My DD has been giving me fits with napping. She has been refusing her morning nap most days, which has of course made the afternoons difficult as well. Here's my goal.
7:30 wake up/bf
9-9:30 down for nap
11:30 wake up/bf/solids
1-1:30 down for nap
3:30 wake up/bf
third nap if needed
6:00 solids, followed by bath some nights
7:30 bf/bedtime
10:30 df
Here's my problem(s). First, she started "regularly" sleeping through the night late, about 5 1/2 months. At 6 months, she started waking up to eat again at 4. A week later, she's still waking up demanding food, although the time has been creeping back to 5-5:30am - which means she's not hungry when she wakes up. When her eyelids start drooping, I take her in, rock her, and sing songs until she's good and drowsy, then put her in bed. She starts fussing a bit, then usually stops within about 10 minutes - and starts playing. She'll play for an hour or so, then start yelling for me. She doesn't mantra cry that I can tell, she either fusses or screams like she's being axe-murdered. At this point, I go in and try pu/pd; usually it takes about 45 minutes of pu/pd, settling her, I leave the room, then within a few minutes she screams and we start over. This pattern repeats whether her A time is an hour or 2 1/2 hours. If she does finally go down, it's usually either in the few seconds/minutes that I've picked her up or she tries to latch on through my shirt so I feed her again, since she didn't get a good feed when she woke up. Otherwise, I get sick of the screaming that starts whenever I put her down and give up on the nap and let her get up, since it's almost time for her next feed anyway. By this point, I'm exhausted and most of the morning is gone. She usually takes a semi-decent (1-2 hour) nap around 1 with DS, but is usually OT by this point so getting her down is a disaster again. She rarely naps in the evening (unless her afternoon nap continues into evening) but usually goes to bed with fewer problems. She's also learning to crawl, so most of her A time is floor time or playing with big brother (age 2) and his friends.
Any suggestions?
Beth