Mom of 31/2 Month Seeking Advice on Naptime

Every "sleep" book will advise you not to resort to a swing, but sometimes it is all you can do to get some sleep yourself. Try a cradle swing. It helped both my girls when nothing else would work. Other than that persistence is the key. At 3 1/2 months old your baby should be taking about 3 - 4 naps a day. I believe he should get about 15-18 hours of sleep. There is a great book called, The No Cry Sleep Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley. Give it a try. Good luck!

P.S. THat is great he is sleeping 8-9 hours at night!

WOW you are very lucky he is sleeping so great at night!
As far as during the day, I used to get up, feed my kids, change them, play a bit, give them some stimulation like a few toys or something, then lay them back down a hour to two hours after waking. Every child is different though.
I say a few hours after waking, lay him down awake and get him to fall asleep himself.
I think if I remember at that young age, my kids slept three maybe four times a day for 45 minutes maybe at a time, then it went to two good naps at abut 6 mos then down to one long nap at about 14 mos.
Try maybe pushing his nap another 30 minutes and make sure he has had lot's of play and stimulation and all that.
Then lay him down when you see signs of him getting tired.
You needn't worry about a strict nap schedule for a few more months.

Hi R.!
I have read EVERY baby sleep book out there! I've come to believe that to an extent, there's only SO much you can do. My little girl obviously takes after me. She just doesn't need that much sleep =)
Up until around 11 months she only napped for 20 minutes once or twice a day. That's it. And she didn't start sleeping through the night until 11 months too.
My husband found that she slept longer if they napped together. Some people like that idea, some might frown on it. But it hasn't messed up her sleeping habits and they enjoy the time together.
My daughter seems satisfied with her little naps. If he does too, then I wouldnt fret =)
Good luck
D

All 3 of my kids went through this. Looking back, it was temporary, but at the time it felt like it lasted forever. I just concentrated on getting them to go to sleep by themselves for their naps - no rocking, feeding to sleep, etc. and kept in a cycle of sleep, feed, wake time, sleep, feed, wake time. After a while, the naps lengthened by themselves and as they did, the number of naps per day decreased. A good sleep resource for me was 'How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems' by Ferber. It sounds like you're on the right track, though. It will get better. I would say by 6 months, all three of mine had figured out how to take pretty good naps - upwards of 1 1/2 hrs. per nap. Good luck!

when my baby (same age) wakes like that from naps, it's often because she's still hungry or has some gas or poop to work out. i offer to feed her again, but if she doesn't want it, i put her in a bouncer close to me so i can give it a nudge every once in a while if she's fussing. sometimes she just wants to sleep where things are going on. the bouncer feels more like being held than the crib mattress does, i can put it in any room, and my hands are free. i just have to keep it close by so that when she wakes up i can intervene if she tries to roll out of it. i also don't let her sleep longer than 3 hours at once during the daytime so that she is getting most of her food in the day and most of her long sleep at night. in her crib, i've found that putting a rolled up blanket around her in a U shape (with the opening of the U where the head is) helps with the transition from someone's comfy arms to the crib. good luck!

My little man did/does the same thing. He is only a month older than yours, but more often than not, he cat-naps. I would say, enjoy that he's sleeping through the night, and be grateful he's at least doing that. Mine has started to take slightly longer naps as he gets older, hopefully yours will, too!

Good job getting him to sleep at night! That's great! At that age our boys were sleeping about an hour to an hour and a half before each feeding. Our daughter, on the other hand, does not care for naps. All we've been able to do with her is give her her pacifier and tell her it's time to sleep. Usually works, although it can be an ongoing battle that lasts a good 20-30 minutes after she wakes up. She eventually goes back to sleep, usually around time to wake up. On average, nap lasts 1-1.5 hours, and she sleeps the first 20-30 minutes, battles it for 20-30 minutes and sleeps for another 20-30 minutes. We've been doing this for about 3 months now. It's getting better, and I occasionally get a decent nap out of her. We're pretty consistent with her staying in bed for the time she should be asleep, so we are getting somewhere with it, and she really doesn't cry much. I did everything the same with her that I did with the boys. We get good night sleep and rough days with her. Something I have noticed is that when we make her stay in bed for the remainder of the nap, she is happier the rest of the day, which is why we're still sticking to this. I'll look back to see what other moms say, but I hope this at least encourages you that you're not alone. At least we're getting good night sleep, right? :)

Check out the book "BabyWise". It worked really well for us. It lays out a schedule for you so I know what to expect and how to make it work. When my 6 month old was 3 1/2 months he definitely slept more than 30 minutes for naps. It's good that your little guy is sleeping well at night. Check out the book and hopefully that will help a bit.

Hi R.,
I have 5 week old twins, so I don't have experience with how many naps your 3 1/2 month old should be sleeping, but when we talked with our pediatrician about one of our children crying a lot in the night he had us watch the happiest baby on the block. Since following the advice in the movie, our babies are sleeping longer and don't wake themselves up. The movie has 5 S's for soothing. One of the S's is to swaddle-like you're doing, another that will help you is Shushing, or white noise. When we put the radio in their crib on a static station, they sleep around an hour more per nap and sleep much deeper and don't wake themselves up. Another S that might help is sucking-you could try using a pacifier, also the swing can be helpful in keeping your baby asleep longer. The pediatrician in the movie said that some babies need to be swaddled and have white noise (plus all the other S's) for up to 9 months, although most babies will only need it till 3 months old. I would call your pediatrician and see if he has the movie and will let you borrow it and watch it. My pediatrician's office has a couple copies they lend out to patients. Good luck!

My now 8 month old didn't start truly napping until just a few weeks ago. She was the mini napper 5-6 times a day all day long! It was harsh since that didn't allow any time for me to do much during the day.
I am not sure there is any way you can make a baby sleep longer or get on a schedule, but I think it kinda evolves naturally.

I just kept at it and one day it just worked. She now takes two, 1 hour long naps, sometimes longer, and still sleep from 6pm to 6am. It is great!
Just hang in there.

One thing I can suggest is make sure the naps are in his room and that it is pretty dark, have white noise going for sure! Either a fan, humidifier or radio stuck on a scratchy station. Also I would be careful about relying on swaddling. My little one never stayed in her swaddle even as a new born, but all my friends have told me horror stories about having to break their little ones from it. At some point they will be too big to swaddle and then they will have to re-learn how to sleep again. So perhaps you can start to put him down un-swaddled during naps to kinda ease him out of it.

In any case, good luck. I hope your little ones finds a rhythm soon :)