Nap time woes!
My 9 week old has been sleeping well at night pretty much since birth. As soon as we stopped waking him for feeding he started sleeping for 5 hour stretches at night and has now progressed to 7+ hours at a time. Our bedtime routine is bath time, sleep sack, feeding (sometimes I add a bottle of breastmilk because he's still hungry after draining both breasts), then I put him down in his crib by our bed. He's still awake but sleepy and usually drifts off with minimal effort within about 20 minutes. But OMG nap time is the worst!
For starters, he absolutely refuses to be out into his crib during the day no matter what. Even if I rock him until he's completely out, as soon as I put him down there he cries (and then works himself up to the point that he can't sleep no matter what)!
He can only fall asleep in a baby carrier, in my arms, or in a swing. If he falls asleep in my arms I can put him down on our bed but not his bed. If he falls asleep in the swing or carrier he just has to stay there until the end up the nap (about 90 min to 2 hours). If we try to move him he wakes up and won't go back to sleep.
I've tried closing the shutters to make the room dark, I've tried putting him in his crib and just picking him up when he gets upset and putting him back down as soon as he calms down (before he's asleep), I've tried putting him down earlier, I've tried letting him get upset and just hoping he'll calm himself down eventually...nothing works!
I'm worried about him sleeping in the swing or carrier because I don't think it's really safe and because I'm worried about what will happen when he outgrows the swing or is too heavy to be carried around for 2 hours. I'm also worried that his daytime napping habits will eventually mess up his night time sleep.
Please help! Any suggestions for getting him to fall asleep on his own during the day? Or suggestions on moving him once he's asleep without making him upset? Any ideas for a daytime nap routine (we're not going to do baths more than once a day, lol)? What we're doing now isn't sustainable as we both work from home and need to get our work done while he's sleeping!
Achieve your health goals from period to parenting.