My 7 month old daughter will no longer take naps! We recently moved (3 weeks ago) and before the move, you could lay her down for a nap and she would go to sleep by herself with maybe 5 mins of fussing. Now she SCREAMS and cries and makes herself sick! She's exhausted (you can tell), but the only way to get her to sleep now is to nurse her. I can handle the 'wait it out for 10-15 mins' method, but this is a kid who is litterally acting trumatized! Even after an hour of checking on her every ten minutes she is still freaking out! Finally I just have to give in and get her up. We've kept her routine the same and while my husband and I are job hunting here, we've been home most of the days with her! She's down to 2 naps a day and is exhausted/cranky most of the day, but I can't get her to sleep more! She even gets mad now about you laying her down on her change table and cries until she can sit up! She hasn't broken through any teeth yet and teething medication doesn't seem to help the problem. She's not sick in any way, so I'm at a loss for what to do! Last week she'd go down for her morning naps with NO problems, but the afternoon ones were the problem. The first week we were here she slept fine! It's been getting worse every day with her. This week it's been all naps and bedtime that are fought. I've tried just rubbing her back to calm her but she doesn't calm down, you have to pick her up to calm her. Even her mobile and gloworm don't calm her anymore! I thought it would get better as she got used to the place, but it's getting worse. Has anyone dealt with this?
All of mine quit napping at nine months altogether. Some kids do that and just reqiure less sleep.
teeth? Maybe they bother her more in the afternoon?
Hi- my thought is teeth combined with the new environment. Both of my kids were just as miserable when their teeth were moving BELOW the gums as when they were actually teething. An occasional dose of Motrin or Tylenol really did help. Tylenol was enough for my daughter, but my son needed Motrin to even touch teething pain.
Also, she may just be in the habit of not sleeping after the disruption from moving. My daughter was the same way- picking her up was the only way to stop the hysterics. We just stopped going in as frequently and picking up to soothe, putting back down, etc. Painful and takes a few days, but it works. My girlfriend says that if you can make it through three days trying to break a habit, you're home free (just about).
Just my 2 cents.
Good luck!
J.
I just went through something similar with my otherwise delightful baby girl (she's nearly 10 mos old now). I'm a stay at home mom, so her fussing is just about unbearable to me if I have nothing better to do.
Honestly, the best thing here is the wait and see method isn't working, is to just let her fuss. She'll get the hint and go to sleep.
You may want to check and make sure the room's dark enough when she's napping (mine got very easily distracted and reminded that I wasn't there if it was light in her room).
If you don't have any crib toys in there with her, that may help as well. Ours has a mirror with all kinds of stuff around the frame -- she enjoys it, but she also has to have her stuffed puppy rattle... usually if she's being really difficult, I can get her to lay down and chill out with the rattle in her hand -- she'll experiment with it until she falls asleep.
It's really a big no-no nowadays, I know, but mine really likes having a bottle in the crib with her to chill out. A small bottle of water would probably be fine and would help soothe her. Does she use a pacifier? If not, it may help at naptime.
Hey M.! Congrats on successful nursing! It sounds like your baby is afraid of something in the house. It could be the shadows, smells, boxes piled up, or any small thing like that. Babies view everything so differently than we do. Get down on the floor with her and see things through her eyes and maybe you could catch a hint of what is scaring her. I nursed all 3 of my boys, and when they had trouble with naps, I would just lay down with them on a pallet on the floor, let them nurse until they went to sleep, then I could just break suction and slowly roll away without having to lay them down. It was sometimes time consuming, because we sometimes just want to snap our fingers and make something happen, but at least the baby will be happy and ASLEEP! I have to say that I think the "cry it out" method would only compound the problem. She's not crying because she is spoiled. She needs something or is afraid of something.
~B.
When they get to a certain age they seem to need less sleep. 2 naps a day is great for a 7 month old. My daughter is now 15 months and is down to one good nap in mid morning. She always took 2 naps until 13 months. She is very cranky by dinner but she goes to bed anywhere between 7 and 730 everynight and gets up at 6 or 7 the next morning. Try just waiting it out cause she will eventually fall asleep. She may be ready for one nap. Let her stay up 5 to 6 hours from when she wakes and i bet she'll be ready for a nap and sleep a good 2 hours. My daughter goes down about 11 or 12 right after she eats and sleeps 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Good luck
The other responses could be correct about the teething, but it seems like the move was what triggered this new behavior. When my daughter was about 2, we moved into a new apartment. My daughter never slept well the entire time we lived there. The walls were thin and she could hear the neighbors moving around at night. We could even smell whatever they were cooking. This is the only time in my daughters life when she had any trouble sleeping.
I am wondering if perhaps the new environment is frightening to your daughter? Maybe the new place smells (or even sounds) funny to her. Is there anything else that changed along with the move - a new pet, the loss of a pet, etc?
