Hellobee Boards

️I feel for you so much! My 2 month old is exactly the same . So far what help with him is to turn off all the lights, swaddle, (I leave his arms out, but for some reason if his feet are free at all he will absolutely not sleep.) rock, and most importantly I downloaded the white noise app on my phone and turn it almost all the way up. I read a study that said the womb was slightly quieter than a lawn mower. I just cycled through the sounds till I found the one that soothed him. Turns out the kid loves the air conditioner and fan, but water sounds only made him cry more. Also I know it's horrible but I dont put him down till he's out cold otherwise he wakes up and I have to start all over and he's just more cranky and extra over tired. I just keep telling myself babies can't be spoiled, which sometimes means I hold him for an entire nap. It's survival mode so whatever gets the kid to sleep! Good luck!

Eta: I really do think the white noise app is what's been allowing him to cycle from one sleep cycle to another without waking up

At that age we swaddled, bounced (vigorously!), used white noise, and used the swing a lot. If they sleep well in the RNP, why not try that for naps? We are big drowsy but awake fans, but not at that age! Just do whatever you need to at this point!

At 3 weeks, awake time for my LOs was more like 45 min. By the time they were yawning it was too late. I have to really pay attention to the clock and since it takes 30-40 min to eat and change diapers, it meant that I had 5-10 minutes until I started getting them ready for naps.

I would basically wear LO all day for a few days because you have to get out of the overtiredness cycle before you can do anything else. Then I would work on a nap routine, starting with the wake times in the chart from @AprilFool, and using the swing or RNP for naps. I would also swaddle and use loud white noise. At this age we used ALL the sleep crutches, then we slowly weaned off them once we had a good napping routine down.

oh god newborn naps. sounds like you have done your research and are doing everything "right". i remember driving myself crazy wondering why my baby was following the f*ing rules after i had been following the rules. you're doing a great job with reading cues and instilling good sleep habits--naps can be really really tough at this age for a lot of babies. do anything you need to do to get them to sleep. if it doesn't work, know that it isn't necessarily anything you're doing right/wrong, it's just what it is.

your daycare provider will be able to work on the EASY routine--that kind of scheduling is more realistic when the baby is older, like 4-6 months.

I wanted to leave another point of view cause EASY and BW did work for us and I started right away. Wake times seemed long for a while but then DS hit a growth spurt and all the sudden they got really short. Play with your wake times and keep trying to put him down drowsy-ish. But don't stress it if it doesn't work for that nap. Stick him in a swing or whatever works and try again next nap. For us it was worth the effort but I did stress over it more than necessary. If you keep trying you'll both eventually figure it out! There are a lot growth spurts early so it can be slow progress.

I feel like the biggest misconception I had after having a baby was that they would actually take naps during the day! I read a bunch of baby sleep books and would literally drive myself nuts trying to get my LO to follow those schedules. When I relaxed, went with the flow and started to pay attention to his cue/my gut things were better (at least for my mental health!). Ultimately you parent the child you get. Some friends of mine had babies that could be put to sleep very easily during the day and slept for longer than 30-45 minutes, others did not. Here's the advice from my new mom's class that so far has held true for me:

-When babies are very young their daytime sleep is usually only one sleep cycle (30-45 min).
-Nighttime sleep organizes first before daytime and you start to see longer stretches with more periods of quiet sleep. Daytime sleep starts to organize and length as the baby gets closer to 6 months (yikes).
-Do whatever is safe and works in the first 3 months to get them to sleep. I would definitely try using the RnP during the day and experiment with different swaddling strategies as well.
-Start trying drowsy but awake, but depending on your babies neurological development it may be closer to 3 months when you find success with this.

My LO is 12 weeks today and it has just been in the last couple weeks that his sleep cues have become much easier to read. He has also started being able to take a longer nap here and there. I don't think your daycare provider should pressure you to have your LO on a easy/babywise schedule. I'm not opposed to those systems, I just don't think it works for every child at this age. It will work itself out when it needs to and I think you'll really start to see things change for the better as your LO gets older. Good luck mama and you are doing a great job!

@DesertDreams88: i have a six week old and am dealing with the exact same thing. Thank you for starting this thread.

@DesertDreams88: I'm glad to see that you have started to find out what works for your LO. At that stage they are super little and sleep for us was super erratic. The sleep schedule started changing and became more consistent around 6-8 weeks.

I personally think at 3.5 weeks anything you do is too early to become a 'crutch'. I can understand wanting a schedule for your daycare provider, but I would recommend trying to start good sleep habits or a routine around 6 weeks or later. With that said, you know what is best for your baby and your situation, so it's a lot of trial and error to see what works best for you.