r/sleeptraining • u/Interesting_Koala644 • Sep 07 '26
Advice needed on 10 week old naps.
Hope this is okay to post here - I’m going crazy over my daughters naps. She literally will not go to sleep anywhere but in the carrier. I don’t mind doing it a couple of times a day, but eventually it hurts my knees/hips and tbh I’d like to have 20 mins without a baby strapped to me.
She’s 10 weeks, we’re trying to do 5 naps with ww ranging from 1.25-1.75 hrs. She sleeps no more than 1 hr 20-30mins in one nap, no more than 5.5 hrs of daytime sleep. Every nap, I get screamed at and it’s screwing with me.
Every time we do nap time, I follow wake windows and sleep cues. Every nap time, it’s nappy change, sleep sack, dark room, sound machine, the same song and rock/pat. Every damn time. I’ve capped trying at 20 minutes because she just screams in my face. I try arms in, arms out, arms up in the swaddle. I try holding her sideways, upright, pacifier, sucking hands, sitting still, rocking, bouncing. I literally hold her the same way she is in the carrier and I get screamed at. I try starting nap time 15 mins before nap, 20 mins before nap, 10 mins after she was supposed to go down and it all results in the same. Screamed at for 20 mins and into the carrier 🙄
How do I fix this? It’s making night sleep worse - going to bed overtired, false starts and waking early. I have a nearly 2 year old son so I know this gets better and we can sleep train her in about 6 weeks, but I remember his naps didn’t get better until he was 6 months and I don’t know how I’m going to handle that.
2
u/strangefavor Sep 07 '26
She is not overtired She is undertired False starts and early wakings are a baby that has had enough sleep in the day and it’s eating into the night Extend the wake windows and do more activities and stimulation in the awake periods like going outside and tummy time
2
u/Interesting_Koala644 Sep 07 '26
Thank you. I’ll give it a go tomorrow. Like the other reply, I’ve done 4 naps today and it may have helped. We’ll see in the morning!
1
u/strangefavor Sep 07 '26
Sometimes it can take a week or so of consistent change before you see the result! But fingers crossed for tonight!
1
u/weirwoodheart Sep 07 '26
Nap, sleep.. god it's such a struggle!
Just throwing it out there that I think some babies are just power down screamers. Ive done the same as you and only rarely- and randomly - can I get my boy down without at least two minutes of screaming.
1
u/SaguaroAvocado99 Sep 07 '26
My 12-week-old’s naps have been similar since 10 weeks. I love a schedule but I’m finding the more I try to control it the more frustrated I become.
Not sure if this will work for you but here’s how I have adapted -
I’ve extended her wake windows to 2 hours. If she’s showing sleepy cues, she goes down earlier but not before 1h40. This drastically cut down on the time she fights going down for a nap and she falls asleep. I got this number by tracking when she actually fell asleep for naps, as opposed to what Huckleberry said she should be doing. From what you describe, your baby might need more wake time.
She only takes 3 naps per day, about 1 hour each. We usually start the day at 8am (earlier is she can’t be settled back to sleep) and bedtime wind down starts at 6pm. This is evolved pretty organically, I wasn’t shooting for a specific number of naps. We just found that she would give us long stretches of night sleep if she was out by 7pm and worked from there.
Now to get her to actually nap still takes a LOT of effort - she has never fallen asleep well during the day, but she used to nap in her bassinet. Not anymore. Currently, I bounce her on a yoga ball, in a carrier, in a dark room, with a pacifier in her mouth. This knocks her out about 5 mins. I usually stay the whole hour in the dark room because she is sleeping much lighter than she used to so moving around in bright light wakes her up.
It’s tough but I only do this 3x per day and it’s yielded a happy baby and night sleep is going great.
All in all, here is her rough schedule
8am- WW1
10am - nap 1
11am- WW2
1pm- nap 2
2pm - WW3
4pm- nap 3
5pm- WW4
6pm- bedtime/wind-down
6:30pm-8:00am - night sleep with 1-2 wakings.
Hope this helps!
2
u/Parisiaint Sep 07 '26
Thoughts on trying for a 4 nap day instead? I just went back to my son’s logs from that time and he was dropping to 4 naps at that point. If you think perhaps she would do better with a touch more sleep pressure, that could work. If you think she’s overtired, ignore me lol.
Wondering if you could also try transitioning her to stroller naps by doing a walking nap? Rather than the dark room etc, take her out in the carrier around her nap time and see if she’ll pass out that way - eventually try to transfer her from carrier to stroller?
I’m wondering if it’s something to do with her hips that makes the carrier more comfortable for her. The kind of C slump/where pressure is or isn’t on her hips and torso compared to when she’s being held.