I don’t see how this response from Sally was very helpful. It did not seem to address how to solve the napping problem.

I have a 9 month old girl who has had similar ssues with naps. She sleeps well at night. From 7:30-6:30 without waking. She refuses to take a late afternoon nap even though she gets tired and cranky. I KNOW she needs it but she does not want to go down. She is also a VERY active baby. She was napping for about 1 1/2 hours at 8:30 am and then from about 12:30-2:30 but she has started waking up from both naps after just about an hour. One thing I figured out was that when she was not sleeping well it meant she needed to go down earlier. It sounds weird but it works. I am going to try to not have her take a nap at 12:30 and push it out until 2:30 or 3 and see if that works. I figure if she is capable of being awake for 4-5 hours at the end of the day why not in the middle instead. The one tip I have for those of you with very active babies is stimulation is key. During those awake times that she is sometimes cranky I find that if I do something stimulating like going on a walk, or to the park, or even grocery shopping she does really well and might even nap a little in the car or stroller.

Doesn’t anybody have any real answer to this very distressing problem?  I’ve looked everywhere it seems, but can’t find any help.  My 3 month old needs me to rock him to sleep for naps.  When I put him down, he wakes up 15-30 minutes later crying.  I’ve done what everyone says - just try to keep him in his crib while coaching him to learn to get back to sleep on his own.  But he just cries and cries and cries.  I know he’s supposed to sleep for 15-17 hours a day, but he’s not getting anything close to that because of his inability to nap.  Consequently, he’s completely exhausted and irritable at the end of each day.  Please!! Does anyone have any answer that REALLY works?

Tammy, I don’t have the solution as my 5-months old son did the same at 3 months.  In fact from 9 weeks to 14 weeks I had to pretty much either hold him or walk him in an infant carrier or stroller while he slept, and had to carry on walking until he had properly finished sleeping.  I believed that the most important thing was that he slept and slept well, no matter what, so that he was well-rested.  So as I said, I don’t have a solution, but I do want to tell you that at 14 weeks I suddenly found I could rock him to sleep and put him down and he would sleep for 45 minutes or so at a time.  And then at 18 weeks his awake time started to last a bit longer and he started condensing his day sleeps into longer “naps”. I also found at this time that I could rock him a bit, then put him down awake (but sleepy) and he would go to sleep on his own.  A lot of my friends with babies of the same age have similar stories.  All this to say, don’t give up.  It’s not always something you’re doing or not doing, but rather a phase the child needs to go through to get to the next phase.  What ‘everyone says’ isn’t always the answer.  Just keep trying the thing that you’d like your baby to learn to do, and one day s/he may just surprise you and do it - without crying!Hope this helps.

Tammy,
Just like Judith (and like most parents as it seems), I don’t have an exact solution. I, too, am struggling with my 5 month old.  The thing is, he DOES take naps during the day, but I have to be there for them to be successful.  I nurse him on a pillow in my lap and that’s where he falls asleep. Then I either sit there and do my thing, or carry him on the pillow to my bed where I lay down with him.  He is aroused from sleep several times, so I soothe him back to sleep with my finger (he has never been interested in a pacifier).  He will usually sleep anywhere from 1-3 hours this way.  This obviously is not the ideal way for him to sleep (for either of us), but I tell myself that perhaps it’s better that he’s actually getting sleep this way. 

Just last night we began to sleep train my son according to Weissbluth’s method of “Extinction”. We made it through, though it was not easy.  Though there was only 40 minutes of crying when we first put him down, there was more crying each time he woke up during the night. I went in on 2 occasions to feed him since he’s accustomed to night feedings (and I think he probably still needs them (or at least 1).

Part of the difficulty for my son, I’m sure, is that he slept in his own room/crib for the first time while doing this (he’s been in a small crib attached to our bed since birth).  And as I mentioned, he’s used to falling asleep on a pillow in my lap. 

My question is: Should we focus on the night sleeping first, or work on naps as well?  I’m just not sure if it’s too much for my son to handle at once? It seems like a lot of struggling to go through in one 24 hour period, let alone the fact that we are going to start it all over again tonight. So, should we work on the night sleep training and wait for that to be established before working on daytime naps?

I used Dr. Weissbluth’s book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child”. We did the extinction method when she was 8 weeks old. Within one week of using that method, she was sleeping 12-13 hours a night. Still does.

She also went from being very cranky and short-tempered to being very good-natured, independent. I really believe that the change has to do with the fact that she is no longer chronically sleep-deprived. 

Weissbluth says that when a baby is chronically sleep-deprived (and many are), their bodies produce more adrenaline—and then they can’t sleep. But when you help them get more sleep for a period of time, they become more relaxed and easygoing.

Weissbluth said that babies don’t really regulate their naps until they are 5-6 months old. So for the last few months I’ve just done what he said and watched her during the day. When she gets tired, I put her in her crib. She is now 5 months old and showing signs that she is ready to regulate her naps (she tends to get tired at around 9 and 1 every day).

However, she is not going down easy—she wants to stay up and play. But I’m going to enforce it because I know it is what is best for her. Yesterday she was so overtired after skipping a nap that she fell asleep at the bottle.

I really recommend Dr. Weissbluth’s book. People are stunned at how good our baby is and I really credit him. She was not like this before we started his methods!

Christiane,
Your daughter sounds exactly like ours.  Did you find any further advice?  Any leads?  What did you figure out?  We would love the help.
Thanks

Hi there,

My wife and I have wonderful 6 and ahalf month old baby boy.  He is the absolute joy of our life, and he is such a great baby!  He sleeps through the night, from 7pm to usually 6:00 am, and when he wakes he never cries for us he just plays in his crib until 6:30 or as late as 7 am until my wife comes to feed him. 

He naps 3 times a day, usually he has his first one at 8:45am and then again at 11am.  He sometimes has a nap at 2pm or as late a 4pm, however he really resists going down for his nap in the afternoon and even when he does it’s never for very long, like 30-45 minutes.  The problem is that we can see he is clearly tired, all the signs are there, but he just doesn’t wan to sleep.  So then he screams his head off for 5-10 minutes, and sometimes even longer.  If he hasn’t stopped crying after say 10 minutes we go in and try to soothe him (usually we don’t wait that long, more like 5 minutes!).  If he still is going after that we give up and bring him downstairs. 

Any suggestions on how to get him to sleep in the afternoon?  MY theory is that he gets too much sleep in the first part of the morning, hence why he doesn’t want a lot of sleep in the afternoon.  At that point he’s overtired or overstimulated so he can’t get to sleep.  Or is it because he just isn’t tired?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Erik,

A little tip - your son probably only needs 2 naps a day, one at about 8.45am or 9am and then again at about 12.45 or 1pm.  He will probably then take a short 30 minute nap before bedtime.  Try it because at 6 months they don’t need 3 full naps in the day but 2 that are a little longer.  It may take a few days for him to adjust but I would definately give it go.