9 week old. Sleeping through the night but terrible at Naps during the day! help

[Heathersilv]

Hello all,

I am new to this site and am a brand new mother of a beautiful baby boy. He is amazing and I love him so very much

My husband and I are blessed with a son that has been sleeping through the night (knock on wood). I know we are very lucky as he is just a little older then 2 months. (I know he's tiny!!). He sleeps between 8-9 hours a night. Goes to bed after his last feeding between 9-10 and wakes up between 6-7 am. He is bottle fed, and is taking 4-4.5 ounces and has 5-6 bottles a day. He is awesome at night but lately has been struggling with daytime naps. My husband keeps saying maybe he doesn't need much sleep during the day since he gets so much at night but he definitely gets tired after being up inbetween feelings after an hour and a half to two hours. He gets fed every 3-4 hours so by the time he's done eating and playing I feel pressure to get him to nap in such a short window between the next feeding. He shows signs of being tired and I grab him right away, sooth him and get him to a calm sleepy state and then put him down. Lately he's been either waking up right away after I put him down or 20-30 minutes later. His naps have been 30-45 minutes long. Today for example he took two 40 minute naps and then a handful of cat naps 15-20 minutes long. He's also only wanting to sleep in my arms. I know he's still so little and it's too early for sleep training but I could use some advice! Also what he's been doing lately is taking those quick little naps but then finally crashing between 4:30 and 5 and taking a 2.5-3 hour nap sometimes needs a little soothing but goes back.

Again he is so little and I know I can't say "he used to do this" but up until this past week he was sleeping through night AND napping so I guess I'm pretty spoiled! :p

Thanks for all of your help!

Heather AKA new mom that needs a second to get a drink of water during the day!

[trimbler]

Welcome to BW, Heather and congratulations on your DS Sorry just a quick response for now but I suspect he may already be overtired (OT) by the time you're trying for a nap. At 2mo even 1.5h would usually be too long, and that's from the time they woke from the previous sleep until the time they drift off, so the wind down would need to start even earlier. It's great to be watching their cues, so do keep doing that, but be aware that some LOs (like my DS) don't give the obvious cues such as yawning until they're already OT! So although we need to be watching our babies rather than letting the clock dictate, many of us have found it useful to aim for particular A times, log what happens and adjust accordingly. Have a read of this, really useful What are A times and how do they fit into the EASY plan?

As you say, he's probably too young to settle himself to sleep without your help, but there are things you can do now to help teach him those skills, which will make sleep training easier in the long run. Here's a nice link to info on Tracey's shh pat method: Shush-pat - How to

You don't necessarily have to use this method for every sleep. Especially in these early weeks,  enjoy those cuddles and make sure you get out too. Even if you use shh pat for just one or two naps a day, plus bedtime, it will pay off. Hope those links help you get started, do let us know how it goes!