It’s all a bit....wrong!

[_mumma_cole_]

My first baby was a BW baby. She was a dream!

My second baby was super poorly with multiple allergies so he never went to a routine just because he was in so much pai. By the time we were through that he was a ‘lost cause’-bless him 😂

So now I’m 7 months in to baby 3. At the start he was great. He had always been put down for naps & he napped beautifully. Woke 3 or 4 times a night as a newborn. As he’s got older it’s all fallen to sh*t!

We are now in a position of doing a school run at both ends of the day & I just have no idea what to do about naps!

His standard day (if there is such a thing!) looks like this:

6.30am - wake & bf if he wants but feeds most of the night!
7am - breakfast (eats very little-probably full from overnight)
8.15am - leave for school
9am -falls asleep in car on way back from school
9.30am - wake
12noon - lunch
12.30pm - nap
1/1.15pm - awake (try to resettle but not often successful)
2.30pm - school run
4pm - cat nap limited to 15 mins
5pm - tea
6pm - bath
6.30pm - bf/cuddle to sleep

BF throughout day on demand-approx every 3 hrs

Wakes every 2hrs at night.

Help please! I need longer naps to work during the day but I just don’t know where to start!

[creations]

Hi there
What happens in the morning on the way back from school after he falls asleep in the car?  Does he wake up himself at 9.30 because you arrive home or are you waking him?

On that second nap have you tried a W2S (wake to sleep) to sooth him through the transition between sleep cycles at around 30-45 min?
have you tried a slightly longer A time before that second nap?  Maybe 3hr 15 rather than 3hr?

For he nights, I'd first suggest you try and have a think about what may be waking him.  Too hot? Too cold?  Noises?
It may also be that his sleep in general is disturbed but we can end up very focused on the baby rather than the bigger picture so just have a think about it see if anything occurs to you.

[_mumma_cole_]

He wakes naturally from every nap anywhere from 20-40 minutes. If we get home & he is still asleep I sit in the car with the engine running I’m that desperate for him to sleep!

He seems to be getting worse, naps & nights getting shorter.

He sleeps next to me with white noise so I don’t think it’s noise waking him & id be surprised if he was cold.

I feel like it’s habitual & that he is so over stimulated by every day life that his brain is just wired :-(

[*Ali*]

Any possibility of keeping him awake on the morning school run with music, chatting and toys? Or can you try to get the car seat into the house and into a bedroom while he's still asleep? I can usually do this if I get in within the first 15 minutes. Or sometimes I can resettle by feeding on the bed.