2 month old major napping issues!

[SASmom]

Long story short, my 10 almost 11 week old will only nap for 30 minutes unless she's in the Ergo.  And even when she's in the Ergo its not a good sound sleep. She often cries in the middle of it all, like she's doing now.

She is BF and I have been using A times of 1 hour 15 minutes. She cannot put herself to sleep yet, I've tried. Since she was a newborn she's been incredibly difficult to settle to sleep. She needs us to hold her and walk her around. She used to fight sleep a ton during the day, but then finally started taking long naps, which all ended around 6 weeks when those nice long naps all became crappy little 30 minute ones.

I know this is common, but I don't know what to do about it. I can't wear her for every single nap. I have a toddler who needs attention.  I have tried to get her back to sleep after she wakes  but it rarely works. Sometimes the swing will randomly keep her asleep but there is no rhyme or reason to when it will and when it won't.

I am losing my mind here because I cannot put her down 5-6 times a day for naps, especially when it takes about 15-20 minutes to do. 

Also, because of this nap wonkiness, trying to get her on a feeding schedule is virtually impossible. She isn't usually hungry before 2.5 hours, usually 3, but with the crap naps sometimes I just feed her anyways at 2 hours because otherwise she may go too long between feedings if I can manage to get her a good nap.

I feel totally lost right now and very frustrated because I can hardly spend time with my other daughter as I'm constantly trying to get this one to sleep. HELP!!!!!

[Layla]

Hi there and welcome to the BW!

Teaching a baby how to fall asleep on their own is challenging... and even more so when you have another child around. To be honest, I don't think there is a quick fix solution and you will have to dedicate the time to sleep train your LO but its best to do it when you're committed to it. When my dd2 was born, dd1 was just 13 months old and I didn't have the energy to sleep train (i was also going through some major personal issues and post natal depression). I therefore decided to ride out the first couple of months (actually it was 4 months) until I was in the frame of mind to dedicate myself to sleep training. Before that, dd2 would fall asleep in the sling, in the pram, on the boob, using a paci/soother, in my arms or in someone's else's arms (DH or my mum). Finally when she was 4mo and it was evident she wasn't getting restorative sleep, I got my mum involved (mainly to entertain dd1) and dedicated myself to sleep training. I used the shh/pat method. I would give myself approx 20mins to get her to sleep (by using the shh/pat method) and if she wasn't asleep by then, I would get her up, give her some more A time and try again later. If she woke earlier than 1hr from her nap, I tried to extend her nap for a further 15-20mins and if unsuccessful, I would get her up, accept she had a short nap and move on with our day. If E was due, I would feed. If not, I would give her more time until E was due. Sometimes E was very close to S.. if that was the case I would try my best to feed her and not let her fall asleep on the breast and put her down if she was too sleepy. Obviously we had no routine whatsoever until she learned how to fall asleep - something that took us approximately 2 weeks to master. I also decided to wean the paci/soother as I was replugging it over and over again and I was determined to teach her how to sleep independently and without any props. Because she was a sucky baby, she started sucking an edge of her blanket. We still battled with short naps (despite her ability to put herself to sleep).

So, just wondering if you could look at working on trying to shh/pat for 1-2 naps in the cot and maybe allow her to sleep in the Ergo for the evening naps. I actually took this approach with dd3, where I did the morning and afternoon nap in the cot and the rest of the naps (2 catnaps) were in the Manduca (similar to Ergo ). Around 3-3.5months, we were down to 3 naps with 2 naps in the cot and the evening catnap in the Manduca. It was really hard to do the last nap in the cot as the girls were home from school. Some days she would take the catnap in the cot but most of the time the carrier did the trick. I did not find this to affect her ability to learn how to put herself to sleep at other times. Do you have family that would be able to help you/keep your toddler entertained while you're with the baby? How old is your other child? I wonder if you could set up an activity for your older daughter just before you have to settle the baby to sleep (like a puzzle activity or something else she'd enjoy). In desperation, I used to set up a water activity for her outside (painting or playing with water) and that would give me approx 20mins (which was my designated time to put dd2 to sleep). Of course, there were times dd1 would follow me around or enter the room as dd2 was falling asleep but we did manage to somehow get around it!

I have attached some links for you to have a look at
Introducing EASY to a 2nd child
EASY - Getting Out and About
Ideas for how to sleep train and deal with naps with #2

The last link is from And then there were two... board - feel free if you have the time to look through some posts there as you may find other useful information/what worked for other with 2 or more babies.

Let me know what you think