"Fuss it out" for naps?

DublinMama

DS is a little over 3 months old. He has a great bedtime routine that usually takes very little effort (except last night, Good God...). Naps are a little different. For his first very early morning nap, he does great. Goes into his swing with his white noise, and coos and chats to himself until he nods off. Usually about 15 minutes. The rest of the days naps are sort of a down hill spiral, and he gets progressively fussier to put down. I have definitely figured out his limit, so I am fairly confident he is not going to sleep already overtired. He goes down after an hour of wake time and it takes around 20 minutes to get him to sleep, sometimes more.  So by the time he actually crashes he's been up for almost 90 minutes. If I wait any longer he's not fussing, he's outright screaming his face off. 

Sooo, here's my question: If get gets fussy at the start of his p.m. nap- not crying, just whiny and squirmy- do I let him just fuss out in the swing to a certain extent? Obviously if he got really miserable I would tend to him, but like I said, he's not really crying...just sort of complaining, haha. He always is well-fed before a nap, and changed. He does the same things if I pick him and try to soothe him to sleep in my arms or in the glider, also.

ssmb_clarinet

IMO there is a huge difference between letting them fuss and letting them cry. My LO is a major nap fighter and the other day I put her down in her crib and she fussed for about 10 minutes and then went to sleep. She wasn't full on crying, just letting me know she was boycotting her nap. As with most things, do what works for you and your LO, but letting them fuss is not the worst parenting decision ever. Good luck!

bensbride225

I say yes, let him fuss! My older daughter fussed every.single.time she napped, for like a year. I felt terrible in the beginning and spent a lot of time trying to "fix" this before I just kind of realized it's what she needed to do before she fell asleep. I expected my 2nd daughter (she's 4 months) to be the same way-- and go figure, she falls asleep without a peep. Good luck!

sschwege

Give it a try and see what happens!  It just depends so much on the kid.  DD was a baby who needed to be rocked/nursed to sleep, if you left her to fuss, it would turn to crying, then screaming, it just kept escalating till you went in there.  DS on the other hand prefers to be set down.  He will fuss, I call it complaining for 3-10 minutes, but then falls asleep.  When he was younger I tried rocking him as I did DD and honestly he seemed to do better just being set down.

MrsT0514

I'm part of the ''let him fuss a bit'' camp. My son is a huge napfighter at times amd I can tell when he's fussing due to being overtired. Obviously if he's wailing, I say tend to him, of course. But TBH, my son is able to self soothe most of the time now, so a little bit of fussing isn't going to hurt.

ETA..I definitely agree with PP, that there is. Big difference between fussing and CIO.