Sleep Methods

Given Olivia’s recent hatred of naps, sleep methods are becoming an increasingly large part of our lives. We’ve tried a lot, but I am ALWAYS looking for tips on how to make nap time easier.

We’ve tried putting her down in the same place where she sleeps at night. We still only get 40 minutes at the most (usually it’s about 30 minutes). To even get her to take a nap, it takes us about 20 minutes (at least) of walking, rocking, shushing, and snuggling. I don’t know what else to do. We know this works and it gets her about 40 minutes, which is enough that she’s not super crabby for a little while afterwards. Lately I’ve been trying to coincide her naps to follow immediately after she nurses. My logic is that it’s easier to take a longer nap with a full belly. If I put her in her bassinet, it still only lasts about 40 minutes. If I snuggle her next to me on the couch, she’ll sleep for quite a bit longer, but that also means that I’m basically pinned to the couch for 2 hours. I know that sounds like heaven, but when you have a baby glued to you all day and you can’t get anything done, it’s hard. Most days I LOVE when I can take a nap with her. But there are some days where I wish she would sleep in her bassinet for 2 hours and I could get some stuff done around the house.

Olivia sleeps fairly well at night. She was sleeping from about 10pm to 8am, but we haven’t fully rebounded from the four month sleep regression. Basically as soon as she turned 4 months, she started waking up again at 1am and 5am (which was a real kick in the teeth for me). I’ve been nursing her at 8pm every night for the past little bit and putting her down by 9:30 or so. She now sleeps until about 6 or 7, nurses, and then goes back down for a little bit. Night sleeping isn’t really a big problem for her right now. In fact, I kind of like when she gets up at 6 because it’s still dark enough that she can nurse and get back to sleep before it gets too bright outside. Basically she doesn’t need a morning nap because she sleeps until 10 or so anyways.

We’ve tried co-sleeping a little bit. Actually, I’VE tried c0-sleeping a little bit (Tyler’s too afraid he’ll roll over on her). I only ever bring her to bed with me if she goes back to bed after her morning feeding and doesn’t stay down. I always position myself in such a way that I could NEVER roll onto her. And, to be honest, I rarely fall back asleep, but she snuggles right in, gets warm against me, and falls back asleep so easily. It’s really the only way to avoid the morning nap.

It seems to work best if she can sleep until 10 or so (through any means necessary) and then takes a nap on me after her afternoon feeding. Not ideal, but it’s working for the time being.

We will also be transferring her to the crib soon. She’s started rolling over (and can go in both directions as of three days ago!), so it will be safe to put her in her crib in her room. I am SO nervous about this! I want our bedroom back (it’s so hard to not be able to go into your own bedroom after 8pm), but I’m also worried about her. We just got our woombie in the mail and hopefully that will help her, but still. Any suggestions on making the transition to the crib easier?

Do you have any tips for getting Olivia to nap? Things that work for you? We tried bouncing her on the bed while holding her in our arms and that worked for a few weeks, but then it seemed like she got wise to our tricks and started screaming as soon as we sat on the edge of the bed with her. Any tips would be lovely! We’ll try anything! I miss the days when she would fall asleep in her bouncer by herself. Sigh… my little bean is growing up!