naps

[Ally2015]

my 3 month old will not nap, when he gets tired, i take him to the bedroom offer him breast, and he normally falls asleep on it. Then i put him down in the crib or bed and he will not sleep for more than 20 mins. I know its not enough sleep as he is cranky and tired.

Any advice? i know i have a bad habit of letting him fall asleep on the boob.

help please!

nights he is ok, sleeps mostly in the crib and will sleep for consecutive hours so i know he can sleep on his own.

 

[ssarahh]

This sounds like my boy! At nighttime he was fine as settling in his cot but daytime naps had to be on me and he would always fall asleep on the boob.

I was constantly told this was a bad habit I had to break but I just went with it and now he sleeps fine in the day and doesn't need the boob to go to sleep. Sometimes he does still do it and I don't have a huge problem with it.

I have no advise on how to deal with it but I just thought I'd say that my DS was the same and he's now grown out of it.

X

 

[MindUtopia]

There's no way mine would have slept on her own at 3 months. I didn't really see it as a problem and it was easier to keep her with me so I wasn't stuck at home all day. I either held her after a feed, wore her in a wrap so I could do the shopping or clean the house or whatever, or I laid down with her and had a nap myself. If the weather was nice, we took a walk in the pushchair and she'd usually sleep in there. I think at that point do what works and don't worry about bad habits. I found actually that my friends whose babies needed silence at home in a cot alone were the ones who struggled the most later with naps because they could never leave the house during the day and everything had to be planned around nap times. If you can find something else that works, I would just do it and adjust as you need to later. Higher quality sleep during the day definitely made nightimes easier so it was worth it to me to put the extra effort in there.

 

[KatO79]

I think he wakes because he wakes up slightly, suddenly can tell he's not with you anymore and then wakes up. It's like you falling asleep in your bed only to semi-wake, discover you're sleeping in the middle of nowhere and then you'd of course wake up. My HV advised me to either put baby down drowsy but not asleep or to keep him where he's fallen asleep for 20-30 minutes before attempting to put him e.g. in his cradle.

Assuming you can't/don't want to keep him by you for that time period, maybe when you're putting him in his crib wake him slightly so he knows where he's sleeping? May require some trial and error in how much you need to do to only wake him slightly and not totally though!

But like others have said you could just wait it out and hope he grows out of it and try some of MindUtopia's suggestions e.g. nap with him? I know I often would nap with my son up until around 3-3½ months as I often needed the sleep so most of the time it was fine for me

 

[cupcake.]

Mariella wouldn't sleep during the day unless she was in my arms up until i'd say almost 4 months, so not too long ago.
Actually she really wouldn't do anything except scream if she wasn't held

I sometimes tried to put her down somewhere else, and having her fall asleep there, it worked maybe a handful of times.

I got the "you're spoiling her" "she needs to learn to sleep on her own" etc all the time even from her dr. But i went with what she needed and every now and then tried to put her down in her crib but never forced it.
Then around 3/4 weeks ago it was like something clicked and she was out of her colicky-ness and didn't sleep very well in my arms anymore, and slept well in her crib. Now she's actually a decent napper, we usually get three 1 - 2 hour naps during the day. It has to be pitch black dark and silent though now.

She does also sleep in her pram or car seat, but those sleeps aren't as long or deep or restorative, which is why i try to be home for all three naps most days and if not then only have one "on the go" nap. It is limiting, but i'm not as limited as I was when she was screaming all the time so it's a total improvement for me haha

What i will say is though when my baby sleeps, then only where she fell asleep in the first place. There's no putting her down asleep, she wakes up immediately.

So in my experience, at that age, don't worry about setting bad sleeping habits. If he is fine in the night then it shows he actually can fall and stay asleep. Daytime sleep is harder for them but he will get it in time!
Mariella was the same, wonderful at night so i knew she'd get there during the days eventually and she now has.

 

[xdxxtx]

Sorry. I hold my babies for their naps for as long as they need me to, which stopped for my older 3 at around 18 months. At that point, I'd send them to their beds with their siblings who nap. This certainly isn't an option for everyone, but I soak in this time. Soon enough, our little ones are too busy to nap on us, so I smell their little baby heads and snuggle them and listen to them breathe and use this time to play on the computer for a little bit or read to my other kids if they're all up.

If this isn't for you, some people use sound machines, and my oldest would lay happily in his crib, awake or asleep, as long as his mobile was running.

 

[Bevziibubble]

Both mine wouldn't nap alone. I held my daughter for all her naps and I lie next to my son for his naps. If I do leave the room then he often wakes up sooner as he knows I'm not there if he does start to wake up.

 

[gingmg]

Mine never slept either. If I wore him in a wrap he would sleep for over an hour, so that's what I did. Then I started lying down with him and nursing him to sleep. At first I stayed with him the whole nap but I eventually was able to sneak away once he was asleep. That became our routine for quite a long time.

 

[Ally2015]

thanks a lot ladies! re-assuring to hear its not just my baby who isn't a great napper.
i felt like i was doing something wrong, cause i kept hearing mums who said their babies can self soothe, and have good nap routines etc.

i am going to buy a mobile for the crib, and just give it a few weeks to see if it is a phase. He also has been very sucky, as in always looking to suck, so maybe he is starting to teethe and that is disrupting his sleep a bit and needs comfort

thanks again ladies