Daytime naps - how to get them to sleep?

Hi,
My boys are almost 6 weeks old. They sleep great at night... no problem going down after their feeds, but the daytime is another story. We are trying to follow the EASY plan....eat, activity, sleep, you... so they are up for awhile after they feed either in their bouncy chair or with the play mat. When they start to show signs of being tired, we'll swaddle them and put them down, but they often don't sleep well or not for very long. During the day they feed around 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3/3:30pm, 7pm. The 6am and 7pm feeds they go straight to bed after, no activities.

I'm wondering how long their naps should be at 6 weeks and if it's too early to start training for day time naps. Will it just be random for awhile? I know I can't force them to sleep but are there things I can do to establish the routine?? I have the "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book but it's so long and haven't had the energy to read it yet. I fee like my solutions are in there, so if anyone has a summary, please fill me in!!!

THANKS!!!

 

actually, HSHHC doesn't have much to say about babies under 4 months of age, unfortunately. and that's because the majority of babies daytime sleep doesn't really start to consolidate until around 4 months past their EDD. that's when you usually start to see a morning nap develop, followed within a month or so by an afternoon nap & many babies usually need a third evening catnap for a while as well.

it sounds to me like you are right on track for developing healthy sleep habits. i would say keep an eye on your babies' moods when they wake up - if it seems like they're in an okay/good mood, they're probably ready to eat & have some activity time. if they're really cranky, or wake up screaming, it could be that they're not quite ready to wake up yet but weren't able to soothe themselves back to sleep - you could try soothing them & see if they go back down for another sleep cycle. it may or may not work considering your babies' ages, but if you think it's worth a shot, it can't hurt to try!

the EASY routine comes from Tracey Hogg's The Baby Whisperer, which is a really good read, if you haven't read it already, & has some great info for the newborn period (i recommend it with the caveat that i don't always agree with what she says about BFing, but what parenting book out there will you agree with 100%? ).

 

We do Eat, Activity, Sleep. It used to be PERFECT until I recently stretched them to four hour feeds, so now it's more like Eat, Activity, Sleep, Activity, Eat... Oh well... ;-)
-Julie, Mommy to Noah, Emmett,& Hudson 5 months

 

"Healthy Sleep Habits..." says you should soothe your baby back to sleep after 1-2 hours of wakefulness. I would not expect long naps or regular naps at this age. The same book says that the morning nap develops at 4 months, and the afternoon nap after that (I think that's the age - I don't have the book with me right now). Try not to stress too much! Stick to the 1-2 hour of wakefulness rule and you will be fine. By the way, I did not swaddle for daytime sleep because I wanted my kids to distinguish night time as "special". We did a lot of swing and bouncy seat naps in the first months. Now my kids nap in their cribs.