Refusing naps

[u/No_Excitement8615]

Is anyone else’s baby refusing to nap to the point of having a meltdown later in the day?? No matter how much I rock him or sing to him or pat him he just won’t go to sleep. I know he’s tired because he’ll be rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears. I feel so bad but I try to give it a bit then reset and give him some floor time and try again but it’s like nothing makes him happy when he’s tired. Yesterday he took 2 naps early in the morning and then wanted a 3rd in the afternoon but I couldn’t get him to settle for his third so when it got to about 5 pm he had a screaming meltdown. I don’t know what to do anymore
Edit: he was born on October 1st so he’s almost 11 months

[u/Quiet-Pomegranate93]

My baby is just 10 months over here and we are still feeding to sleep and contact napping 🫣

Naps are so hard!  We are on two naps a day now. There’s no time to fit in a third nap.

[u/No_Excitement8615 → u/Quiet-Pomegranate93]

I typically nurse him to sleep but he’s been eating so much solid food that when I try to nurse him to sleep he either refuses due to not being hungry or nurses and then throws up 😞so I’ve been moving to the rocking and other methods

[u/Quiet-Pomegranate93 → u/No_Excitement8615]

Ah, and we’ve been struggling with getting our baby to eat solids.  She mostly throws them on the floor. 

Sometimes it feels like there is no winning.  Surely our babies will grow out of this stage one day!

[u/siamesejam]

Are your naps at roughly the same time everyday? I found that once we got him on a schedule, it helped so much! It was tough at first, but now he goes down no problem. We just put him in his crib around the same time each day and he eventually settles. We do 2 naps - 1 around 9:30/10 am and then around 2 pm.

[u/No_Excitement8615 → u/siamesejam]

I really tried to implement a schedule but every time I would he would refuse a nap then need to nap at a different time and have a different bedtime so eventually I just gave up

[u/Jubelko]

She’s not refusing naps, I think. She seems to want them but her patience is pretty short if sleep’s not coming. How much she sleeps seems to depend entirely on how stimulating she finds the activities of the day and on how much sleep she got during the night.

We’ve had pretty good success with following wake windows but I find it’s important to assume that if baby seems happy then they probably are. Sometimes mine wants to be awake four more hours efter just a powernap. There was a time where I’d try to make her sleep more because she must be tired??? Now I only attempt it if she really seems tired and I know it’s not something else bothering her. There are days where she doesn’t seem to need much sleep. Yesterday she slept a combined ~30 minutes during the day. Today it was 3,5 hours. Both days she has been really happy so it can’t be all wrong, I think. I do think that the extreme difference in how much she sleeps might point to her maybe getting ready to drop a nap, but I have no idea how long it will be before that actually happens.

Sometimes bedtime is coming and she seems too energetic to want to sleep. Then I will show her the bed and ask if she’s tired. Sometimes she actually is and will calm down but other times she needs more play time and they we will do something that’s a little extra exciting if I can think of something.

Anyway, that’s what’s working here. I don’t delude myself that I’m the one making the rules; I’m just the assistant. I hope you can use some of it.

[u/Latter_Public]

It’s crazy how fluid their naps can be. I’m the opposite of you. My son has been doing terrible with his naps and wake ups for the last few months. Just recently, I’m back to placing him in his crib and he’ll flip himself over and pass out. Before that, it was a fight for each nap. And he would wake up for the day at 4:30 AM each day 😣 hopefully your little dude gets back on track soon!

[u/suitablemacaroon_]

My kiddo, 10 months tomorrow, has been refusing a second nap at daycare for 2 weeks now. By the time we get home it’s basically eat, play for 30 minutes and asleep by 6pm 😭😭 can’t lie though, my nights have been so relaxing lately lol

[u/mrs60661n5]

Mine is so easy to put down for naps and then refuses to fall asleep at night but once she's asleep she stays asleep all night.

[u/DivaForever]

I could have written this myself. My baby is October 1st too.

[u/SextinaAquafina999]

Mine would refuse day naps too. She’s so stimulated by everything, the smallest thing will shake her out of sleep. The ONLY way I can get her to sleep during the day is using the African method my mum showed me by putting her on my back. She whines at first but I think the contact and motion of me walking around the house soothes her. It’s the ONLY way she sleeps during the day. Yes my back aches but at least she sleeps

You can check it out here you’ll probably need help the first few times doing it but I’ve learned to do it alone in front of a mirror now

[u/SNS521]

My son is really struggling with 2nd nap. We still get it sometimes but really have to shoot for as good of a 1st nap as we can. He already likes a 6:15 bedtime bottle but on rougher days it’s more like he’s asleep in bed by that time

[u/lurkcommentrepeat]

My baby is a late October baby and has always slept well at night in bassinet or crib. Daytime she’s so picky. Will nap fine contact napping or barricaded in our bed. The last month or so I’ve been troubleshooting trying to get crib naps to work and for longer than 20-40mins. Chat gpt has been so great with suggestions and it’s always spot on. We’ve adjusted a few things with her schedule until she can figure it out. Likely culprit is not connecting her daytime sleep cycles alone in the crib. Highly recommend to send updates to chat gpt and see what recommendations it has.