DD1 had a good nap routine from about 6 weeks to about 3 months. Then it all went to he!! for six months. DD2, now 3 months, has no routine. She used to sleep most of the day, but in the last week or so, I've noticed that she is having trouble going to sleep even though she is tired. I'm thinking I need to get some kind of a routine going for naps but I am totally drawing a blank about how I did this with DD1. I know we swaddled DD1 and gave her a paci and that helped clue her in that it was time for sleep. DD2 hates both the swaddle and the paci, though.
So, tell me about your baby's nap schedule. How many, how long, and how do you get them down?
Re: Talk to me about your 3-ish-month-old's nap routine
DD has pretty much a very set sleep schedule, yet sleeps in different places for a couple of them.
She's down at midnight, wakes at 8am usually to eat than goes back to her bed for another hour to hour and a half usually - if not she's up for an hour playing and than will have a snack and go for a nap with her paci.
Up again around 10:30-11:00, sometimes a bit later
Naps around 1pm, for this one she goes in her swing (sometimes paci, sometimes not) it's usually a fairly short nap, anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Sometimes depends if I turn the swing off or not
She will sometimes snooze while eating, but I don't consider these naps really.
This is where it gets tough. If we go out, her next nap, around 3:30 she will sleep along time, up to 3 hours, but if we're home I'll usually swaddle her for this one, give her a paci, and rock her to sleep. She'll go in her bassinet for only an hour or so this way, but wake up cranky and tired still.
She may have a couple more short "naps" either in my arms while eating from here on out or in her swing until she goes down for bed at midnight again (she has a huge cluster feed for this, gets swaddled, rocked and sometimes we need to give her a paci when we put her down).
3 months already! Wow! Time flies!
At 3 months, DS was still all over the place with naps. In fact, he didn't really settle into a schedule until this past month. However, we had a routine. He'd wake up around 6-6:30 am and go to bed around 6-6:30 pm. In between we'd try to do an eat-play-sleep rhythm (but no set timing); he was generally ready for a nap after about an hour at that age. Naps themselves lasted 30 min - 2 hours, depending. On average, he took about 5 naps per day. To wind him down from the nap, we'd do a diaper change, read a book, sing a song, and then put him down. He got pretty good at the drowsy-but-awake around this age.
Good luck!