Baby fighting naps? Something else? Advice needed

[nicoleandbump]

My son is 10 weeks old. A few weeks ago he began to get fussy when he started getting sleepy/it was nap time. He used to take a couple of naps per day of an hour or longer. Now those long naps are hard to come by. He wails and screams before finally succumbing to a 30 minute nap (usually needing to be held/rocked. Hates being swaddled).

What is weird is that when its time for him to go to bed at night (he sleeps through the night, at least 7 hours, that has not changed) he does not usually fight the sleep at all.

The only other thing I'll mention is that he's started sucking his fist a lot and drooling more. This is probably just normal, but I thought I'd mention it.

I don't mind if he wants to take shorter naps, that's fine, but I don't like that he cries and screams and is so miserable when he feels tired. He is otherwise a pretty content baby who likes to coo and smile and stare and do normal baby stuff.

Is this a growth spurt? Are they that long? Is it normal for a baby so young to fight naps?

Thank you for reading.

 

[adrie]

It's totally normal in my experience, the napping issues, sucking on fingers and fist and a lot of drooling. My son is doing all of this stuff and has been for a couple months or so. He has been really inconsistent with naps up until about 4mo. and even then if he's not in his bed and free to move and roll as he wants, he won't nap well. He often takes a 2hr nap and a 1hr nap in the day; he will be 6mo in about a week. And his night sleep is sometimes really great (with 8-11hr durations) or kinda not, up every 4-5 hours for a feed. Thankfully he seems to be phasing out the need to wake at night.

 

[IchigoMewMew]

My DD is the same, sleeps well at night but fights it during the day despite being tired. I think the world is too exciting for her now and she doesn't want to miss out on anything! A lot of the time she does fall asleep eventually, sorry I've not got any real tricks but pulling the curtains and sometimes pretending to go to sleep on the bed next to her cot can help rather than going and getting on with things straight away. I read somewhere that they need to learn to associate feeling tired with needing to go to sleep, they don't realise that it's what they need to do! Quite a strange concept to get your head around as an adult!

 

[SonnyH]

My LO (13 weeks) is the same, sleeps well at night but just can't seem to nap much in the day. She's been like that from day 1. She's been wide awake in the daytime right from being in hospital, the midwives were all amused that she was so awake!

I've tried every trick in the book and nothing consistently works. She'll mostly have 30 minutes 2-3 times a day. Occasionally I'll get an hour out of her. But I can't pin point what I do that makes her nap longer. I swaddle, I make the room dark, I use white noise, I use a dummy, I encourage her to self soothe (which she does no problem overnight), I let her cry briefly (although not for long)..! But she's happy in the daytime, same as you'd LO, smiles, plays, interacts! So I figure she's OK with the sleep she gets. It's just quite hard work for me! She fights sleep like mad, even the car or pram doesn't tend to work much! She tends to finally fall asleep about 5 minutes from home! So then just wakes up again!

My mum is a health visitor & says sleep fighting babies often start to nap better once they start moving as they tire themselves out more! Fingers crossed anyway or we'll have grumpy toddlers!

 

[nicoleandbump]

Thank you for the replies, ladies. I'm a first time mom, so this is all new to me.

We are getting used to the shorter naps during the day, and the past couple of days have even gotten some naps in without the crying. I think maybe he is just being awake more and more during the day as he gets older.

 

[Cariad_x]

DD is 11 weeks today and can sometimes do this - she's so incredibly nosey that she won't sleep haha. However I'm lucky in that I can put her in her moses basket and gently cover her eyes with my hand and she'll go to sleep. Her nap times vary depending on how tired she is and how loud her big brother is being haha.

DS was terrible though. He'd only ever sleep on me or needed pushed in his pram and he'd hardly ever nap. I haven't done anything different this time round so I think a lot has to do with the temperament of the baby.

It gets easier, promise!