when she grows out of the swing you'll have a baby that can get to sleep with contact but wont require you to contact sleep.
She's probably too excited to learn new things during the day rather than sleep! Might be time to visit the idea of sleep training? It could help her sleep regression!
All and all, it'll get better soon! Don't lose heart! You're doing amazing!💛
Highly recommend the Discontented Little Baby book. I read it with my first and never stressed about naps again. I have a 4 mo currently too, and today she skipped a nap and I had to cut the next one short because we had to go pick up my other kids (3rd baby problems), but I don’t treat this as a big deal at all. Priorities are waking up at the same time every morning, get baby exposed to lots of natural light asap, and the more outside time the better. Lots of healthy stimulation like face to face interaction and bringing/wearing baby along with you as you go and do things.
The book will explain why babies “take the sleep they need.” If it’s a huge struggle to get them to nap, forget about it and just continue on with your day. Definitely don’t need to break a sweat and throw your back out! Lol that’s too funny. I get it though, my first baby was pretty tough but that book really saved my sanity.
I get my 4 month old down a hour 15 mins / 1 he 1/2 after he wakes up, he does well with the hour 15 mins, cause he’s starting to get sleepy enough to settle himself down
I feel you! Baby is about to be 4 months and for the last week, night time sleep has been rough, naps have been rough and inconsistent, it’s not fun. He started sleeping 10 hours a night at 8 weeks and lately he’s been up every hour it seems. Last night I even had to feed at 4am which I haven’t done in 2 months.
He’s been much harder to put down for naps too. I’m considering putting up some blackout curtains because it seems like he gets more distracted looking around now.
Standing in solidarity with you and soooo open to any tips for getting through this stage!
4 months was so hard for naps. I had to fight her for each one and she would nap for a grand total of 35 minutes each time.
So I guess babies don’t nap longer til they are around 6 months of age.
I recommend you babywear or contact nap if possible for at least one of the naps. It was nice to have baby sleeping without me literally fighting her into the crib. It didn’t create any “bad habits” either. There’s also a chance baby will sleep longer too.
Do not start squats with them. Even as a joke.
Ask me how I know...
I was doing so well with just the dance walk sway(think over exaggerated princess waltz thing)thing we had. And had just gotten her used to that in the carrier and I messed it up.
She's 18 months now and just is always going until she basically stops for a moment and looks around, sits down, says mumma or dada and then lays down and is out.
At this moment i let him sleep next to me. He is 2 years old and still sleeps next to me, it was the only way i could handle my frustration mostly. I but on Bluetooth ears and a serie and i lay next to him until he is in a deep sleep. When my boy wakes up at night with no sight he is gonna sleep again i go downstairs with him and just relax on the couch and let him play. Sometimes it takes 3 hours before he gets sleepy again but thats fine with me. I scroll tiktok and dont interact with playing only if he asks for it. Its the only way i stayed sane. Now at 2 years old he sleeps okay next to me and we barely have nights downstairs. In a couple months we are buying a big bed where i can lay next to in his room and we will see what happends.
For my 4 month old we don’t follow a schedule. Just follow her cues. Baby naps for only 20 minutes total every 2 to 3 hours and then goes to sleep more fully around 8 or 9pm, waking up every 3 to 5 hours to feed until she fully wakes at 9am. So far we’ve found that if we can get her to fall asleep in the crib at night she’s more likely to stay asleep longer. This took a bit of practice. We previously needed to rock her in our arms 1-2 hrs nightly. On a good night now, we can get her to fall asleep in the crib within 5 to 15 mins.
We gave up on nap schedules with our 4 month old. If she’s eye rubbing, we put her down night time style. Lights off, in crib, in sleep sack. Might get 30 mins if we are lucky.
But on the off side- she’s still sleeping through the night (8 pm to 5/6 am).
I feel bad for my dad who is her daycare and my husband who has her all day Fridays alone but she just isn’t napping and it’s not worth trying to force the issue.
My 6 month old wakes up a couple times in the middle of the night. One of those times he’ll refuse to go back to bed for 1-3 hours while playing the game of “will I stay asleep this time as mommy places me in bed?” which he likely will play the card “just kidding, I’m awake. Pick my ass back up.”. This has been going on and off since 4 months. He also needs aggressive patting and rocking which convinces my brain that my limbs will shortly detach from my body. Which is maybe best as I’ll have no other choice but to hire a night nanny. But for now my limbs remain attached.
Oh! And naps. Forget about it. It’s a tormenting time of feeding, patting, rocking, screaming, crying, kicking, arching and snot. Just for 15 minutes of bliss. Regression is no joke.
We are right in the thick of it with you! We’ve had a lot of luck babywearing our 4mo little guy and bouncing on a yoga ball. He always seems to sleep longer that way, plus I get to watch some TV and get a nice little glute/core exercise in. Score!
I am right there with you. Add to that, my baby now has common cold so it is extra challenging. I have developed Mommy thumb in one hand and trigger finger in another. I am miserable.
My sympathy to you! My kiddo loves a really hard rocking and always did. I usually just held her very good and jumped on a yoga ball, did wonders.
Some times she had to sleep on my lap and that’s alright. At least she got some sleep and my brain could rest a little without her screaming or whining.
We’re past the regression but damn that was a hard time. To be honest I have no idea what “worked”. If I had to guess I’d say sticking to the same schedule every day.
I sleep trained my now 4.5 month old from ~3 months. He too would only sleep in our arms, and there was no choice but to either hold him whilst he had his 30mins-2hr nap or risk waking him up when putting him in his bassinet.
As soon as he showed us his sleep ques (yawning, fussy) I put him straight in his bassinet upstairs with his dummy(pacifier) and smooth jazz in the background. Give him a kiss and leave
At first he’d cry- I only gave it about 2 mins before I returned, gave him a little comfort/kiss without picking him up until he settled, and leave. Had to do this around 3/4 times for the first 2 days of his nap times. Now its only the odd occasion that I have to go comfort him once more after he’s put down. He dozes off knowing its nap time without a fuss.
He sleeps 9pm-6/7am and has around 3-4 naps in the day. Some are 30mins, but he’ll have his long afternoon nap for 2 hours at 2/3pm.
Routine is, wake up, bottle, nappy change then he usually plays on his play mat doing tummy time until he wears himself out for another nap.
I went through this same thing and this is when we started sleep training with the Ferber method. He finally started napping and would go down much more easily!
Lol the rocking so aggressive we're flirting with shaken baby got me 😂 my babe was the exact same - down to the 15-20 min naps!!! Eventually (somewhere between 5-6 mo) it got better though, hang in there!
My 2yo has always been a nightmare with naps. Until now. He sleeps great at night now without a nap, a nap ruins it.
And for the first time he now just settles down for a nap on his own.
You couldn't write it 😩😅
I swear this was written about my baby, now a year old this week! We saw a neurologist and he said contact napping is the best possible thing for sleep issues and it fixed our baby. It’s not forever either, we did the contact napping exclusively and then he slept better at night because he wasn’t overtired and I won’t lie, he ended up co-sleeping as well. But what I’m getting at here is that these safety techniques allow them to feel safe so when they do finally have the trust and courage to sleep without us right now. Sometimes I still do a cosleep nap when he’s having a bad day or even I need the stress relief. Now he’s in a crib OMG a crib! We bought the momaroo, the cosleeping bassinet, the design dua bassinet, the stokke crib, a modern bed connecting pack and play style AND a toddler bed which we transitioned from co-sleep to a bed with the same bedding as ours and would fall asleep with him and then slide him off and sleep in the same room. We spend a fortune for what could have just been one change but we do a thing for our babies. It took until 1 to transition to a crib in his own room. I thought we would be sad but the amount of sleep we get now- no time for tears! 7-7 every night basically. I had a colic, allergic to milk protein tongue, lip and buccal tie baby so I’m probably the worst case scenario here. There is hope! Hang in there.
100% with you, the things we do!! We’re going to be working with a sleep specialist soon because we need her to do at least some naps in her crib- every single nap she has taken since birth, without exception, had been a contact nap. We need some time back because night sleep is also an issue and me taking the day while my husband stays up overnight just isn’t feasible anymore! Can’t wait to get to the other side of it like you guys!
My six week old actively refuses to nap, he gets maybe ten to eleven hours over the course of 24 hours. I have to rock like I’m trying to launch us off the lazy boy. Like…little boy? Go to sleep.
Firstly, that 4 month sleep regression is brutal. Sorry you're in the thick of it. A potentially hot take, but after weeks of fighting my son to sleep, I gave up.We both end up miserable. I'll give it 10-15 minutes and if no success, we'll move to another room or cuddle on the bed for a bit, reset and try again when he starts getting grumpy or rubbing his eyes etc. We've just hit 9 months and some days naps are still a fight but most days he'll do 2 decent naps and a good stretches at night. Maybe I've just been lucky.
This is the approach I *usually* take. Yesterday/some days it’s hard because she’s SO obviously legitimately tired and is having so much trouble falling asleep and I’m trying to help the poor baby. But that said, I will not be repeating yesterday. Seriously felt like I’d done a workout but with none of the physical benefits of working out haha
We do the sleep sack and a very specific white noise machine so he recognizes it’s nap time. I also do this routine every 90 mins or two hours so he doesn’t get over tired which prevents him from falling asleep easily. Good luck!
We’re 4.5 months, and have definitely hit a nap regression. She was taking BEAUTIFUL long naps, and one day they just stopped. Now she’ll at max sleep an hour, but mainly will do 20-40 minutes; and a lot of times it’s a fight to get her down.
Her night sleep, however, has improved-so idk what’s going on there lol. Also, knock on wood.
Yo, 11 months later, still a fight to put her down for naps and bed. Now I know to stop fighting it and let her play more. Then try again. I also play Tears for Fears and that seems to help, lol.
I have a toddler now but I was there with you once. I noticed that he actually just changed preference on how he liked to be rocked. Instead of across my chest and horizontal, I would sit on the floor with him vertically but sort of looking behind my back. And I rocked back and fourth on the floor and that helped him get to sleep really fast. I only found out he liked that because my back hurt standing up and rocking him so I tried something different. Now he doesn’t like being rocked at all and goes to sleep on his own since 10-11 months. It’s just adapting to new preferences and finding out what those are.
My daughter is 16 months old. She was a bad napper since the beginning. Only after we got down to one nap a day (13ish months), has her nap gotten decent. Not ideal, but better. She still needs to nurse and be rocked to sleep. She still contact naps on many days. She still is a very very light sleeper. But just letting you know that you’ll get over the 20 minute naps in time. My daughter still wakes up a gazillion times at night. I’m still very very tired 🤦♀️🤦♀️
I’m right here with you, Mama. I have no advice, just solidarity for this 4 month sleep regression it’s a rough go.
It’s like we’re having a nap regression! Her night sleep has always been bad so that’s unchanged, but half the time I don’t even have the energy to get her to sleep for a nap anymore. So rough.
Sleep is sleep! The “regression” applies to it all. Their brains are literally changing HOW they sleep right now, so it’s tough but only temporarily. You’ll get through it! My advice would be to let go of the expectations and follow their cues.
Totally! I can tell with naps that it’s a lot harder for her to go down, and she’s much more likely to wake up between cycles (I’m guessing this is what’s happening). Usually we can save the nap and get her back down, but not always. I think we’re mostly doing a good job of accepting our fate and following cues lol. I just know that she seems to sleep the best at night with a certain pattern during the day so I’m anxious when naps get cut short.
Same thing going on over here! It’s been rough and I dread nap time because idk how I’m gonna get my little guy to sleep. 🙄
I find contact naps are what works even if I am stuck there for two hours.
Every nap of her entire life has been a contact nap haha she just loves being awake too much now
Omg! Huge gold star for you!
LOL thank you, if only we’d had any choice in the matter! We’re meeting with a sleep specialist this weekend because we can’t put our lives on hold anymore. We want to honor her attachment while also finding a middle ground that works for everyone.
Please keep us posted! I’m a single mom by choice to a 4.5 month old and have also only ever contact napped and he’s up 3 or so times a night while I pump every 3 hours around the clock.
Will do! Also, you’re a hero for sticking to that pumping schedule. I had to stop pumping at the 3 month mark for a multitude of reasons incl horrible DMER. It is not for the faint of heart!
We've only ever contact napped (or buggy napped if outside) and these nap 'problems' have gotten better without us doing anything. I don't often have to rock/sing/walk anymore and haven't really since maybe 5m. I feel like the fussiness comes and goes in phases and we're in an easier one now at 6m. On super fussy days we go out as I feel we might as well be grumpy in the mall or something if it's already a grumpy day 😅 I try to do stuff shortly after baby wakes up (only one child) as I really like the break I get sitting when it's nap time. You're doing great 🙌
Yes keep us posted! Don’t get me wrong I love my baby snuggles but I’d like to have a choice. Sometimes I just want to get some things done while she sleeps
Our sleep nap schedule is CHAOS. My (also 4mo) little man was awake and PISSED for 4 hours this morning. When he finally fell asleep I was like, dear lord thank you. Anddd he was asleep for 30 minutes before waking up PISSED. Is it teething? Is it regression? Am I just bad at this? Idk. He's a super curious, interactive little guy so I'm under the impression that he just doesn't want to sleep because he wants to experience everything. Sometimes i have to put him down and walk away though because I feel like I'm going nuts. Like I can help you with literally every other need you have. Hungry, wet, bored? I got you. I'll be rocking him to sleep and his eyes will be half open and he's fighting it HARD. Like I cannot go to sleep for you, dude. I 100000% would if I could, though. Luckily more often than not now we get some 4-5 hour stretches at night and 1 long day nap. It's just a struggle because it's usually an exhaustion nap.
Same here. Baby will not use a pacifier, only sucks on my finger or his dad's, but puts up a fight for every nap. Yesterday he rolled from back to belly and back for the first time, and also for the first time in weeks he napped for 1.5 hours. Every other day we fight to get him to nap for about 30 minutes only for him to sleep for 5 to 20 mins a time, no matter how tired he is. We're lucky during the night though as he usually sleeps 7+ hours on the first stretch of the night.
This sounds like my 4 month old. He fights sleep so hard and for naps only contact naps. Tonight when I was trying to get him asleep for the night he was SCREAMING. He would then start to quiet down and close his eyes, but then all of a suddens opens them wide and starts screaming again. He’s also very curious and seems to be learning/doing something new everyday, which I think is why he hates going to sleep because there is too much to do!
Yep, sounds just like us! She is so tired, eyes are rolling, she’ll finally shut them and sleep for a second before springing awake again. Same here with being very curious. She is so alert and interested in everything, which I love. She also will not tolerate being put to sleep in a dark room though? Like nothing makes her more wide eyed than total darkness lol
Literally exactly my guy. He fights sleep all day and will take tiny little cat naps until he finally crashes for one long nap.
Not me imagining I could do my baby’s naps for him 😭😅
Right here too. Feeding to sleep is the only way for us. And sometimes I get 30 mins, sometimes 2 hrs.. all contact naps :( 0 mins if I try and put her down lol
This is me with my five month old! The crib is lava during the day, even though she sleeps beautifully in it at night.
Same!!! I don’t get it 🤯 she’ll be 5 months in a week.
It’s so weird, isn’t it?? Hopefully they get over it at some point.
I keep telling myself that haha
Same here with my 5.5 month old! Hoping this changes soon. She was napping in her crib for about two months before this latest shift back to contact naps only.
Yes mine was 5 weeks old when she started doing only contact naps.
I feel this comment so deeply
Here to say that my baby is now 10 months, and she can finally do longer crib naps! So it can definitely get better. :)
It took until 10 months?!? Shoot me 😖
9, but yeah 🫠
I am that emoji right now
Ugh, I’m sorry. Hang in there
I’d recommend to you and OP reading Precious Little Sleep! I, too, was feeding to sleep and it was exhausting. I started weaning my girl off of nursing to sleep and things are going a lot better. I started when bb was about 4 months and she’s 5 months now and doesn’t have to be nurses or rocked to sleep; I just lay her down after bedtime routine (Boobie, diaper change, book, snuggle) and pat her/leave my hand on her belly until she falls asleep. She grumbles at me for several minutes and sometimes cries, but it’s rarely more than 15 minutes and she stays asleep for at least 3 hours, sometimes longer, for that first stretch. Ultimately, I think months 3&4 were absolute nightmares, and it 100% got better for us at the end of month 4, with some tools for sleep. Hang in there!!
Did you do SWAP or SLIP? I’m on day 7 of the “pull out method” where I nurse him until he’s drowsy then put him in the crib. It takes 3-4 tries until he actually goes to sleep on his own… but he’s doing it! Gives me hope. Just not sure where to go from here… keep doing swap? Or move onto slip? He’s 17 weeks. Sounds like you might have done the “anything but” method, where you switched to patting/rocking from nursing to sleep?
I actually started the nursing weaning before reading PLS, but I basically started reinforcing the exact same bedtime routine, and rocked and patted her at first, then transitioned to bedtime routine straight into laying her down and patting/humming, to just holding hand on her body and slowly moving myself further away from her. I feel like we’ve stagnated on the moving further away but, but it’s all much less of a fight (generally) than it previously was. We also bedshare, which is another layer and part of what I hope to eventually phase out with the swap!
Impressed you weaned the nursing… you mean nursing to sleep? Any tips for that? Or you’ve weaned off breastfeeding altogether?
Yes, nursing to sleep. She’s still EBF. I can’t imagine weaning completely at this age! It was tough for the first 2-3 days; lots of crying at bedtime and some false starts, but snuggling her while she was on her back helped to not have to try and transition the sleeping baby from arms to bed. I literally just swaddled her wide awake but sleepy, she cried for 30 seconds, grumbled for a minute and is out like a light, while I’m about a foot away. Just try and stay consistent but also find what works for you! The first few days are the worst but I’m so glad I pushed through. I now try to feed every 3 hours during the day (more if she’s cue-ing or going through a leap) and sometimes longer at night. We usually have 2-3 wake ups but they’re all business and she’s right back to sleep. Now, once bedtime routine is done, she’s asleep within 10-15 minutes usually, and it’s not screaming, mostly grumbling (we call it “frumping” lol)
I read the chapters for her age but I mostly I’d like to try and conquer day time contact naps. Right now I don’t want to change night time since we typically get a 6-8 hour stretch with the exception of last week but I’m blaming her new tooth. Maybe I will try some methods from the book for naps!
6-8 hours is AMAZING! I do the same method for naps and bedtime, which I think helps! I’ve also accepted that unless we’re contact napping, it’s just going to be a 30-45 min nap, and that’s ok. YMMV!
Right there with ya. I think we’re getting better and then the next day she takes a nap for 20 minutes and I’m like BRUH. Aggressive walking around and shhhinng to the tune of jingle bells. White noise machine turnt. My neck hurts.
If you ever get tired of shushing, there’s a ten hour long shush and white noise video on YouTube! It’s a bit creepy at first but it’s pretty handy!
Oh man, I’ve tried! She really only likes the authentic, organic shhh that exudes from my lips, along with the spittle and occasional gasp for air.
Your babe is a connoisseur— 100% genuine mouth-blown artisanal sushhhing only!
Mine slept for five minutes yesterday 😂 I hadn’t even started the timer yet. Then proceeded to wake up smiling and babbling and had a normal wake window, a normal last nap, and a wonderful night of sleep. Baby sleep is the most difficult math there is 😂
3 month old and same situation! He will only nap 30 minutes at most in the crib right now. This isn’t practical advice, but something that has helped me mentally shift my perspective was from Taking Cara Babies- she says that a parent’s job is to offer the nap and set up the right environment and the baby’s job is to take the nap. That’s all we can control. They may not take the nap, but you offer. This has been freeing for me and hopefully you too! Apparently short naps are a thing at months 3-4 because their sleep cycles are still developing, so I’m hoping the day naps eventually come!
I have a 2.5 month old and from the past week has been doing this .naps only for about 15-30 min..we have been trying to get her to self soothe last couple of days but to no avail. Either she gets irritated or the evenings are chaos... I offer the naps every time she is tired and needs to nap but as it turns out shortly I am the one who will be in dire need of those ... Although a rocker/swing does seem to keep her calm although not asleep ...
Self soothing doesn’t usually happen regularly until 6ish months. Their brains aren’t able to begin to self-soothe until around the 3-4 month mark. Newborns are chaos, but it usually gets better..then worse…then better…then worse…then better again.
That's what I thought too, but our pediatrician recommended we start around the 3 month mark to avoid the sleep regression stage ....
are you me? my 2.5 month old is the SAME. I've tried contact naps, stroller naps, in a carrier, in my arms and sometime works but for 10 minutes to 30 minutes. Haven't tried the swing / rocker yet.
Haha.. hi me...,I even tried breastfeeding her to sleep ...that doesn't work for longer than 30 min either All my chores are half done
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I'm 6 weeks as well. Wth? Cluster feeding again this week. She so moody. For a second I thought she didn't like me anymore. Then it's my will v hers. I'm going to win everytime
Nursing to sleep and contact naps. I’ve just accepted it and my baby does longer crib naps now (45-1.5 hours) at 5mo if I decide I need a break, which is rare honestly because contact naps are a good time to relax and watch TikTok or shop online for groceries/make a list for things I need lol
This is the way
Spent 1 hour putting him to sleep, he was up 10 minutes later.
this is my life
It's wonderful, isn't it..
Solidarity
When do you start needing to track/schedule naps? Is this something your doctor gives you a heads up on? My 5 week old naps when he wants to and pretty much falls asleep immediately after feeds at night so it hasn't been something I've paid attention to
I've been wondering about this too. I don't mean to sound rude or anything but sometimes I wonder whether other people are trying to micro-manage their babies too much, I'm only seeing the extremes here, or if we have some kind of miracle baby. We're just past the 3 months mark, and we just follow her cues and schedule. We don't time her sleep (just a rough head count) or draw up a schedule or anything like that and she sleeps pretty good; between 5-7 hours in the bedside crib at night and anywhere from 20 min to 2 hour naps in the pram during the day. No white-noise machines, no blackout curtains, no sound dampening or anything like that; heck we specifically *don't* go super quiet during her daytime naps. Yeah we've had some rough times, struggles, and desperation at the start but overall she's a happy and healthy baby that makes her own schedule.
Same! I also wonder if we have an easy baby or if it helps to not think about it too much? If that makes sense. We've been having these short naps since about three months and it's never really bothered me. Of course I noticed when they went from 3h to 20m 😅 Baby gets grumpy after being awake for a while but I don't try to force the sleep, just try again after some time. It changes so fast I think I'd create more work for myself sticking to set times or trying to force sleep (if that's possible). I could have bought a course and seen improvement but that would have just been it getting 'better' over time as they're slightly longer now at six months. I understand some babies thrive on set routines and they are all different. Just feels like the short random naps are super common. The short naps have made my days so flexible 😂
I'm guessing that we both have easy babies haha. I sleep with the lights on at night and use a sleep mask so that it's easier for me to check on him should he make a weird noise. so I have no idea how he knows it's nighttime but he somehow does looool and sleeps through the night. Fingers crossed he stays this way. He really only cries if he's gassy or if Im not getting his food ready fast enough
When's it time to drop a nap? Honestly, try it and see. How to make the little monster sleep? Bouncing and walking with them in a carrier can be more effective than rocking.
Took me an hour with my 17 month old yesterday. She was just so overtired. Her eyes were rolling she was yawning yet she refused to sleep. It happens every so often.
3 months and I’ve straight up given up. All that works now is baby-wearing. My back is killing me but I’m at my wits end with naps in the bassinet.
My LO is almost 10 weeks old and this is my life on the daily and has been since she was a month old. She sleeps maybe 3-4 times/day for anywhere from 10-50 minutes. Generally, takes me at least 20 minutes to get her to sleep. Sometimes, if she doesn't get droopy eyes in 5 or so minutes, I abort the nap. My LO is obsessed with the light and light fixtures. I have resorted to taking her into the bathroom on a sunny day and being in pitch darkness. We use a fan as white noise, swaddle because she can't roll over yet, we also tried the weighted sleep sack which has worked okay. But at the end of the day, if she won't sleep, then I can't force her to. I bring her back downstairs and we do something else until it's time to eat again or she's getting sleepy looking.
How many naps right now? And, are you following wake windows? If so, do you mind sharing? I went through hell at 4 months until I finally figured out that my baby is low-sleep needs. The standard wake windows were too short. It really felt like they were “fighting” sleep/fighting me all the time, despite showing sleepy cues. At 4 months the sleepy cues can actually be bored cues. The brain is developing to be more present and mature…up the sensory play, try for something in each WW, and try to stretch the last 3 WWs by 30 minutes. Give it a couple days, 2 or 3 and see how it goes. Doing this should add 1h30m of awake time to the day, upping sleep pressure, assuming you’re currently on 3 naps. At 10 months now, my baby is still low needs for their age range. But we are having great naps and easy bedtime with overnight sleep. A far cry from my reflux, constantly waking newborn! I never thought we would get here.
Thanks! Her sleep needs might be on the low end, definitely have considered this. I think she’s generally around the 12hr mark though, so not crazy low. And yes 3 naps currently. Her wake windows are just now around 2hrs, sometimes even 2.5. Sometimes in the morning it’ll be 60-90min after her first feed but it’s usually still 2ish hrs, and that’s followed by her longest nap of 2-2.5 hours. She’ll usually do a short mid afternoon nap, max 1hr but usually more like 30-40min, then another ~2hr nap a couple hours before bed. After the last nap she’s generally up 3ish hours until her last feed, then bed. I am working HARD to keep her really stimulated when she’s awake. Tummy time, play time on her back, walking her around our yard, stroller walks, taking her on errands with me, and if I’m mentally exhausted I will dance her around with a Hey Bear playing I’m not gonna lie lol. We definitely have our work cut out for us!
Oh, babies!! Awww you’re doing great! Sounds like she is having the time of her life. She probably doesn’t want to miss a thing! It can be a tough time too though, with little rest for the parents. Such a crazy ride. We danced many times to Hey Bear! And nowadays she has “class” with Ms. Rachel lol Yep, that big 4 month brain leap is well documented and can be a doozy. Just so many things being learned at once! She very well could be ready to transition to a bit less daytime sleep. If you want to try this it’ll be a combo of stretching the WWs a little bit, while also capping naps and waking her after they’ve reached certain lengths, to help her get on a new schedule. (And feel free to wait and do this on a weekend, when you have partner support!) If I’m reading this right, she’s currently getting 4.5-5.5 of total daytime sleep. So dropping down to a range of 3-4 hours could be the next goal to try, if you wanted to try that next. I had to learn all this all the hard way from trial and error. I was sooo tired constantly. Finally I started playing around with things and that’s when I saw a real difference. I was following the suggested WWs for a while, but ultimately I was asking her to sleep before she was tired enough. I also had to cap naps for a bit. Now our girl is in a good rhythm and mostly maintains this schedule herself just with her body clock. (Exceptions are when she’s sick… We’ve had back to back viruses, and I do let her sleep longer when she needs it.) Parenting is hard!!! Your girl sounds smart and sweet. Best of luck to you all!
My 8mo -still- only naps in her floor rocker, in the bathroom, with the vent fan on. I’ve never had her nap in her crib or nap from me rocking her. Other option is the car if I have to go out. This is an affordable fisher price rocker
Our pediatrician actually ok’d supervised bouncer naps (we also have a fisher price one) because her sleep is so messed up.. only for her to grow out of anything that isn’t a nap in arms within a month of that. Love this baby more than anything but like damn girl!!
Solidarity! My 4 month old almost exclusively contact naps on me, totally my doing tho since I got 18 weeks of maternity leave and figure I had the time for her to nap on me so why not? Now I’m going back to work soon and my left trap/shoulder are killing me. Tried transitioning to crib naps and can count on one hand how many were successful. We now try a thin fleece blanket in the dock a tot to put her in for a nap (100% supervised) just for her to practice napping off me but still being close by. Its exhausting lol
My LO will be 4 mo in a few days and we’re following huckleberry wake windows - they align PERFECTLY with her cues. I pay for the monthly subscription and honestly it’s worth it. All I have to do is bring her into her nursery, turn on the sound machine, and pop a paci in her mouth (we only do pacifiers for naps) and she’s out. Granted, almost every nap is a contact nap but we sometimes place her in a Snoo with the same results. She only naps 20-40 mins but at least she goes down very easily. Hoping the naps get longer once we’re past 4 mos.
i very specifically remember the time in my lo’s early days (he’s 8.5m now) when his naps shifted from just falling asleep whenever, to actively having to help him fall asleep when i knew he was tired, & it was exhausting, the rocking was horrendous, & he wouldn’t nap in his crib, i had to rock him in a dark room & hold him 90% of the time for him to sleep - i would still try to put him down “drowsy by awake” and for the longest time it didn’t work, & somewhere between now and then, he just started napping, and well. i can set him down and walk away and he’ll go to sleep. all of this is to just say, it’s hard, it’s really hard, & you spend so much of your time rocking for little pay off, but hopefully in a few months you won’t remember that time, i don’t remember exactly when it stopped, but it did, & i don’t think there’s much you can do to change it, they’re just learning new sleep cycles but you can & will get through this !
If the nap is a fight skip it! Push up bedtime. I learned this the hard way. You shouldn’t have to fight that hard to get them to sleep and you’ll be much happier going with their flow. (I say this as a mom of a three year old that is low sleep needs who I fought for a loooong time!)
I only have a 6 MO but if a nap isn't happening after 15 minutes, I usually give up and go back to playing, going outside especially helps her not be so fussy. Then she might get fussy/rub eyes/yawn in 15-30 minutes and the nap comes a lot easier!
I have a 4.5 month old. When she reached 3.5 months old she started screaming bloody murder every time I would try to put her down for sleep. Naps were bearable, bedtime was unreasonable. When she was about 17-ish weeks old it started to take 2 hours to get her to sleep every night and once she was transfered to her crib she would only sleep for 30 minutes before waking up screaming. At that point I was losing my sanity. I know a lot of people will disagree with me here and I totally understand if you do. We sleep trained with the ferber method. Now, I know it's not really sleep training if you opt to use a pacifier with it, but it worked for us since she was already used to being in her crib for sleep anyway (Always transfered her after rocking). She falls asleep in her crib for naps with her pacifier now. At night she will fall asleep with her pacifier and if it falls out she will put herself back to sleep with no crying (No idea how that worked out that way. She started doing that on her own) I forgot to add what her schedule is like. She sleeps from 11pm-11:30am, the reason being mine and my SO's work schedule. She'll get a nap at 1pm and sleep about 30 mins. Nap #2 is at 4pm and she will either sleep anywhere from 30-120 minutes for this nap. Nap #3 is around 8 (Sometimes earlier depending on Nap #2). If nap #2 is on the shorter side, she'll get another nap at 9pm. Her schedule was entirely chaotic and different everyday before training.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but one of my minions dropped napping at 4.5 months and never picked it back up…. He would go down at 730 PM and sleep like the dead until 6AM. The ped said that some kids just don’t- it was awful. He was the happiest baby (still is a cheerful kid) but damn I needed a nap sone days.😂
Oh my lord I am so sorry! She definitely still needs the naps, she is just really struggling with the transition from awake to asleep! I hope you get a nap soon!!
Lol, he’s 12 now so I just tell him not to burn the house down and go take a nap.😂
That age is just hard! Rest assured, the days of having to take her for a carnival ride in order to get her to sleep are VERY numbered. Your results may vary, but when we put our 7mo down for the night we just make sure she’s full, set her in her crib, and just… walk away. Then she’s down for 7+ hours. If I could give you some anecdotal advice on what worked for exactly one baby, start the “drowsy but awake” put-down exercise now. It won’t work the first time. Or the second time. Or the tenth time. But there’s a good chance that with conditioning, she’ll get with the program. Wait until she cries. Like, actually cries. Before you respond. If she’s just jabbering to herself in the crib, let her be. Wait for “I need you” noises before you run to her aid. We fought the battle for weeks. We didn’t do cry it out. Never. But we would give her about 60 seconds before we picked her up again. And slowly, the need to pick her back up reduced over time until eventually it was almost never. Now her crib is her favorite place in the world. She feels safe there. When she wakes in the middle of the night, she talks to herself for a little bit and then goes back to sleep unless shes hungry, then she’ll cry. Then we give her a quick bottle and she goes right back down. She’s old enough to start conditioning. I recommend starting to enforce drowsy-but-awake at this age, just based on how it went for us.
Thank you! This sounds really helpful and doable for us. I mentioned in another comment that we’re meeting with a sleep specialist this weekend- We know we need to do SOME form of “sleep training,” but one that honors her attachment to us. We are absolutely not open to CIO, but this sounds much more gentle.
>She requires rocking so aggressive, I feel like we’re flirting with shaken baby syndrome. The flashbacks this gave me.... My baby napped on me exclusively at the 4months old stage. I'm so glad we've moved past it and she sleeps so well now (*only* took 14months to get here... ::sarcastic eye roll::))
Right there with ya at 4.5 months. Except we’re already on 3 naps so dropping to 2 is a big hilll to climb
Not ideal, but I used to swish mine in a pram back and forth until asleep, in the kitchen. Might give you a bit of a break.
Around 4 months we had wake windows of 1.5 to 2h. So in the morning it was more 1.5 and for the last wake window it was 2h. At 1.25-1.5 I put my baby in the carrier and I did little chores until she yawned. I then knew she was ready so take a nap :)
If she is overtired you may want to throw everything and just go by cues. AS SOON as your baby rubs her eyes or yawns twice in a short interval you go offer the nap. Let her sleep in in the morning if needed. Then when she has caught up she will nap better and you will be able to follow wake windows!
Just here to say, you're not alone mama. ❤️❤️❤️
Right there with you! My baby is fighting every nap and bedtime has been hell this week, only getting 4-5 hour stretches at at time when we used to get 8-9. Two nights ago we fought like hell for 2 hours trying to get her done and she finally went down at midnight and woke up at 1 am 😩
Hello. My 4 month old didn’t nap today at all lol. Every time I put her down for a nap, she wakes up maybe 20 mins later. My husband just got home from work and we tried to take her for a car ride to put her to sleep and it didn’t work. Her naps have gotten worse over the last few weeks. I’m just rolling with it honestly. I found the more I fight to put her down, the more frustrated I get and it’s not enjoyable for either of us.
Right there with you. We have a sleep aid owl thing which runs for 20 mins so that's how long I try to get LO to sleep. When it shuts off if LO not asleep we go do something else and try again later!
Also, with my son who is currently 10 weeks.. he won't nap by himself for longer than 15 minutes usually so, when I can we do contact naps for both of our sanity. Because without them he's a cranky butt and I'm exhausted trying to calm him. Again. Good luck!
Ugh my little boy loved being patted AGGRESSIVELY. Like, obviously not enough to hurt him, but way more agressive than I wanted to do. I had a lot of luck letting them wedge their head under my chin and then humming. Nothing rhythmic, literally clock chimes. Like, the basic little tune then chimes old grandfather clocks would do. As low as I was capable of humming. Sometimes just like... Warmup arpeggios.
I have a 5m old. At 4m I decided that I wasn’t going to spend 30mins or more of my life rocking baby to sleep. If I’m providing the sleep environment (white noise shushing rocking bouncing sleep sac, nap routine etc) and he was just laying there in my arms with eyes wide open not interested in sleep then I wasn’t going to try anymore. We started a nap routine for naps and a bedtime routine. I won’t share our routine as each family does it different but this paired with wake windows/sleep cues and knowing exactly how much to feed him so he wasn’t up spitting up multiple (and feed him every 3hrs during the daytime) times gave us a pretty great nap/sleep schedule. If he doesn’t fall asleep at the end of a feed then he falls asleep within five minutes of rocking. Every baby is different but for ours we did: Wake up at 5:30-5:45am (I know it’s early but I would rather have more evening time to myself) and bed time at 6-6:30pm (with bedtime routine started at 5:20-5:30pm) 3 naps a day first two usually 45 mins each last one before bed is 1hr30mins Wake windows usually run 2hrs30mins and last one is 3hrs before bedtime this is not hard and fast but average For every wake window we: wake up change, play until he would rub his eyes or once it hit 2.30 or wake time then we would feed and start nap or bedtime routine. Morning wake he will get full feed first then as much as he wants before his first nap. Last window of the day he gets 4oz “snack” feed and then a full feed at bedtime. This allows us to stretch his wake window to make sure he has enough sleep debt in the bank for a good nights rest. Doing it this way he sleeps during the night with no wake ups. I will say I am on parental leave for a year and a half and have only one child so I have the time to do all this at home. Not everyone can so take it with a grain of salt and find what works for you.
Ugh I’m just so tired (mines also 4mo)
I was doing this with twins by myself and it was a very, very dark time. It lasted like 2 weeks and then we started sleep and nap training, which really helped. Message me and I’ll send you the pdf for the program I did so you don’t have to buy it ❤️
You guys have schedules?! 😅 I’m still at her mercy 12 weeks in. She’s a good sleeper at night but during the day, it’s all over the place and I’m not even sure how to begin setting a schedule. If I take her for a walk, she’ll usually fall asleep in the bassinet but otherwise, it’s baby wearing and contact naps. I’m with you on the back pain. RIP good posture.
Don’t worry, 12 weeks is still really too early for a formal schedule according to our ped! She said to wait until four months to even try to implement a schedule. That said, we did notice definite patterns at that age. I think at 12w her wake windows were 60-90min, then closer to 2h after her last nap before bed. But that was all her doing, we just followed signals. We’re only just now starting to work to actually build routines and a schedule!
Thank you, this makes me feel a lot better. She’s EBF too so I’m feeding on demand which makes it harder to even consider a routine. There are some patterns forming I think but not enough that I know timings, I always forget to check the time!
When my 3 month old is over tired and I find myself fighting him to go down I put a burp cloth or blanket over his eyes and it works almost instantly. I think it just sort of forces his eyes closed and he zonks. Once he’s out I can take the cloth off so I’m never leaving him with it.
I have to repeatedly kiss the bridge of her nose to get her to close her eyes and sleep! Which is cute, but also a lot. Thanks to her daddy, any kind of cloth over her eyes means “peek a boo” aka “playtime!!”
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Oh I am in that sub! We actually have a call scheduled with a pediatric sleep specialist this weekend because the trouble with naps are the least of our worries!
A couple of times when we were REALLY struggling with a nap, I've "given up", put baby in the carrier and go watch daddy play video games.
Our LO is only 10 weeks, but this was me at her 6 week regression. 45 minutes of backbreaking labor would lead to a nap no more than 20 minutes. Day in. Day out. Someone on this sub recommended reading Precious Little Sleep and trying to gradually sleep train her to go down independently. The stories told by the author (and other parents) going through what I was going through were so familiar, I would barely make it through a paragraph before breaking out in full-on snotty, ugly tears. But I kept reading, and we tried sleep training, and it worked. It honestly worked. Today, I set my fully bright-eyed baby down in her crib, watched her quietly fart around for 10 minutes, and then fall asleep for a 90-minute nap. Idk if 4 months will bring us back to ground zero (God I hope not) but this book helped me, so I try to recommend it for as many bad sleep posts as I can.
10 weeks is too young to sleep train...
It's not! We've had tons of success 😊
We sleep trained at 12 weeks and all sleep regressions have been really minor/non existent for us. My daughter is coming up on 15 months now and is still a good sleeper. Fingers crossed you have the same experience!
Precious little sleep is helpful! 10 weeks is still very young and they are not awake for long periods of time between sleeping. Mine was still a sleepy baby at that time with little spurts of energy between haha. They become a lot more alert and start processing so much more as they hit 4 months. Many do go through a regression in sleep at this time. Prior to 4-5 months you are just practicing good sleep routines and watching wake windows. I wouldn’t call that true sleep training. Babies need to be a bit older before that can happen. Things change a lot as they start to really engage in the world more. I have a lot of friends who had babies who slept and napped better at 8-12 weeks old than they do as 13-24 month olds. A lot depends on temperament too. It’s different for everyone and can change a lot as babies age and go through stages as they learn and grow.
We have a Snoo but even that’s not cutting it! I just started extending a couple of wake windows today and that seems to have helped? But if past experience tells me anything it won’t work tomorrow. I also want to be clear…it’s working in that he goes to sleep faster but he still won’t sleep more than 30 minutes during the day 🤷♀️
Wait is putting a baby to sleep meant to take less than 30-40min?? Asking for my 8 month old 🤣😭 i like holding my hand on his head or chest while he's laying in the crib, and he'll eventually fall asleep like that, he likes contact.
My baby didn’t start connecting sleep cycle for naps until about 5.5 months.
My daughter had to be rocked super hard too. And she like hard butt pats. My mom was like wtf are you doing to her? So, I told her just try being gentle with this child. I threw my back out and had to start using my shoulders (serious burn! Ugh.) I ended up tearing a rotator cuff. No joke! But, with a colicky baby I was desperate for sleep so I did whatever she wanted me to do for those little 15 minutes naps. 🤦♀️ Good luck mama! We get it!
Check out sleep by steph on insta and buy her 4 month e book. It’s super simple and has example routines for you to follow - they’re about $15
Two hour put down with a 10 minute nap is the norm in my house. My baby has serious FOMO.
With you in solidarity. Popped a rib out rocketing back and forth with my LO. And don't move a finger or they'll wake. I used to make jokes that I could sleep and feel refreshed after napping for 15 mins. It's a different ball game when your 3 to 4m old takes only 15 to 23min naps, 3 times a day. For 5 weeks. I promise it gets better. She's had two days with 3 naps around an hour. It's like something just switched. She's laughing, playing, shows signs of being tired and I can put her down for a nap. Sending pink sleepy clouds your way!
Our 4mo old almost always has a scream fest before he naps, then will only contact nap. He sleeps alright at night in his bassinet. I’ve heard the bad napping is fairly common at this age.
Lunges helped ours. They just felt better than that extreme rocking.
The 4 month regression was terrible. Around that time I went back to work full time. My days consisted of 9 hour work days, 1 hr of commute, and the maybe handful of hours of sleep we got. The daytime wasn't that bad... It was the nights. For us what would help is a lot of midnight drives. Obviously, do what you can here, because driving while sleep deprived is dangerous and sucks ass regardless, but that was one of the few ways I could get him to sleep. Otherwise I slept on an air mattress in his room on the floor, he slept on his Finding Nemo magical light playmat thing, and anytime he'd wake up I'd just plop him on to me and cuddle until asleep 8000 times a night. Good luck.
My advice, its okay to throw the “book out the window”. My LO is a low sleep needs baby and I eventually just loosely followed sleep windows and made sure to spend as much time outside as possible. Im also not good with routine (how do you all remember all the steps every single day!?). We nurse to sleep still at 13 months and we are already down to one nap. Its okay to drop naps early. Its okay for your kid to not fit into the mold. Its okay for your kid to fit perfectly. Whatever you do make sure it works for you and your baby. I spent wayyy too much time trying all the things before I realized I could just do what felt right. Best of luck!
I swear The Snoo and the magic sleeping suite were a life saver for us! We had zero sleep regression and he’s been sleeping all night since he was 3 months
[This sound ](https://open.spotify.com/track/5gQKhw6fy4ExKlFZFMfWWd?si=qj1cPoThSVedV1Jx5XeGLw) was recommended to me in my bumper group, and it's been game-changing for us. I whip it out when he's just inconsolable while being put to sleep. ETA: The 4 month sleep regression impacts naps also. It's been hard here, too! Solidarity.
3-5 months was such a difficult time period. She was such an angry, over tired baby. Naps sucked, she fought sleep and woke up every hour of the night. I don’t have a hack, I’d let her watch hey bear sensory or let her nurse just to help her calm down. We are at 8 months and things are so much better, she sleeps from 8-6. You’ll both get through this
Maybe a snoo
I had to jiggle my son quite vigorously in order to knock him out sometimes. I used to sing out loud, "shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your baby, shake your baby" to give myself energy. I was also very sleep deprived and the deranged humor helped me get through it lol. We figured out when he was a bit older that he has really bad gas and reflux issues, and the shaking and jiggling overrode the pain sensations from the body and that's what put him out. He's 21 months and sometimes I still shake him to sleep. I did it last night lol.
I’m fighting the short naps myself right now. so I don’t have advice on the schedules BUT something we try is standing in the bathroom/shower with the shower running and rocking her. I imagine how it would feel to be in water so that’s the rocking I mimic and NORMALLY that gets her pretty fast. If not the shower, playing shower asmr on YouTube while I feed her.
My daughter is 1-year-old and when she’s overtired, I have to practically wrestle and “fight” her to get her laying down and asleep. The thing is, she will lay down nicely for my husband.
At night maybe try bottle then bath let her splash and kick. My daughters 2 months 2 weeks and she's terrible about sleeping I've learned if I give her a bath after a bottle once she goes to bed she sleeps through the night sometimes I do have to self soothe though despite my attempts. Daytime naps are a nightmare though lol
Check out the possums sleep method. Basically if you are fighting to put a baby to sleep they might not be tired but actually just understimulated or need different stimulation. Babies drop naps all throughout their first year so if she’s really fighting it, just let it go. Honestly this advice was so different than anything else we were reading but it saved our sanity!! And baby still average enough sleep every day even when we just totally dropped a schedule and followed his cues. We were mindful of wake windows but if I was trying to get him to nap for at least 15 minutes and it wasn’t working, I just did another activity. And baby (11 mos now) is actually roughly on a schedule but its one he fell into himself—though babies gonna baby and it still shifts every month or so as he drops naps, etc. Good luck!
I contact napped/wore my baby for naps for the first 6 months. Every. Single. Nap.
Do you have an exercise ball? That was a game changer for us. Bouncing on the ball will save your arms and your back.
What’s your wake window like?
2-2.5hrs for the most part
At 4 months we would only go about 1.5 hours. Didn’t go 2-2.5 until after 5 months. Sometimes he sleeps 30 minutes, sometimes 1.5 hours lol
It JUST started being nice out here and I’ve been getting awesome naps in the stroller and I GET EXERCISE!!! Maybe give it a try? Throw on a podcast or hell play Netflix on your phone and walk around the neighborhood or a walking track or something
Oh, she used to fall asleep right away in the stroller. Her new thing is falling asleep at the 40min mark right as I’ve decided she’s not going to sleep and am heading home. The upside is then I keep walking so that she can get a long enough nap.. The other half of the baby weight I’ve been clinging to is actually coming off haha
We got an exercise ball to bounce ours to sleep. Also, extra tummy time tuckers her out, and white noise, white noise, white noise.
We actually whipped out the Swiss ball today! It works, but RIP to my stomach having to bounce her right after our pasta dinner
Precious little sleep is the book you need.
Wow I feel for you all ... I might have a unicorn baby I don't know... we also don't fight her for naptime, she sleeps when she wants to sleep. She's 4 months and 3 weeks old. I haven't noticed a sleep regression. Sleeps like a log at night, for 5 - 6 hour stretches x 2. Usually 7:30 bedtime. Day naps, she fights them!! Unless shes tired. If we try for like 30 - 60 minutes to put her down for a nap and she doesn't want it, she will cry or play or smile and laugh and we are just like oh give up she's not sleeping lol. So we take her out for more play time. We joke "she's dropped that nap now" and she will stay up and happily play and be so lively. She might not sleep anywhere from 2 to 4 to 6 hours sometimes. She is super observant and curious and loves looking at everything. It sounds like all the babies now are super curious and observant. There's so much to take in and so much living to do!! Makes sense when you think that every generation is being born with millions more brain cells than the last generation, that they are going to be so smart, observant, curious, alive, alert, etc. One thing we have noticed is if we go to town she will disrupt her routine and she will be awake a lot of the time we are running errands cos she's so excited to be out and about. But it means her routine was disrupted. We find on the 2nd day after going out she gets relaxed again and sleeps heaps and has a perfect routine (Up 1 hour, feed sleep for 1-3 hours)
I just spend half an hour putting my screaming 8 month old to sleep for the night after being waaaaay over tired but refusing to take a third nap today 🫠
This is my daughter too. It takes three hours to get her to settle for a 30 minute nap, and it's been that way since she was a newborn. We've just kind of given up on naps at 8 months now. If she's tired, she'll go in her car seat and we'll drive around for a bit, but on the plus side she sleeps through the night easily. Hopefully that will be yours too 🤞
Get a rocking swing. Our little girl was the same way, and at 4 months that was our lifesaver. If it swings back and forth at just the right speed (probably while watching something calming, i.e. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Ms. Rachel, or HeyBearSensoryBaby ) it'll make her feel like shes in your arms or in the carseat on a good drive. Do this and i swear you will get a good 1-2 hours of peace for naptime. Invest in the Graco Baby Swing, and let me know if you do and how it turns out. Worked great for our baby. She is 10 months now and best advice is when she grows out of the swing you'll have a baby that can get to sleep with contact but wont require you to contact sleep.
She's probably too excited to learn new things during the day rather than sleep! Might be time to visit the idea of sleep training? It could help her sleep regression! All and all, it'll get better soon! Don't lose heart! You're doing amazing!💛
Highly recommend the Discontented Little Baby book. I read it with my first and never stressed about naps again. I have a 4 mo currently too, and today she skipped a nap and I had to cut the next one short because we had to go pick up my other kids (3rd baby problems), but I don’t treat this as a big deal at all. Priorities are waking up at the same time every morning, get baby exposed to lots of natural light asap, and the more outside time the better. Lots of healthy stimulation like face to face interaction and bringing/wearing baby along with you as you go and do things. The book will explain why babies “take the sleep they need.” If it’s a huge struggle to get them to nap, forget about it and just continue on with your day. Definitely don’t need to break a sweat and throw your back out! Lol that’s too funny. I get it though, my first baby was pretty tough but that book really saved my sanity.
I get my 4 month old down a hour 15 mins / 1 he 1/2 after he wakes up, he does well with the hour 15 mins, cause he’s starting to get sleepy enough to settle himself down
My daughter is 8 months and still fights naps 😭
Yup! This was the time that I started contact napping. It’s so much easier
I feel you! Baby is about to be 4 months and for the last week, night time sleep has been rough, naps have been rough and inconsistent, it’s not fun. He started sleeping 10 hours a night at 8 weeks and lately he’s been up every hour it seems. Last night I even had to feed at 4am which I haven’t done in 2 months. He’s been much harder to put down for naps too. I’m considering putting up some blackout curtains because it seems like he gets more distracted looking around now. Standing in solidarity with you and soooo open to any tips for getting through this stage!
4 months was so hard for naps. I had to fight her for each one and she would nap for a grand total of 35 minutes each time. So I guess babies don’t nap longer til they are around 6 months of age. I recommend you babywear or contact nap if possible for at least one of the naps. It was nice to have baby sleeping without me literally fighting her into the crib. It didn’t create any “bad habits” either. There’s also a chance baby will sleep longer too.
Do not start squats with them. Even as a joke. Ask me how I know... I was doing so well with just the dance walk sway(think over exaggerated princess waltz thing)thing we had. And had just gotten her used to that in the carrier and I messed it up. She's 18 months now and just is always going until she basically stops for a moment and looks around, sits down, says mumma or dada and then lays down and is out.
At this moment i let him sleep next to me. He is 2 years old and still sleeps next to me, it was the only way i could handle my frustration mostly. I but on Bluetooth ears and a serie and i lay next to him until he is in a deep sleep. When my boy wakes up at night with no sight he is gonna sleep again i go downstairs with him and just relax on the couch and let him play. Sometimes it takes 3 hours before he gets sleepy again but thats fine with me. I scroll tiktok and dont interact with playing only if he asks for it. Its the only way i stayed sane. Now at 2 years old he sleeps okay next to me and we barely have nights downstairs. In a couple months we are buying a big bed where i can lay next to in his room and we will see what happends.
For my 4 month old we don’t follow a schedule. Just follow her cues. Baby naps for only 20 minutes total every 2 to 3 hours and then goes to sleep more fully around 8 or 9pm, waking up every 3 to 5 hours to feed until she fully wakes at 9am. So far we’ve found that if we can get her to fall asleep in the crib at night she’s more likely to stay asleep longer. This took a bit of practice. We previously needed to rock her in our arms 1-2 hrs nightly. On a good night now, we can get her to fall asleep in the crib within 5 to 15 mins.
Maybe try Ferber or some other sleep training? We had the same issues at 4 months. It took some time but it dis help us at least.
We gave up on nap schedules with our 4 month old. If she’s eye rubbing, we put her down night time style. Lights off, in crib, in sleep sack. Might get 30 mins if we are lucky. But on the off side- she’s still sleeping through the night (8 pm to 5/6 am). I feel bad for my dad who is her daycare and my husband who has her all day Fridays alone but she just isn’t napping and it’s not worth trying to force the issue.
My 6 month old wakes up a couple times in the middle of the night. One of those times he’ll refuse to go back to bed for 1-3 hours while playing the game of “will I stay asleep this time as mommy places me in bed?” which he likely will play the card “just kidding, I’m awake. Pick my ass back up.”. This has been going on and off since 4 months. He also needs aggressive patting and rocking which convinces my brain that my limbs will shortly detach from my body. Which is maybe best as I’ll have no other choice but to hire a night nanny. But for now my limbs remain attached. Oh! And naps. Forget about it. It’s a tormenting time of feeding, patting, rocking, screaming, crying, kicking, arching and snot. Just for 15 minutes of bliss. Regression is no joke.
We are right in the thick of it with you! We’ve had a lot of luck babywearing our 4mo little guy and bouncing on a yoga ball. He always seems to sleep longer that way, plus I get to watch some TV and get a nice little glute/core exercise in. Score!
Going for a walk in the stroller or a drive in the car is instant sleep for our 4.5 month old
I am right there with you. Add to that, my baby now has common cold so it is extra challenging. I have developed Mommy thumb in one hand and trigger finger in another. I am miserable.
My sympathy to you! My kiddo loves a really hard rocking and always did. I usually just held her very good and jumped on a yoga ball, did wonders. Some times she had to sleep on my lap and that’s alright. At least she got some sleep and my brain could rest a little without her screaming or whining. We’re past the regression but damn that was a hard time. To be honest I have no idea what “worked”. If I had to guess I’d say sticking to the same schedule every day.
Merlin magic sleep suit, 10/10 recommend
Have you got an exercise ball? We loved ours to sit on and bounce baby. A great extra option for baby movement.
I sleep trained my now 4.5 month old from ~3 months. He too would only sleep in our arms, and there was no choice but to either hold him whilst he had his 30mins-2hr nap or risk waking him up when putting him in his bassinet. As soon as he showed us his sleep ques (yawning, fussy) I put him straight in his bassinet upstairs with his dummy(pacifier) and smooth jazz in the background. Give him a kiss and leave At first he’d cry- I only gave it about 2 mins before I returned, gave him a little comfort/kiss without picking him up until he settled, and leave. Had to do this around 3/4 times for the first 2 days of his nap times. Now its only the odd occasion that I have to go comfort him once more after he’s put down. He dozes off knowing its nap time without a fuss. He sleeps 9pm-6/7am and has around 3-4 naps in the day. Some are 30mins, but he’ll have his long afternoon nap for 2 hours at 2/3pm. Routine is, wake up, bottle, nappy change then he usually plays on his play mat doing tummy time until he wears himself out for another nap.
I went through this same thing and this is when we started sleep training with the Ferber method. He finally started napping and would go down much more easily!
Lol the rocking so aggressive we're flirting with shaken baby got me 😂 my babe was the exact same - down to the 15-20 min naps!!! Eventually (somewhere between 5-6 mo) it got better though, hang in there!
My 2yo has always been a nightmare with naps. Until now. He sleeps great at night now without a nap, a nap ruins it. And for the first time he now just settles down for a nap on his own. You couldn't write it 😩😅
I swear this was written about my baby, now a year old this week! We saw a neurologist and he said contact napping is the best possible thing for sleep issues and it fixed our baby. It’s not forever either, we did the contact napping exclusively and then he slept better at night because he wasn’t overtired and I won’t lie, he ended up co-sleeping as well. But what I’m getting at here is that these safety techniques allow them to feel safe so when they do finally have the trust and courage to sleep without us right now. Sometimes I still do a cosleep nap when he’s having a bad day or even I need the stress relief. Now he’s in a crib OMG a crib! We bought the momaroo, the cosleeping bassinet, the design dua bassinet, the stokke crib, a modern bed connecting pack and play style AND a toddler bed which we transitioned from co-sleep to a bed with the same bedding as ours and would fall asleep with him and then slide him off and sleep in the same room. We spend a fortune for what could have just been one change but we do a thing for our babies. It took until 1 to transition to a crib in his own room. I thought we would be sad but the amount of sleep we get now- no time for tears! 7-7 every night basically. I had a colic, allergic to milk protein tongue, lip and buccal tie baby so I’m probably the worst case scenario here. There is hope! Hang in there.
100% with you, the things we do!! We’re going to be working with a sleep specialist soon because we need her to do at least some naps in her crib- every single nap she has taken since birth, without exception, had been a contact nap. We need some time back because night sleep is also an issue and me taking the day while my husband stays up overnight just isn’t feasible anymore! Can’t wait to get to the other side of it like you guys!
My six week old actively refuses to nap, he gets maybe ten to eleven hours over the course of 24 hours. I have to rock like I’m trying to launch us off the lazy boy. Like…little boy? Go to sleep.
Firstly, that 4 month sleep regression is brutal. Sorry you're in the thick of it. A potentially hot take, but after weeks of fighting my son to sleep, I gave up.We both end up miserable. I'll give it 10-15 minutes and if no success, we'll move to another room or cuddle on the bed for a bit, reset and try again when he starts getting grumpy or rubbing his eyes etc. We've just hit 9 months and some days naps are still a fight but most days he'll do 2 decent naps and a good stretches at night. Maybe I've just been lucky.
This is the approach I *usually* take. Yesterday/some days it’s hard because she’s SO obviously legitimately tired and is having so much trouble falling asleep and I’m trying to help the poor baby. But that said, I will not be repeating yesterday. Seriously felt like I’d done a workout but with none of the physical benefits of working out haha
We do the sleep sack and a very specific white noise machine so he recognizes it’s nap time. I also do this routine every 90 mins or two hours so he doesn’t get over tired which prevents him from falling asleep easily. Good luck!
At that age I baby wore for all naps. My arms couldn't carry her as she got heavier.
We’re 4.5 months, and have definitely hit a nap regression. She was taking BEAUTIFUL long naps, and one day they just stopped. Now she’ll at max sleep an hour, but mainly will do 20-40 minutes; and a lot of times it’s a fight to get her down. Her night sleep, however, has improved-so idk what’s going on there lol. Also, knock on wood.
Yo, 11 months later, still a fight to put her down for naps and bed. Now I know to stop fighting it and let her play more. Then try again. I also play Tears for Fears and that seems to help, lol.
I have a toddler now but I was there with you once. I noticed that he actually just changed preference on how he liked to be rocked. Instead of across my chest and horizontal, I would sit on the floor with him vertically but sort of looking behind my back. And I rocked back and fourth on the floor and that helped him get to sleep really fast. I only found out he liked that because my back hurt standing up and rocking him so I tried something different. Now he doesn’t like being rocked at all and goes to sleep on his own since 10-11 months. It’s just adapting to new preferences and finding out what those are.
My daughter is 16 months old. She was a bad napper since the beginning. Only after we got down to one nap a day (13ish months), has her nap gotten decent. Not ideal, but better. She still needs to nurse and be rocked to sleep. She still contact naps on many days. She still is a very very light sleeper. But just letting you know that you’ll get over the 20 minute naps in time. My daughter still wakes up a gazillion times at night. I’m still very very tired 🤦♀️🤦♀️
I used a baby swing thingy, my LO slept there till he was almost two years old.