Hi Alex,

You’ve got a tough but very common situation, but there are things that help.

In the early days and weeks, babies drift from sleep to wakefulness and back without a lot of drama.  But after a few months, she’s more engaged and playful when awake, and more deeply asleep when asleep.  Just like older people, she can’t just slide from awake to asleep.  Just like older people, she can become over-stimulated, which makes falling asleep harder.   This can feel like you’re moving backwards. 

New parents sometimes worry that an apparent regression or misstep will send them back to the chaos of having a one-week old – but you will never go back to square one like that, no matter what you do! Your baby has become much, much more sophisticated and is growing every day!  But an older baby comes with the difficulties of older babies.

People refer to daytime sleep as “naps,” but they’re really not proper, organized, predictable naps until some time in the middle third of the first year.  I refer to young-baby daytime sleep as “dozing.”  Dozing  is easy to get to, but is rarely predictable.  Naps are regular and predictable but it can take a while to get the hang of falling asleep for one.

Four and a half months is actually on the early side to see regular, predictable naps develop.  Organized daytime sleep usually happens only after the nighttime has become more settled.  It is pointless to try to “work on” daytime sleep with a really young baby who is still only dozing. You’re in the transition, so here are some thoughts:

·      Although 2 hours is a pretty typical amount of time babies this age can “handle” being awake before sleeping again, it varies.   She may be overtired by the time you’re trying for the nap.  Try after an hour and a half and see if that helps.  (especially first nap of the day).

·      If your baby takes short, closely spaced naps, you may end up with four or even five naps a day for a while.  That’s OK – it’s transitional.  It will likely settle into 2 longer naps, by her birthday. The goal here is to arrive at bedtime with a baby who is not totally overtired and overstimulated.  Being overtired at bedtime can make it more likely to have a hard time falling asleep at bedtime, wake “too early,” and be prone to getting overtired the next day and fight naps.  For now, prioritize whatever it takes to get through the day without the baby being awake for overly long stretches. If you prioritize this for a couple weeks, she will likely nap better simply from not being overtired.

·      She may also be crying because she “gets” that the nap is about to happen.  This is not a bad thing.  Instead of reading this as “She hates naps!” try “Wow! She’s beginning to recognize patterns!  But the dawning understanding overwhelms her a little.”  You can help her tolerate her increasing understanding of the world by being reassuring and regular in your responses to her, and routinized. A pre-nap routine is basically you saying, “yes, it’s nap-time but that’s OK because it’s always the same every time and I’m always here.” 

·      The nap routine doesn’t have to be elaborate, but have a few steps.  For instance, say, “It’s time for your nap!” Then: new diaper, close curtains, turn on white noise, sit in chair, nurse/rock and sing a lullaby.  If she has been using a transitional object, use it before naps.  (And only before naps and bedtime, not at other times). If (when) she starts crying, just continue with the rocking/nursing/whatever, and the lullaby, comforting her until she settles.  You’re not torturing her by rocking and singing and nursing a baby until she stops crying!  As she grasps the routine, she’ll realize it’s nap time earlier and earlier and may start crying when you say, “It’s time for your nap” and pick her up!  But there you’ll be, holding her close, and continuing in a gentle but authoritative way, with the routine.  And she’ll be calmed by it and relax into it by the time you’re bringing her into the chair for the nursing and rocking and lullaby.

It’s so important to feel entitled to persist a little bit, especially when “persisting” means you’re holding and rocking your baby so that she can get wonderful sleep and feel refreshed.  It’s not like you’re throwing her in a pit with snakes.  I think sometimes new parents “give up” on naps because the baby is protesting, and the parent is worrying, “Maybe it’s not the time for a nap?  Maybe she doesn’t need to nap now at all and it’s just me getting it wrong?”  Everyone feels self-doubt and ambivalence, but if it’s been a couple hours since your baby woke up, it really is more likely that she just needs a lot of comforting than that she really doesn’t need to go back to sleep.  Making great parenting choices does not mean that your child will never be upset, or protest or need lots of comforting.  In fact, lots of the great parenting choices involve your child voicing the doubt you both feel while you play the confident “it’s nap time just like every day!” role.

I think stroller naps are OK, really.  Your child doesn’t get the same kind of deep sleep in a stroller that she’d get lying down in a bed, but honestly, there are few parents who can arrange their lives around being close to a bed all the time, and a good life requires a balance of the parents’ and the baby’s needs.  The major drawbacks of the stroller-nap are (a) it’s freaking cold out and (b) lots of babies stop being able to fall asleep in the stroller, so you need a backup method anyway.  As you get settled into a regular nap schedule, it might be easiest to do the first nap of the day at home, because that one usually develops first.  And then, if you need to do the next nap out in the stroller, go for it and work on that one next week.

Good luck!

Hey Janet,

It sounds like you’re doing fine, actually!  All children eventually grow out of nursing to sleep, of course J, whether it’s that the baby stops falling asleep at the breast or the mom stops nursing him down.  It’s easiest for babies who have sometimes had the opportunity to fall asleep without the breast already, so that they don’t arrive at age 1 literally never having fallen asleep any other way.  So you’re already in good shape; he has the skill, you’ll build on it.  Keep giving him the opportunity to fall asleep with other people over the next few months.

I hear your concern, though, that when it’s just you and him, he is going to “expect” the breast.  So.  The best way to take something away is to give something in return (you’ll be teaching him this in the playground a year from now, by the way).  So here is a plan for the next two and a half months before you start weaning from the breast.  Basically you want him to come to associate something else with falling asleep along with the breast — not just to take away the breast and leave him with nothing. 

Currently, when you are putting him down, he associates sleep with nursing.  That’s fine, more than fine, totally appropriate.  What you’ll do, now, though, is layer some other things on top of the nursing so that he comes to associate them with falling asleep, too.  Then when you start weaning him off the breast, he’ll still have the rest of his “sleep” cues. 

The breast stimulates all the senses, so your other sleep cues should, too.  A transitional object (like a Blankie or stuffed animal — I like the kind with a bunny head and a flannel blankie body) is something for him to touch, smell and look at.  A story or lullaby stimulates his sense of hearing.   Use them together at naptime and bedtime *while* you’re nursing, as he is falling asleep.  What I mean is, nurse him as usual and when you see his eyes start to flutter and doze, you grab the transitional object and lie it across his cheek and begin singing your lullaby.

The key is to catch him falling asleep and immediately use the new sleep cues.  It won’t work to just hand him a Blankie and plop him in the crib and sing a song tomorrow or on his birthday if he doesn’t have any association with those things, no matter how cute the Blankie and how sweet the song.  But, over time, if you *always* give him Blankie and sing him Song just as he is falling asleep at the breast, and never at any other time, then eventually he will come to associate Blankie and Song with falling asleep.  So — keep nursing him to sleep but as you see him drift off, Blankie and Song appear.  And if he is falling asleep in the stroller, you keep your eye on that, and when you see his eyes start to close, Blankie and Song appear.  And whoever else is putting him to sleep follows suit as well.

(by the way, I’m saying Blankie and Song, but it could be Teddy Bear and Book, of course.  In my house we always did _Goodnight Moon_.  But it should be calming, soothing, not-very-stimulating things, like a stuffed animal, not that squeaky giraffe toy everyone has, and soft lullaby songs or rhymey books, not, interactive books like _Pat The Bunny_ or rousing music like Old McDonald or, you know, the Sex Pistols.)

Ultimately (and you have to give it a few weeks before you even start to play with this) you’re going to pop him off the breast before he falls asleep, and hold him in your lap and *then* give him Blankie and Song while he’s nestled against you, almost ready to drift off.  And after still more time, you’ll finish nursing, and then put him in his sleep place and only *then* give him Blankie and Song.  But that’s all a ways off.  Meanwhile work on introducing him to his new sleep cues while you continue to nurse him to sleep — two and a half months is a very long time in his life!

By the way, weaning a one year old can be a slow-ish process.  It may be easiest, when the time comes, to first drop the nursing sessions that are not connected with sleep, one at a time, one per week, nice and slow and gentle.  This will give you even more time to segue your baby out of the nursing to sleep, because it may well be more like 13 months by the time you’re dropping the before-nap and before-bed nursing sessions.

Best,

Meredith