Naps

[longstocking]

DS is 2 1/2 months old...is he too young for scheduled nap times? Lately he's been sleeping only 20 minutes every hour during the day. I think he is overtired because it's leading into sleeping poorly at night also...wakes up every 1-2 hours. When he wakes up he thinks he needs to eat, no matter that I rock him, give him a binky, he screams full out until I feed him, and usually will be back asleep within 30 min to an hour. The other day I put him in his swing and he fell asleep so I left him...5 hours later I had taken off his blanket, opened all blinds to let the full sun in, stopped the swing, without purposefully waking him, I was encouraging him to wake up, but he was still asleep. I don't want him in the habit of needing to sleep in his swing, but, I'm about to scrap that and just put him in there at night. I am so exhausted and want a decent (as decent as it can get with a newborn) nights sleep, and some time during the day to take a nap, or actually get stuff done that I want to get done!
How many naps did your 3 month old take during the day? How long did they usually sleep? Did you just make them stay awake until that scheduled time? I am at a loss as to what to do so we can all get some sleep around here. My DH told me my lack of sleep is making him not like me, since I usually have a sweet disposition and lately if anyone even looks at me I am annoyed with them. Sadly, this tiredness is really rubbing off onto DH and DS...I am not a fun person to be around!
Please help this grumpy, tired mama do something to get her baby to actually sleep longer than a 1 hour stretch! And what's with him needing to eat to fall asleep!? I didn't want that to be a habit either, but, I'm wearing down and giving in.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I wouldn't expect a real napping schedule or devoted nap time at that age. I think that at that age they sleep when they are tired and you just have to roll with it. I only have 2 dcs but they both didn't really start doing the official crib nap sort of thing (at a certain time every day they slept in their cribs for a chunk of time) till 6 months. Before that he just nursed to sleep, feel asleep when we were out and about or just whenever he felt the need.

Also, I don't think you will find any parenting or sleep book that says eating to sleep is a prolem at this age either. It doesn't become a real habit till they are older.

Right now you need to go into full on survival mode and get sleep however you can. 1 hour naps are pretty typical at this age and you will just run into unnecessary frustration if you try to make him nap on a schedule or anything like that.

It does get better. :)

Beth

[ray7694]

I would run to purchase The Baby Whisperer Solves all Your Sleep Problems. My friends and I used this book with our children and I sware by it.
At that age your dc should be able to stay awake for 1 1/2 hours. As soon as you start seeing sleep cues like yawning etc start winding down and get to sleep. My dd would sleep for an hour or so and then would be awake for 1 1/2 hours. Both of my children were not on a consistant schedule of two naps a day and catnap until 4 months.

I would definitely agree that bad sleep during the day leads to bad sleep at night.

I would start working on a 3 hour routine and in the meantime use the swing to get a nap in for yourself. I would just use it sparaticly and you won't have an addicition.

The Baby Whisperer book also has a great message board if you want to check it out.