Help me! My kid won't nap!

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ellam25

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My daughter is 5 months old and has decided within the past couple of weeks not to nap at all. She sleeps through the night, but won’t take a nap during the day. She’ll nurse and go to sleep but she will fight until she wakes herself up again. I have tried everything: turning on soothing sounds, letting her watch tv in her swing, putting her in her crib and walking out (which leads to a full out tantrum) sleeping with her, even driving her around. She is determined not to sleep and by the evening she becomes almost unbearbale with her whining and toys and sometimes even breastfeeding doesn’t really help. If I leave her sight or even turn around to look at something she starts whining and crying. As I type this she is staring at me and going “MMM ehh waah”. Help! My house looks like a hurricane hit and I am extremely worn out. Any suggestions? Even a prayer or two lol?
 
ellam25 said:
My daughter is 5 months old and has decided within the past couple of weeks not to nap at all. She sleeps through the night, but won’t take a nap during the day. She’ll nurse and go to sleep but she will fight until she wakes herself up again. I have tried everything: turning on soothing sounds, letting her watch tv in her swing, putting her in her crib and walking out (which leads to a full out tantrum) sleeping with her, even driving her around. She is determined not to sleep and by the evening she becomes almost unbearbale with her whining and toys and sometimes even breastfeeding doesn’t really help. If I leave her sight or even turn around to look at something she starts whining and crying. As I type this she is staring at me and going “MMM ehh waah”. Help! My house looks like a hurricane hit and I am extremely worn out. Any suggestions? Even a prayer or two lol?
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How about a nice walk?
 
Xantippe said:
How about a nice walk?
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I did try walks too… I even got her a tula (which is crazy expensive) and she hates it. Yesterday my mom and I took her on a walk in her stroller and she was wide awake the whole time and started whining towards the end lol. She is driving me nuts. But thank you for the suggestion 🙂
 
Car rides work for a lot of babies, toddlers too.

I looked up average sleep needs for a 5 month old baby and it says 14 hours per day. How long does your baby sleep at night? If it’s significantly lower than 14, then maybe it’s time for a talk with the Pediatrician.
 
Convert_in_99 said:
Car rides work for a lot of babies, toddlers too.

I looked up average sleep needs for a 5 month old baby and it says 14 hours per day. How long does your baby sleep at night? If it’s significantly lower than 14, then maybe it’s time for a talk with the Pediatrician.
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My Hubby’s on swing so she sleeps between 10 pm-6 am (approx) eats for half an hour then sleeps until 9 ish. Def not enough 😦
 
ellam25 said:
My Hubby’s on swing so she sleeps between 10 pm-6 am (approx) eats for half an hour then sleeps until 9 ish. Def not enough 😦
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Ooh. That’s about 10 hours of sleep. Unfortunately if her sleep needs are less than average she might be getting just enough…especially with the 15-20 min cat naps figured in too. But since it is below average, make an appointment with her doctor just to be sure.
 
Teething could very well be an issue - the pain could be just sufficient to not really let baby get good sleep. Infant Tylenol works wonders for my kids (other teething remedies didn’t help much, especially at bedtime.)

My first has always been on the low end of sleep needs. Some people may think it’s awful but I just let him sleep on me at naptime while I read a book or watched TV. When he was a bit older I was able to nurse him down on a bed and then creep away.
 
Will she take cereal yet? If you feel her in the afternoon, the heaviness might help her fall sleep.
 
Well, up to 6 months or so, sleep and satiety (a full stomach!) are quite closely connected, so the previous posters’ suggestions are on the ball.

However, there are some babies (such as the one in my avatar! Say hi, little guy!) who are wakeful by nature, and just don’t take to napping. While they can be more demanding in terms of requirements for attention and supervision, the upside is that they also learn a bit faster, and can absorb more (name removed by moderator)uts / information from their environment. 😉
 
RPRPsych said:
Well, up to 6 months or so, sleep and satiety (a full stomach!) are quite closely connected, so the previous posters’ suggestions are on the ball.

However, there are some babies (such as the one in my avatar! Say hi, little guy!) who are wakeful by nature, and just don’t take to napping. While they can be more demanding in terms of requirements for attention and supervision, the upside is that they also learn a bit faster, and can absorb more (name removed by moderator)uts / information from their environment. 😉
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Adorable baby!!!

Thats good to know…she does actually seem advanced. She sits up on her own better than a baby a month older than her and shes very alert and interested. If her body let her she would be running! I love her to pieces but sometimes mama needs a little break!!
 
this is her 5 month picture! She wouldn’t hold still for two minutes to let us take it!!
 
ellam25 said:
Adorable baby!!!
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Thanks! 🙂 I’ll tell him you said so…
Thats good to know…she does actually seem advanced. She sits up on her own better than a baby a month older than her and shes very alert and interested. If her body let her she would be running! I love her to pieces but sometimes mama needs a little break!!
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Sounds a lot like my son! And yes, it can be quite tiring to keep up with a “wakeful” baby sometimes! The good news is that when they cross 6-7 months, they often find ways of keeping themselves occupied (with toys, etc.) without necessarily needing your (name removed by moderator)uts all the time. All the best, and praying that she does feel like a nap every now and then. 🙂
 
Driving around a few blocks worked for me but most of the time the rocking chair and a few lullabies.
 
Aww precious!

Definitely keep trying different strategies, but try not to worry about the napping or assume that something’s wrong. Sometimes babies go through nonsleeping phases–mine certainly do–and then return to at least an acceptable level of sleeping.

That said, some babies just don’t nap much. Sigh. My daughter was one. She EVENTUALLY got (about 18 months) to where she was taking a proper afternoon nap, and then 6 months later dropped naps altogether. There’s a limit to what you can do, and if your child seems healthy and well developed, the best thing you can do for yourself is sometimes to say that, well, this is how my child is. If you’re trying to provide a good sleeping environment, good for you, and recognize that it may be the best you can do.

I second talking to the pediatrician. You could even call the advice nurse now. Your office may be able to reassure you that she’s doing fine, or he may have something to offer we’ve overlooked. (Alas, my doctor just grimaced sympathetically and noted that my daughter was healthy, but apparently not a good sleeper.)

My son is a better napper, but still not great at sleeping through the night at more than a year old. (Yeah, yeah, we’ve tried sleep training.) I became a lot happier and calmer when I realized that neither kid was “broken,” and I couldn’t “fix” them.

As another poster said, your lovely baby is approaching the age where she’ll be able to entertain herself for a bit longer at a time, and you’ll be able to get something done without a baby in your arms. This really is a sweet age coming up; she’s going to be learning so much and developing so much personality, and she will get a lot happier as the last of the infant fussies pass away. Hang in there, and be kind to yourself in whatever way you can.
 
ellam25 said:
My daughter is 5 months old and has decided within the past couple of weeks not to nap at all. She sleeps through the night, but won’t take a nap during the day. She’ll nurse and go to sleep but she will fight until she wakes herself up again. I have tried everything: turning on soothing sounds, letting her watch tv in her swing, putting her in her crib and walking out (which leads to a full out tantrum) sleeping with her, even driving her around. She is determined not to sleep and by the evening she becomes almost unbearbale with her whining and toys and sometimes even breastfeeding doesn’t really help. If I leave her sight or even turn around to look at something she starts whining and crying. As I type this she is staring at me and going “MMM ehh waah”. Help! My house looks like a hurricane hit and I am extremely worn out. Any suggestions? Even a prayer or two lol?
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Google Dr Sears " High Needs Baby" and see if you recognize your child. Also, as I have learned the extremely hard way, some children are functional on less sleep. Mine get 10 hours; have since birth really. When they were chronically sick they did shockingly well on 5 to 6 hours. Better than me anyway! Some kids are wired differently.
 
Seven of my eight kids gave up napping between 4 and 8 months old. The youngest was the only good napped and I found I much preferred the king nighttime sleep to the napping sleeps. The youngest still naps and struggles to sleep more than 6 hour stretches even at night (she’s 3 now), but if j don’t let her nap it’s much worse at night. She gets over tired and melts down instead of sleeps. With the seven older kids, they might cat nap 10-20 minutes off and on but they slept 10-12 hours each night. I could always tell they were getting sick because they would nap for a couple of days in a row.

Some kids just aren’t nappers. It isn’t wrong to have different sleep needs. And I agree that the ones that aren’t nappers seem to be quite observant. They like to see everything and miss nothing. They learn quickly because they notice everything around them. Your baby sleeps so well at night. Most mothers would be jealous of that kind of sleep! She may nap during growth spurts or she may just sleep a little more at night during them. But no reason to worry about the amount of sleep she’s getting. I wish my youngest would give up the naps, but she makes it obvious that she needs them and that’s ok. It seems wrong to me to try to change the way her body is made.
 
For the first few months after mine was born, I was determined to get him to nap in various rooms around the house because everyone told me that babies need to be able to sleep wherever and that they need to get used to having noise around. I tried his swing, the rock n’ play, bassinet, pack n’ play, all in various rooms. Well, I wore myself out and he was miserable because he was too overstimulated and would scream until he fell asleep for 15-20 minutes and then wake up again.

Finally I came to my senses, realized it just wasn’t working and that my baby was perhaps different from all the babies who can just fall asleep wherever they are. So, I got a white noise machine, blackout curtains, and put him in his crib when he got tired. He screamed at first and didn’t like it, but I left and stuck it out and it really only took a couple of days- he got used to the new routine, and seemed to be thankful to be in his own room with less going on around him so that he could just fall asleep. Now he does pretty well unless he is sick or teething. He wants to be in his room to sleep- he can’t sleep anywhere else and that’s just how it is.

Maybe your baby is getting too distracted by her surroundings and needs to be in her own room. How long have you left her in there crying? I hated doing it, but it took so much less time than I imagined for him to get over it because he really did want to sleep and he wasn’t getting what he needed by being out in the living room or anywhere near me. She wants to be with you, but it sounds like you both need her to sleep more.
 
My kids are all school age and above, but I remember reading that a good nap time for babies is about 3 hours after they wake up. So if she is up for the day at 9, try for a noon time nap. Sometimes being overtired is worse to get them to sleep.

It really would work for my kids. Maybe schedule a walk at around 10:30 or so, then home nurse and cuddle and then sleep.
 
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