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My baby was a horrible napper at that age. How often are you trying to get her to nap? It's all a blur, but I think at that point I was trying to keep her awake time to 2 hours or less, so by around 1 hour 45 minutes, I would swaddle her and try to nurse her to sleep, then sometimes transfer her to the crib or rock and play, or just hold her the whole time if she was having a rough day. The naps were short but it was better if I could at least get more of them. It was so frustrating that it would take 45 minutes of soothing and nursing, just to get her to sleep for only 40 minutes!

It was really rough for a few months but she got much better with the naps around 4.5 months. Just do whatever it takes to survive.

Hang in there! My son is only a couple days older than your DD and he's similar. He sleeps nice long stretches at night but cat naps at best during the day. He generally gets 10-12 hours of sleep. He just doesn't need as much as other babies. Don't let the averages of what a baby "should" sleep at this age throw you off. Every baby is different.

ETA: If she's sleeping 5-6 hours in that first stretch, she is basically sleeping through the night.

Some babies need more sleep than others. Xander usually only got 12-13 hours of sleep total at 8 weeks and that was all he apparently needed since he was pretty content to be awake the rest of the time. He also was a catnapper and would only nap for about 30-45 minutes when he did nap.

If she doesn't seem tired or fussy, she may be getting all the sleep she requires!

I could have written this around 8 weeks. DS has generally been a good night sleeper, essentially the same as your LO, but short naps were the rule for a long time. I totally feel your pain. I second the short waketimes. We did a lot of experimenting but my DS could really only tolerate being awake around 40 minutes! He took short naps too, but it basically meant I would nurse him as soon as he woke up, play with him a couple minutes, change diaper, and start nap routine again. This didn't last long, I think he needed to catch up because within a week or two of starting super short waketimes we were extending them for a few minutes every week.

The other thing we had to do was let him CIO. A lot of people do not agree with sleep training at this age and it wasn't something we took lightly but he didn't like swings, absolutely did not fall asleep in our arms, wasn't crazy about the ergo, didn't fall asleep nursing. He was way overtired but still fought sleep SO hard. So our thought process was, he is essentially crying all the time anyway, at least if he is in a dark room by himself maybe he will self soothe. And within a few days he was putting himself to sleep better. I won't say it was the best way but it was all we could think of and his mood improved immediately - he went from fussing constantly to being a super super happy baby.

No matter when I've posted about sleep, I get lots of responses of "my LO was awful at this age and then it got better" which I believe, but remember that you can still try new things!! Good luck!

My son was also a terrible sleeper. 20min daytime catnaps, if I was lucky, and awake every 90min at night. It was awful. His naps got longer around 5 months. He started napping regularly at least twice per day from 1-2 hours. But his nighttime sleep was still awful. Hang in there, I know how tough it can be!

My DD didn't start napping during the day until almost 12 weeks. From weeks 5-11, I was lucky to get a couple 15-minute stretches per day. Now she does really well, though (fingers crossed that I don't jinx myself...)!

@abbydabbydoodlebug: jealous. I've been trying to get my kid to sleep for 3.5

Eta: dh and I are tag teaming because she is crying and cranky