Help with naps

[katie_lou]

I have struggled for a while now with Ruby's naps the child hardly ever sleeps during the day on Monday she woke up at 7 in The morning and had one 40 min nap all day until she went to bed at half seven .

I have tried everything , she refused to self settle in her cot she has done it a few times and I get my hopes up thinking iv made progress then the next day she will cry every time she's in her cot . I just don't know what to do .

I try to her to nap after 2 and a half hours . Do u think this is ok or should I wait longer .

Xxx

 

[mum2b410]

I feel for u hun- Ethan was terrible at naps from around 3 months but it does get better! 2.5 hours sounds ok, are you getting her early enough do u think? I know Ethan was a nightmare if I didnt try and get him to sleep before he was over tired!! I used to have to spend half an hour or so before I thought he'd b tired winding him down so that he would go off!.....How does she go to sleep usually i.e. fed to sleep, held, pram, car etc? xxx

 

[katie_lou]

At bedtime she falls asleep feeding and I put her into her cot but she wakes up abt 1ish and we Cosleep from then . During the day it varys but we are out alot so she does nap in her pram a fair bit.

Tbh I don't think am getting her t the right time . I know last week I did as she feel asleep within minutes of being out in the cot but I think that was a one off for me lol x

 

[mum2b410]

It is really hard to get them at the right time! I think there is such a small window when they will go off easily! I always felt Ethan was hard to read when it came to 'tired signs' and I only learnt with time and practice what was the optimum awake time for him to go!
I see your LO is around 4 months- the sleep regression thing at this age can interefere with naps so it may be that is causing difficulty and no matter what u do its going to be a difficult time to get her to go off!
Ethan would sleep in the pram so I would go for lots of walks to make sure he got enough as he was so grumpy when overtired! I had an aim of trying to get one nap a day in his cot and once I got that cracked I'd then work on the next one. I bought the no cry sleep solutions book for naps to help me too and found it quite helpful and reassuring.
Perhaps for now u should just do whatever works for getting her off for naps, whether its in the pram, cot, car or in your arms and try again at teaching her to self settle in a few more weeks when the sleep regression thing should be getting out the way!
It will get easier hun xx

 

[Nic36]

I find the first nap of the day works quite well - one and half hours after getting up. She doesn't sleep for long, but she will usually settle in her cot with a dummy for about 20-30 mins. After that it's all downhill! Yesterday in the afternoon I spent over half an hour trying to settle her and then she only slept for 20 mins.
I find about 1 and half oor two hours after waking she is ready for a nap - the signs are there, but I struggle to get her to settle. Xx

 

[TORino]

Agree with the roughly 2 hours thing. T never manages 2 hours in the morning. Its always more like an hour and a half after waking she is tired.

You might be missing the cues hun.

I took T swimming this morning at 10am and she woke at 9.15am from her nap. I was getting her ready at 11 am to come home and about 11.10 I asked my friend to watch her whilst I got dried (she had been screaming on the changing table) about 10 seconds later it went quiet, my friend had popped a dummy in and she'd gone to sleep on the hard plastic changing table!! Lol.