Only sleeping while being held?

Question

My LO is 4 months old and is really good at fighting sleep - recently only wants to nap in your arms. She's good at bedtime but naps are hard. I'm learning she likes to side sleep so I think that helps while she's being held. Any advice on getting her to nap during the day? As soon as I put her down -crib, bassinet, swing, rocker - she wakes up after 20 min. Which leads to being overtired and the cycle continues.

Answer

I've read that at that age babies sleep patterns change and if they continually wake up after a certain time (in your case 20 minutes) this is how long their first sleep cycle lasts and sometimes they are just not ready to get into the second deep sleep cycle by themselves and wake up and cry. The article said that you should go next to your LO just 2 minutes before their first cycle ends, place your hand on their chest and this way if they come out of the first cycle before really waking up they feel reassured they're not alone and go off into the second cycle which is deeper and lasts longer. Eventually they don't need the reassurance anymore and just transition from cycle to cycle alone and take those longer naps.

I wanted to try this because I had the exact same problem with a pattern of 30 minutes if I didn't hold her, but that day my LO decided not to sleep on her back anymore and since she's sleeping on her belly (which still concerns me a lot!) she takes 2 one hour and 1 two hour naps in her crib every day without a problem. 😳
So I can't tell you from experience this works, but it made sense to me and maybe you could give it a try.
Another thing the article said was to stick to a nap "routine", lay down with first signs of tiredness, same place every time, white noise, fan if necessary, and the room as dark as possible.
Sorry for the long post!

Only sleeping while being held?

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