Q&A: naps at around 3 months

Lisa writes:

"I seek your wisdom on naps!

My nearly eleven week old son is a champion night sleeper but fights daytime naps like a big fighty thing.  He'll sometimes go an entire day with only a couple of short catnaps, where he goes down but won't stay asleep for more than ten minutes and can't be settled back down again. I do look out for tired signs after he's been awake for an hour and a half to two hours, but he frequently goes from "displaying no tired signs at all" to "overtired" without any noticeable signs of weariness and won't settle down at all.  Or he simply doesn't seem to get tired!

Often the only way to get him to nap is to walk him round the neighbourhood in his Bjorn or pram and KEEP MOVING, which is obviously not very restful for me! He also sometimes has great 2-3 hour naps in his baby swing, but again, often wakes up after a short while, and needs to be put down at just the right stage of drowsy or actually asleep. If he isn't sleepy enough, he either just lies there awake and staring (he does a good line in "you've got to be kidding, lady" looks) or gets unbelievably cranky - he doesn't seem to be one of those babies that you can just "put down for a nap".

We swaddle him for night time sleeps but don't always do so for naps, usually because the window of opportunity between "a bit tired, might sleep" and "TOO TIRED TO SLEEP" is barely noticeable, if there at all, and I can't keep him swaddled all day!  A lot of his better naps have happened after he's unexpectedly fallen asleep while feeding.

I do think he needs the sleep, as he does get awfully grizzly and grumpy if he doesn't get enough naptime.  Also *I'd* like some time when he's asleep during the day to do exciting things like, er, eat uninterrupted, or read.  Ideally it'd be nice if he'd nap in his crib, too (I am currently taking your Malcolm X approach to his swing naps!), and at predictable times, but for now I'd be happy if he'd just nap, full stop.

Hope you can help!"

Wow, do I wish I could help! Unfortunately, what you are describing is totally, completely, absolutely, comically typical of daytime sleep for babies that age.

It seems like there are babies that fall into a few different camps. At one extreme we have babies who sleep all day. While rare, I hear they actually do exist. A friend of mine finished her PhD thesis and painted two rooms while home on her 12-week maternity leave with her first, so obviously at least one baby has been a real daytime sleeper. At the other end of the scale there are babies who really truly don't sleep at all during the day for the first few months. I'd like to write more about that but just thinking about it scares me so I'm backing away slowly.

The majority of babies, though, seem to be either 45-minute kids or 20-minute kids. Meaning that their standard nap length seems to be preset to be either 45 minutes long (help) or 20 minutes long (heellllllpppp). And you can, and will, try everything: rocking, swaddling, going for walks with the baby in the pram/stroller, driving the baby around in the car, letting them sleep on top of the running clothes dryer, strapping them to you, leaving them alone in a crib and shutting the door and sobbing, etc. But the only thing that actually seems to lengthen the nap time is if your mother-in-law is babysitting, in which case they sleep for 90 minutes and you look like a crazed liar.

Raise your hand if you tried that whole scheme of waiting for the time when the baby woke up and sticking the pacifier/bottle/your boob in the baby's mouth right at the exact second before full wakefulness occurred to attempt to get another 20 or 45-minute sleep cycle out of your baby. I bet you remember with clarity the three times it worked.

Raise your hand if you've been driving to a store to get one specific thing and have ended up stuck sitting in the parking lot for 18 or 43 minutes because your child is taking a nap and you think maybe this time will be the one long nap and you can't screw it up by pulling the baby out of the car.

Raise your hand if you think your back will never be the same because you spent months and months bouncing around the house with your baby in a carrier, desperate for just ten minutes longer.

Raise your hand if you thought you must have been doing something really, truly, horribly wrong, because babies are supposed to sleep, dammit, and if you couldn't even make that happen, then what good are you? 

Now raise your hands in the air and wave them around like you just don't care if, in fact, you stopped caring because none of it worked, not even the guilt bath. It's just biology and the particular preset your baby has. All kinds of books will have all kinds of tips on getting your baby to sleep longer, and I bet even the readers will tell you things that got them a few extra minutes, but really, it's just something that's kind of preset during that time period.

And then, somehow, when your baby is right around 5 or 5 1/2 months old (or 4 1/2 if you're really lucky), your baby will go into a new growth/developmental spurt and will start taking longer naps. It really feels like winning the lottery. Not the MegaMillions, but a decent-sized pot. I feel certain that it's connected to the pretty-horrible-for-some-people 4-month sleep regression--once that regression is over, the leap includes being able to (and needing to) sleep longer stretches. It just seems to happen (especially if you do really pay attention to the sleep signals--if you have a baby who gives them).

So with these words, Lisa, I free you: There's nothing more you can do. 6,000 years of parents haven't been able to change newborn sleep patterns, so don't overthink it. If it makes you feel better to try all kinds of tricks to get him to sleep, then do it. But give yourself credit for the effort, not for any results. Enjoy your nighttime sleep, and be ready to pounce in that 5-month-old nap switch window. You're doing a great job.

Comments

[Kelly]

I don't have enough hands!!

If you have one, try the vibrating bouncy seat! That worked for both our boys, but most especially for #2 who was a horrible napper forever and we have permanent "nostalgia marks" on our kitchen table from the hours and hours and hours (accumulated) that we'd sit there, vibration on, bouncing bouncing bouncing his little bouncy seat to get him to sleep and keep him there. Yes, it means being chained to the table or floor by a bouncing hand or foot, but that leaves 3 other appendages free to do other things!!

#1 was the swaddler and had to be swaddled for every sleep event else he'd smack himself away within a milisecond. And he had to be danced to sleep.

I deserve a medal for the arm strength acquired from those boys!

Good luck, Lisa! Keep trying. You've got a great attitude! This, too, shall pass.

[Cecily T]

Oh, yes, I remember. 4 months was awful, awful, awful. I remember getting her to sleep on the boob, putting her in the swing, turning around...and she was awake. Of the 10 minutes she would spend napping, 8 of them were usually on me, while I made sure she was 'down.'

Ha ha...the sad joke for me was that she NEVER progressed beyond a 40-minute nap. The 10-minute ones were the low point, and the 40-minute ones were the high point.

And I'm 3 months away from doing it all again, this time w/ a toddler too! I think as long as the baby doesn't cry constantly whenever there is not a boob in his mouth, I'll be okay.

[wealhtheow]

My son didn't nap for 8 months. EIGHT MONTHS. The final straw was when we were visiting family across the country and the kid wound up with a double ear infection. He wouldn't fall asleep in the Moby wrap or on the boob, which is how he'd "napped" all his life. I knew he needed sleep to heal, so we stuck him in the pack & play and let him scream for 30 minutes before he dropped off to sleep. It was horrible, but the knowledge that he needed sleep more than I needed to not hear him cry kept us strong.

[Lisa]

Yup, all of those sound VERY familiar! My approach was to do whatever it took to get him to nap so he would be rested for the night. Wearing, walking, driving, bouncing, nursing... The first time he ever took a nap longer than 45 minutes I was giddy. I thought he would always be a horrible napper but amazingly he's becoming a pretty good one. 6 months seemed to be the turning point for us.

Hang in there Lisa!

[nej]

Anyone trying to decipher the sleep patterns of a three month old (or a 6 month old or an n month old) and then trying to manipulate them is, in my humble opinion, asking for trouble. With a capital T.

[Rayne of Terror]

I have an eight month old and you know how on foursquare people are the mayor of this bar and that coffeeshop. Well I'm the mayor of parking lots hither and yon. We live 25 minutes from town and the is the exact right amount of time for the baby to get napping and when we arrive I spend anywhere from 10 to 90 minutes sitting in the car waiting for him to wake up. Unless he woke up from a nap immediately prior to us getting in the car, I'll be hanging out in a parking lot upon our arrival.

[parisienne mais presque]

My kid would only nap on the move -- and in the baby carrier, not the stroller! -- for the first 6 months of his life. Or maybe it was 9. I revise that: he would also sometimes zonk out in my arms after nursing, and stay asleep as long as I didn't move a millimeter, and no sirens or loud trucks drove within a 3-mile radius, and no one called, and no one laughed outside in the street, and...

The nanny finally got him on a real nap schedule after I went back to work, so not only did I not get to profit from it much (except on weekends, or on my Wednesday off, at least until he dropped his naps entirely for me), but it added another layer of mommy-guilt to the whole picture.

My advice? Don't sweat it. Do whatever you need to to keep your sanity, that's the most important thing. Also keep trying new things, and keep waiting, until at some point some combination of trying new things and waiting will work. It is amazing how quickly "that would never work for my kid" changes to "that worked like a charm" after you've hit the right developmental milestone. (There are still some strategies that never work, alas...)

On the bright side, I'm convinced that those 6-, 8-, 10-kilometer nap treks I used to take with my baby in the Moby helped me lose the baby weight. It's easy to see the bright side almost 3 years later.

[Barb @ getupandplay]

I remember when my son was around that age and I would end up sitting on the couch all. day. long. watching reruns of the West Wing because I'd be nursing, the baby would finally fall asleep and I didn't want to risk waking him by moving him or me! We finally grew out of that stage, but for a while there I was thankful for reruns and DVR.

[SarcastiCarrie]

My #1 (now almost 5) never ever ever showed any sleepy signs during the day at all. In fact, sometimes, I would pick him up from day care after a full day and there would be NO NAP and he'd fall asleep in the car. He hadn't fussed or rubbed his eyes or anything all day so they never put him down for a nap. That's when I moved to clock-based nap-giving. I just wrote down on his chart every single day when it would be 2.5 hours from when he woke up and told them to put him down for a nap. Sometimes it worked!
(This is the same kid who got his naps by falling asleep in the (sometimes non-moving...just parked in the garage) car and then was transferred to his crib...for a year. He needed to be restrained by the car seat to be still long enough to settle himself. He would grab his blankie and stand by the front door and wait to be put in the car for his nap.)

[Schwa de Vivre]

FTW!

My son didn't nap well enough to have a nap schedule until he was about 9 months old -- and then he promptly started showing symptoms of giving up his morning nap. I mean, he took some long naps, but not until he was at least four months old. And I had to train him to those, and sleep or lie down near him most of the time.

We still spend a lot of time sleeping with him at night. He is 27 months old. So if OP's baby is sleeping well at night, that's a total win.

I'm a terrible sleeper myself, so none of this really surprised me exactly. But I still thought I must be doing something wrong, and I read a lot of books and tried a lot of things, most without success. Now I like to say that it's a little known fact that babies are people. They don't all behave the same, no matter what the books say.

[Cobblestone]

Ok, I have to admit, I still rely on the car nap and LOVE it. I have a couple of magazines or a book with me. It is the only time I get to read or do my school work!

[the milliner]

@Kelly, I had the same thought - I don't have enough hands!

@Moxie, You amaze me with your ability to remember all this info when your kids are clearly passed this stage. My guy is only 22 months and I had forgotten most of this until I read it and then it was like 'Yeah, yep, oh yeah, uh huh'. You really eloquently (and with a good dose of humor...'cause really, that's all you have when it comes to napping) nailed it.

@Lisa, we had a similar situation (except he wouldn't really nap in the swing). Swaddling was essential for us. And like you said, it's a bit of a pain at first because you feel like you're swaddling and un-swaddling all day trying to get the timing right. But I stuck with it (what else could I do?!) and eventually it started working.

Also, DS napped in a rocking cradle in his room until he was about 6 months. A nice hybrid between a swing & a crib.

Had to laugh at "...waiting for the time when the baby woke up and sticking the pacifier/bottle/your boob in the baby's mouth right at the exact second before full wakefulness occurred to attempt to get another 20 or 45-minute sleep cycle out of your baby."

That's another thing that I clung to. And it actually, eventually started working consistently for us. I was on pins and needles never knowing when the siren would go off, but I preferred that and the potential of more nap time/relaxation time, than not trying it. Of course, now at 22 months, it works like a charm too (though I can be a little slower on the reaction time). Maybe it works too well as we are trying to start reducing BF. But, still, it was totally worth it. And oh yeah, the days I really, really, really wanted him to go back to sleep? Pretty much a guarantee it wasn't going to happen.

The last thing I'll mention that helped us was following a routine to get him on the 2, 3, 4 nap schedule. Search Moxie's archives for a description if you don't already know it. Essentially the 2,3,4 times are the awake hours and you put your kid down to nap after s/he's been awake for that many hours. It didn't click in right away, but eventually the routine helped DS and he began to automatically get sleepy at those times. It might have kicked in closer to 5.5 months, but I honestly can't remember. Again, check the archives.

Good luck & nothing but sympathy. At 22 mos, DS now naps consistently for 2 hrs in the PM. And by about 6 months I think he was doing 40 mins both the am & pm, so there is hope!

I had big dreams on my mat leave of doing lots of projects while DS napped. Um priorities changed. Eating and napping myself when I needed it during that 20 minute nap (at first) was the new normal. It will pass.

[Lua]

Moxie, this is why I read you! What a kind, thoughtful, supportive answer. My son is nearly three, and he was a horrible sleeper for the first 18 months. Reading your site that first year and a half really saved my sanity when all the "tricks" from the mountain of sleep books I got did no good at all. Thank you for being so kind and reassuring, a voice of reason in the midst of all the crazy.

[Kate]

I will just add that pretty much all the doctory people agree that little babies can't keep themselves awake for fun until they're past 6 or 8 months (which for my guy was super obvious). So you only have to worry about yourself, not the baby. Baby gets as much sleep as baby needs. Mothers: not so much.

[heather]

Eat uninterrupted? What fun is that? No, really, what fun IS that? I seem to have forgotten...

[Charisse]

One of my favorite things about Penelope Leach's book Your Baby and Child is that she lets you in on the secret that some babies just don't need as much sleep as others, especially in the daytime. She identifies the "wakeful baby" as one difficult type, since they don't meet expectations and take a lot of extra attention. There isn't a lot to "do" about it - and it really *really really* isn't something wrong, so you don't need to - but it's comforting to know that somebody has recognized it happens and is wearing.

Moxie, right on as always!

[hush]

Yeah. Whoever coined the phase "slept like a baby" must have been smoking something!

[paola]

Both of my kids were like that from around 8 weeks until 6 months. Lousy nappers, but especially in DS's case, pretty good night sleepers (ok, ONLY in Ds's case)

We sleep trained Zoe at 6 months and her naps went from non-existant to text book. I don't know if she would have started napping all own her own, but I'm sure the sleep trining didn't do any harm.

Noah however, needed to nap in his car seat (but not in the car) if I wanted him to sleep longer than 40 minutes (which of course I did). After 40 minutes I would hear him rocking away and then silence for another 2.5 hours. It was pure unadulterated BLISS.

[inco]

Both of my kids had trouble sustaining naps for longer than about 30 minutes at that age. I thought it was related to the length of a sleep cycle- like, they would wake up after one cycle, and couldn't figure out how to get back to sleep on their own. My son would pop awake from a 30 minute nap and seem refreshed and ready to play, but my daughter would wake up fussy and sleepy, so I just popped the pacifier back in, rocked for a minute, and she went back to sleep. Somewhere around the 3 1/2-4 month mark, they both started taking longer naps.
We are diehard swaddlers around here, so I might suggest that if your baby is swaddled at night, and night sleep is good, then swaddling during the day could help. With my first child, I felt guilty that he spent the vast majority of his day swaddled in a dark room, but, hey, it worked, and it got me some freedom. Good luck!

[electriclady]

Yup--30-45 minute naps, max, forever and ever. I think it's only in the last year or so (and she's past 3 now) that my daughter started occasionally sleeping more than 1-1.5 hr at a time. And I had friends whose kids would take TWO 3-HOUR NAPS at 4 months old, so I wanted to kill myself. We did a lot of stroller naps--I couldn't rest, but at least I could wander around Target and get a coffee.

BTW, her daytime sleep only consolidated into something that could be called "naps" when she was maybe 8-9 months old. At 11 weeks, she was definitely taking 15 minute catnaps on and off all day long.

[Kathleen (amoment2think)]

I love you Moxie. Yes. Yes. and Yes. Hands raised and waving.

I spent WAY TOO MUCH time worrying about it. The truth of the matter is that the only thing that works is time.

[eep]

Oh goodness, the 45 minute nap! I didn't know that infants could tell time, but my boy woke up for months at the exact 45 minute mark. And 45 minutes is just enough time to make and eat a sandwich, load the dishwasher, lie down on the couch, and just start to fall asleep. So many times my mind had just started to disengage when the 45 minute timer went off. Torture!

[ARC]

Ugh, good luck! I didn't even *realize* I was supposed to help my baby get to sleep during the day until she was around 8 weeks old. (Maybe that's good - probably saved me a lot of "why won't she nap?!" drama.)

And then we mostly got the 20-40 min naps (if we got any). Which stressed me out because Weissbluth says that's "not a real nap". Screw that.

Baby girl didn't start taking 1.5 hour+ naps until about 5.5 months or so.

Like others have said, I think the key is setting your own expectations. Babies are pretty good at getting what they need when it comes to sleep. A friend of mine gave me the best advice ever - you can't *make* a kid eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom, and the sooner you learn that, the fewer power struggles you'll have.

Once I started "going with the flow" and ignoring "what the books said" I was a lot happier. Some days we get 3-4 20 min naps, and some days we get 2x2 hour naps. It's all good.

[Jennifer]

Yes, there is hope, Lisa! My son was very much like yours, and napping was a daily frustration that I really allowed to wear me down. He didn't really nap until 5 months or so, but when he did, he did it with a bang, and he went from a terrible napper to a baby that slept 4-5 hours a day, swaddled, in his crib. I did do a lot of nap scheduling work (fruitlessly) for months before that, but on the bright side, it made the transition to an actual nap schedule easier. Once in place, I protected his naps like a lioness... nothing and noone interfered with his naps. I spent a lot of time at home, but I was accomplishing things and was well rested, and so was the baby, so everyone was happy.

Luckily, my daughter, who is now 12-weeks old, is already on the road to a nap schedule, and literally sleeps most of the day, most days of the week. So yes, these babies do exist and no, you are not genetically doomed to have a brood of ill-nappers should you have more kids!

[Trish]

My suggestion is to cut way back on the amount of time you keep him awake. At this age, my daughter could do 1 hr 15 minutes of being awake before she needed a nap, especially in the mornings. She could stay up an hour and a half in the afternoons. But if I kept her up too long and she got overly tired, she took poor naps. Try putting him him down drowsy, but still slightly awake. And try swaddling him - we used the Happiest Baby on the Block technique, where you swaddle pretty tightly and with the arms down by the sides.

[Anon]

I had to laugh (ruefully) while reading this because you are describing exactly what we went through with our kiddo. I was sooo stressed out by the non-napping and how my baby's sleep behavior looked nothing like what any of the sleep experts' books said (Weissbluth, especially, can bite me!). Now he is 15 months old and takes one 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and it is HEAVEN. His daytime sleep didn't really become predictable or regular until he dropped to one nap a day at 12 months.

[Carla Hinkle]

Ha ha ha ha ha. And ha.

I am now on baby #3 and ALL THREE were 45 minute nappers. The older two until somewhere around 6 months. My 3.5 month old is on 4, 45-min naps a day. It is a schedule -- HIS schedule. He wakes up after 45 minutes as if he had an alarm set in his wee, little, short-napping head.

I can get longer naps (at times) if I let him sleep on me. Which sometimes is worth it just to get time to sit/lay down. Sometimes I'd rather have 45 minutes unencumbered.

But in any event, YES YES YES little babies are often not great at daytime sleep. With my 1st I killed myself trying to lengthen out the naps. Now we just go with it!

[Cloud]

Yes, yes, yes. Once again, you nailed it, Moxie.

I think my lowest time as a mother was when my first was about 9 months old, and I couldn't get her to nap without motion. Except at day care, where she'd nap just fine. (This pattern, by the way, continues to this day. She is 3. She has sworn off napping at home, but still naps at day care.) At that time, I had every other Friday off, and I clearly remember pushing her around the neighborhood one Friday, crying because I must be a terrible mother if my baby would nap for day care but not for me.

You can't make a baby sleep. Really, you can't. You can help a baby sleep, you can set up things to encourage a baby to sleep... but if that baby doesn't want to sleep, there will be no sleep. Let go of the guilt. You're not doing anything wrong.

Some things that helped us with our difficult sleeper at about 3 months: (1) she'd nap in her bouncy chair in the bathroom with the fan on. I'd take her in with me while I showered, and she'd sometimes drop off to sleep and then keep sleeping as long as I didn't turn off the super noisy fan that we had in there. I couldn't nap myself at these times, but at least I was clean. And I could grab some food. (2) Anytime anyone asked if they could help me, I'd tell them to take my daughter for a walk. I lived near the beach at the time, so I'd tell them the best route to the beachfront walk and ask that they not come back for over an hour. And then I'd try to nap. My husband took her for long walks on Saturdays and Sundays so that I could nap.

Good luck. This too shall pass.

[Cloud]

@SarcastiCarrie- the mental image of your son standing by the door with his blankie waiting to be strapped in for a nap is cracking me up. Thanks for brightening my day!

And @ARC- if only I could make myself really accept the fact that I can't MAKE my 3 year old go potty, I'd be a much happier mother. I long ago gave up on the idea that I have any control over her sleep. I don't stress about her incredibly selective eating habits? Why is the potty thing making me feel like a crappy mother all over again???? Argh. (Sorry. End of off topic rant.)

[Jennifer]

This was a perfect response, Moxie. Anytime I've been given a "free pass" (like when the pediatrician recently told me to back off trying to potty train my strong-willed 3 year old), I've felt so liberated. I hope the OP will feel liberated, too, because I can confirm (from having two babies who were/are poor sleepers) there is nothing she can do. Thanks, too, for telling her she's doing a good job. Just hearing that can mean everything sometimes.

[zed]

I love Moxie's response. I found this site when my twins were 9 moths old and still doing 20-40 min naps. Most books barely touch on napping, except to say a 40 minute nap 'doesn't count'. ugh. I tried all the 'tricks' and felt like a failure, not to mention totally drained because with two, there is really no break if they're both having even 40 minute naps and it takes 15 minutes to get one down. I remember at 3 months having this crazy routine of putting one in the bjorn, the 'good sleeper' in the moses basket with a binky and trying to rock the basket while bouncing the other in the bjorn. Another time my husband and I sat in the freezing rain after a walk in the woods while they napped for another 30 minutes in the stroller. I think it was the first time they napped in the stroller when it wasn't moving. For a while I was stupidly following the advice in Baby Whisperer, where you feed then do activity, then put them down. When I started to just nurse them down things got a little better- at least I knew their tummies were full, and at least getting them down was super easy. You probably don't want to hear this, but we had the 45 minute naps until they went down to one nap per day, around 18 months. After that naps gradually lengthened, and now at 3, they take a 1-3 hour nap (1 if I'm home, 3 if their nanny is home).

Good luck, I really feel your pain!

[Jessica]

Wow do I feel better after reading that so many of us are in the same boat!! I CONSTANTLY feel like I am doing something wrong, because all the books and all the experts say that my kid should be napping better. So why isn't he?!!? 45 minute naps are the very most I ever get. And I am obsessed with it- thinking about it all the time. He is just about 5 months. I am hopeful that maybe there will be some change over the next few weeks. But I am bookmarking this entry and going to read it over and over again when I feel crappy and incapable.

[the milliner]

It occurs to me, reading the comments, that part of the reason we get so stressed about napping is often because *we* need the break due to being soooo sleep deprived among other things...especially in those first months.

If we were well rested and had a lot of energy, it would be a lot easier to go with the flow regarding napping. I must admit that now I am slightly more rested, I don't stress as much if DS occasionally misses a weekend afternoon nap.

I've always felt at ease and do mostly go with the flow regarding run-of-the-mill eating issues (i.e assuming baby is gaining weight, healthy, etc.). And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's not affecting my intake of food (even if I couldn't eat a meal all in one go at the beginning). But you can bet that if I couldn't get enough to eat to sustain me, the issue would be a lot more intense.

I think it was Hedra and/or others that have previously commented: If you can't get the kid to nap/sleep, do what you have to do to get yourself rested/have breaks etc. Easier said than done, I know, but worth remembering & striving for.

[ARC]

@the milliner - you are so right about being well-rested easing the "go with the flow" attitude. Until our babe was sleeping through the night, I was a wound up mess trying to get her to sleep and freaking out over any disruption. Our poor dogs were booted out of the bedroom during many a baby nap. And it was totally because I was so freakin' tired. Hedra's advice to get 8 hours of sleep before getting out of bed (even if that takes until noon) was what helped me in the early days. (And sometimes even now, when we have a particularly wretched night.)

@Cloud - that advice from my friend was the best thing ever, but of course, I still have to remind myself :)

[CaliBoo]

I remember this stage so clearly with my daughter... and it will pass. And Moxie and other readers have hit it on the head. The biggest "epiphany" I got was that I needed to start putting her down for naps and nighttime sleep under the same conditions, which ended up in deciding to move her out of our room to her crib. Double-hard, but the best solution. Naps didn't really get solid until after 6 months and at daycare, but now, she loves her naps, and I still take them too on weekends (hallelujah!).
And I too felt like a complete failure when the books said that a 45 min nap "didn't count", and I was so exhausted that about the time I would start to really fall asleep, she'd be up again from her nap. I implemented the sandwich rule, which was if she was sleepy, I would put her down in her bed for at least the amount of time it would take me to make myself and consume a sandwich. Sometimes she cried, and it was hard, but that was my line in the sand(wich).

[Laura]

My son was the same way at that age. The short naps drove me nuts, but I actually think it's still worth "working on" just a bit. Even though he only slept for 41 mins. at a time, we started a naptime "routine." The same lullaby song on the iPod, one book, a dark room and down into the crib. I did this twice a day (morning and afternoon nap) and didn't worry about the third nap (stroller, car, walking, was fine). He resisted for a few days and I just helped him get to sleep however he could, but I still tried the routine. I felt like he needed to learn how to fall asleep on his own because I was going back to work and could not expect the childcare provider (who was caring for another baby at the same time) to spend 40 mins. getting him to sleep. It paid off! He still took crazy short naps - I agree with Moxie that you just have to wait that out; we did like 4 or 5 short ones per day during that phase, and it SUCKS. But the routine helped immensely in teaching him not to be scared or resist naptime, and that was worth A LOT. And by 6 months or so, he was taking much longer naps. Good luck.

[K]

Both hands, in the air over here. My son was similar.

Hang in there, Lisa, it has to end soon. And as far as I'm concerned, if you want to keep trying things to improve the naps, and the process doesn't drive you nuts, then go for it. As my mom wisely said at this stage, it's the last thing that you try that will finally work.

[Jessie]

My 11-month-old typically takes one 30-50 minute nap a day. I blame it on his daycare. He fights that tooth and nail though. I miss the days when he was 3 months old and slept 3/4 of the day. I used to worry that he was sleeping TOO much. Ha and ha.

[Erin]

I wish I had known about moxie when my son was 1-4 months old and refusing to nap during the day! He was so overtired, he would be cranky and scream. Many afternoons I would spent hanging over the side of his crib crying from exhaustion (ME crying, not him): "Why - won't - you - sleep!!!" He never slept more than 40 minutes during those months. At night he did better. But then, just as Moxie says, he hit 5 1/2 months and he started being able to fall asleep on walks. He was so much happier then!

[Erin]

PS He didn't start having really good naps until he started sleeping through the night. For him, the routine I established before then didn't really help much, no more how elaborate or disciplined. He just wasn't ready.

[Brooke]

I am a firm believer in nursing the baby to sleep. You say the best naps are when he accidentally falls asleep while eating. Are you trying to not let him do that? If you are, let go of that expectation. I think that is one of the craziest expectations society sets up for mothers.

I'm not saying he WILL always fall asleep nursing, but if he does, don't fight it.

[Cloud]

@Brooke's got a good point.

Even if you want to try to keep him from nursing to sleep for the night because you are worried about sleep associations or what not, you don't have to prevent the nursing to sleep at nap time thing.

My first nursed down for naps sometimes (when she would consent to nap without motion) and also when she woke up in the middle of the night. She did NOT nurse down for the night. She had sleep challenges... but I don't think the nursing to nap thing contributed to them AT ALL.

[lwh]

It seems like we've all been where Lisa is. My daughter's nap clock was set to about 30 minutes--just enough time for me to take a shower and put some clothes on. Or sort and start a load of laundry. Or start to doze off myself, just in time for her to wake up. It was so frustrating and exhausting. But it did get better, probably around 5 or 6 months. She was a horrible nighttime sleeper until at least 27 months (and really probably closer to age 3), but naps got much better. Hang in there.

[Slim]

One of my babies once woke up after 20 minutes and I was able to soothe him back down and then he slept for another 90 minutes and I was so pleased that I had figured it out and now he would be napping well forever more.

Why, yes, it was my first kid. What gave it away?

[Snarky Mommy]

Been there, done that, three times now! In fact, I have a napping 4-mo-old on my lap on the boppy as I type this.

My DS1 was the shittiest napper in the history of earth. He would do 20 min ON THE DOT until I made him cry it out at 9 months old. And then he only slept 45 min. He finally started napping better and longer when I went to one nap at 13 months.

DD2 was a better sleeper overall and was actually that baby you could just put dowm awake. She was my reward for hellsleeper No. 1. But that wasn't until after the 4 month sleep regression.

We're in regression hell right now with DD3, and since she's sleeping so shitty anyway, I took away the swaddle and the swing naps. Swaddled and swinging was how she did ALL sleep, until this past week. She did OK last night, but I am exhausted.

[Heather]

yes! Raising hand. OMG.

[meggiemoo]

Having lived through (and still living through) 2 crap sleepers, I can safely say that almost nothing I did made much difference in my kids' sleep. It took time, lots and lots of time for their brains to organize themselves to allow them to sleep deeply.

I did get a rueful sort of pleasure in answering the people with those "textbook" babies who would suggest this or that..."Oh, have you tried the car? Our baby *always* fell right asleep in the car!"

"Um, actually, both of my kids screamed in the carseat for the 1st 4 months, so...no. That doesn't work for us."

The Magic Boob is the only thing that has consistently helped my kiddos get to sleep. It doesn't *keep* them asleep, God knows, but it helps them fall asleep. And I'm perfectly ok with that.

[Chris]

Both hands raised and doin' the "I Feel Your Pain!" dance! I lost all my baby weight by taking loooong daily walks wearing the baby bjorn just so I could get my son to sleep and not have to put up with a cranky sleep-deprived infant. He was the 30 minute nap king for what felt like eternity. First it was 4 30 minute naps, then 3, then 2 (kill me), and when I finally was mean and forced him into one nap a day at 15 months he FINALLY started sleeping over an hour. He just turned 2 and now sleeps about 2 hours each afternoon. Basically, there's nothing you're doing wrong- some kids are just nappers and some aren't, and it's REALLY hard on the parents of the non-nappers! Hang in there. Sleep patterns will change eventually.

[G'smum]

Yay for Dr. Penelope Leach! Her book is so reassuring, compassionate, and downright wonderful that I am planning to name my next baby Penelope (if it is a girl of course).

Our daughter was a tough case at the beginning - almost IDENTICAL pattern to the one you describe, Lisa, plus a very small preemie and colic all night long for four months with lousy eating habits - but we learned that she was just a wakeful baby. Now, 7 months later, she has developed into easily distracted baby with basically the same tendencies as exhibited at 3-4 months, except she sleeps at night and doesn't have colic any more.

Don't lose hope! Sleep will come!

As Dr. Leach says, babies only want what they need and can only sleep the amount they need. For this reason, and because my pedatrician agreed with Dr. Leach's assessment and comments on the process of learning to sleep and become a diurnal creature, I think "sleep training" before 6-8 months is a waste of time and an exercise in frustration and tears for parents and children. There, I said it. It seems to me that sleep training any earlier than that (and maybe ever, but I don't have older children, so I don't know about that situation) is more about attachment to the clock and our crazy North American workaholic, clock-watching culture than accepting the baby and his or her needs.

This whole situation can be horrifyingly frustrating from the adult perspective, but as far as I can tell we can do nothing about it other than carry on doing what we need to do when they are awake. So I got used to using a carrier in the laundry room, the stroller in the garden, a bouncy chair in the dining room so I had the chance to use both hands to eat, folding towels at 3 AM... in fact the baby is bouncing in a Bjorn chair and waving her arms wildly in the air right now as I write, having been napless for nearly 5 hours and showing no signs of slowing down.

Also yay for Moxie. I loved your kind and sensitive answer which was so much better put than I could have ever managed. Thank you from all of us.

[lydia]

These posts are exactly why I love Moxie. Sometimes there's just nothing more you can do. I'm tellin ya, I read every baby sleep book at the library and still had two relatively crappy sleepers (although they each had one phase of champion sleep, which did, yes, coordinate with MIL visits so she assumed I had it easy).

Now they're three and five, and they don't nap, but they do sleep through the night, mostly...Last night I told them I'd give them each a quarter if they didn't wake me up once during the night. It totally worked!