At my wits end trying to get LO to nap!

[McSquirtle]

Morning ladies,
My little man is almost 7weeks old now, we've been on the 3hr EASY for a couple of weeks and have made it through the 6week growth spurt (I think!) I know he's very young to be implementing a routine but I've been concentrating more on his cues whilst roughly looking at times for A and S etc. Just recently naps have gone out of the window. He used to be easy to settle for his first nap of the day and then a nightmare for the rest, but now he's terrible to settle for all naps. It turns into a meltdown and he either crashes out of sheer exhaustion or we skip the nap, feed again and then attempt to settle. I'm not sure if the growth spurt has thrown us off or if its something else. Please tell me that this will pass? He's very good over night, with a bedtime of around 7.30pm then wakenings for feeds at around 12.30/1am and 4/5am then up for the day any time between 6.30-8am. But on the days where he's really fighting the naps it does effect our bedtimes. Our nap routine is low key wind down (usually I lie him on his back on my bed while I close the curtains, and then we'll have a little chat/cuddle) then into cot, he uses a dummy if he's unsettled and chewing on his hands. But then he gets rage. Won't let me try shh/pat - it seems to wind him up more! And even with some APOP (rocking etc) he gets angry, pushing me away etc. He's got a real temper for such a young 'un! He doesn't have an issue settling for bedtime so I can't work out why he fights naps so much. He has an A time of just over an hour usually, and if we have a melt down at nap time and he only sleeps for 30mins then the next A time usually just consists of feeding and nappy change, but still he will fight it sometimes! The evening cat nap is the worst. He is fed and then I like to try to get him to sleep after some A before his bath and bedtime routine, but we hardly ever get him down and he ends up having a quick bath and straight to bed - my H always comes home to complete chaos and him kicking off. Is this common around this age? I seem to spend all day trying to get him to nap, and I'd love to be able to get out to some groups and start enjoying being a mum!

[Papaya]

Hugs!

It could be that he needs a small A increase for the first nap of the day - the average A time is getting up to about 1hr15 by now. He might be a bit UT when you first go to put him down, but if he then gets worked up and takes a long time to settle he'll likely end up OT!

Are there any signs of discomfort that could be bothering him when he goes in the cot - wind, reflux?

Some LOs don't like the traditional shh-pat but you might find a variant that works for you - a pat on the bottom, or stroking the forehead, or voice only etc.

It seems pretty common to have a fussy time in the evening, especially if naps haven't been great that day. At this age we still did bath in the morning, it was just too much in the evening. Or you could do one only every couple of days perhaps

[McSquirtle]

Thanks for your reply Sorry I'm only just getting back to this.
He starts to show tired signs around 45mins in to the first A time, but I have tried to slowly push him. Today we started wind down at the hour mark and I managed to get him to sleep in 15mins (making a perfect 1hr15 awake time) - however, he woke after 20-30mins and I just could not settle, I tried for about 45mins (various things, shh/pat, rocking the crib, using white noise, rubbing his back and then physically rocking him myself) and in the end gave up, changed his nappy and gave him another feed as he was due. I've managed to get him to sleep now but thats after being awake for almost 4hours with just 20mins nap in between so god knows ho long he'll sleep for now. I'm thinking he may have been UT as we had a fantastic night last night (7.30pm-3am and then 6.15-8.30am) but he was yawning and pulling at his face towards the hour mark so I didn't want to push too much.
There's no discomfort that I know of, he doesn't really suffer with wind when lying down as hes a tummy sleeper (I know, I know...) and no reflux that I know of. From about 5pm he is at his worse, but like you say hes bound to have a lot of OT build up by then. Luckily, our bedtime routine seems to work a treat and he does enjoy a bath as part of it so will probably keep that as I think thats a signal for bedtime for him now.
Thanks for all your help x

[McSquirtle]

He woke again just after the 30min mark, however I was able to resettle this time with the vibrate on his crib and a lullaby. What do these short naps mean?!

[Papaya]

A 30 min nap would usually be OT (or maybe OS) - that second nap was almost certainly OT today! Great that you were able to resettle, hope he did a good nap in the end.

Are you familiar with the Wonder Weeks? They mark mental development leaps that babies generally hit at around the same time. You're about due for WW 8, which could be affecting naps. The fussiness generally lasts a few days, but can be up to 2 weeks: http://www.thewonderweeks.com/index.php/about-the-wonder-weeks/your-babys-10-leaps/mental-leap-2

[McSquirtle]

Thank you so much! I will read over the link when I get chance. He managed around 2hrs total once resettled so that's great.