Daytime Napping - Prairie Village,KS

My daughter is now almost 5 months, but at 3 months we had the same problem. I agree with the mom in the earlier comment and just go with the flow. It took a few weeks, but now she is taking more regular naps - a small one in the morning (45 min - 1 hr) and a longer one (1-2.5 hrs) in the afternoon. I have realized very quickly that caring for your infant is not an exact science. At this age, even having the exact same routine everyday, does not necessarily give you the same results everyday. Hopefully that will come later. :) We just looked for her sleepy signs and gave her the opportunity to have a quite place that she could fall asleep. If she did, great, if not, fine too. Eventually she will learn to take those opportunities to sleep. Be patient and good luck!

My 4 month old was just like your daughter a month ago. He would never nap longer than 20 min. Now, he takes 1-2 hour naps. I think it is a phase that she will grow out of. Just try to be patient. If your daughter is breastfed, I would hurry to wherever she is sleeping, and try to nurse her back to sleep. Sometimes this worked with my son. You have to be quick so she doesn't become too awake before you reach her. Good luck.

All three of my boys did that to start and then, around the 4th month evened out to a shortish (45 min) nap in the morning and a longer (1 1/2 to 2 hr) nap in the afternoon.
We did do the eat, play, sleep pattern that the mom before suggested.

Is she a breast fed baby? She sounds like my daughter, only mine did not sleep like that through the night. It took me until my daughter was six months old to get her to take a regular morning and afternoon nap. Older moms would always nod at me and say, "oh, a cat-napper", like that explained it to me as a new mom. :) We also went through a phase at three months where my daughter would just be fussy/cry for a couple of hours a night. It was really intense and I didn't know what to do, but standing up with her helped and then she just suddenly grew out of it.

This is what I have learned about sleep. In the first several months of life, it will change all of the time due to growth spurts and eating habits. You can't spoil a baby at that point, so just go with the flow.

around the middle of the first year, start trying to make a routine for naps and bedtimes, using a morning and afternoon nap and an early bedtime (seven is great).

This is what I really learned. All children are different. My girl did not respond to any of the currently acclaimed methods like Ferber, Whisperer, or Happy Baby. I had to find what worked for us and use it.

Hi J.,

Well I would say start trying to "fine tune" her eating/sleeping schedule in the daytime.
A good rule of thumb is eat, play, sleep. So when she wakes up at 7 am get her diaper changed, get her dressed for the day and then nurse her. Play for a bit and then lay her down. So by 9 am she should be ready for a morning nap. When you do lay her down put her in her bed and tell her naptime. She should atleast sleep for an hour to an hour and a half. So there are 2 ways you could go about this 1) leave her in there for the whole hour without checking on her unless she starts crying. 2) leave her in there but start leaving her in there for longer about of time. So if she only sleeps for 20 minutes thats fine but leave her in there for 10 more minutes. As you keep going everyday leave her in there for 10 minutes longer until you are up to atleast an hour or so.
After her nap is over then continue on with eat, play, sleep but only let her go to sleep at the next naptime and in her bed. Her last nap for the day should be around 1 or so but this one should be more of 2 - 3 hours long, so once again do what you did above. When she wakes up from this nap follow the samething but as it gets closer to bedtime start shutting down the lights and turning down the tv and things like this. And follow with a bedtime routine.