My 8 week old to date has been having all his day sleeps in the sling - now he's getting too heavy and its getting too hot to keep this up. I would like him to have at least one of his long sleeps in his bassinet. So far so good for the first sleep cycle - I put him down awake and calm, pat and shush and give him the dummy - after a few goes of resettling he goes down well and sleeps 20 - 30 minutes. But then its over - he wakes up and is obviously still tired but none of the shushing, patting etc. seems to work. He will close his eyes and suck on his dummy if I hold it in lightly but is not really asleep and spits the dummy and opens his eyes as soon as I stop. After an hour of this I usually get him up - but he is cranky and tired and then its back into the sling as he still needs to sleep. Any ideas?? Is it just perserverance or is there something else I can try?

I personally think some babies are catnappers and there's not a lot you can do to change this. DS was a chronic catnapper, I could time his sleep cycle to the second! From about 8 weeks he was having 4 x 30 min naps a day. DD is a catnapper too, but I will usually be able to re-settle her for ONE sleep during the day (usually just by putting the dummy back in and light patting for a minute or two), so she will have 3 x 40 min naps and one longer 1.5-2hr sleep.

I know with DS I spent months and months trying to get him to resettle and he was so cranky ALL the time. We went to sleep school, which fixed his night sleeping, but did nothing to change his day sleeps. Eventually I just went with it, got him up when he woke up and got on with things, dealing with the crankiness. When he was 12 months he went from having 3 x 30 min naps to having 2 x 2 hour sleeps literally overnight - I didn't do anything to change him!

This time I'm trying to be more relaxed and I'm not stressing out over getting DD to resettle - I still have to deal with the constant irritability, but at least this time I know that it doesn't last forever and she will EVENTUALLY start sleeping for longer periods!

I also initially put it down to a case of cat napping but when he is in the sling he sleeps for 2 -3 hours no problem so I know he can do the longer sleeps...and he wakes up so much happier afterwards

Have you tried white noise? I can't recommend this enough. Play this when you are putting them down for their nap, and have the track that suits him best on repeat. Leave it playing for the whole sleep. You will need to have it loud to start with. Loud enough to block out all other sounds and distractions.

Also, I used to go into DS's room just before he would wake from his cycle to 'catch' him before he became too awake. So as he started to stir, I'd turn the CD up, pat and shush, and try to get him into the next sleep cycle. After a week or so of doing this, he was pretty good at sleeping longer, especially for the first and second nap of the day. I got this idea from Elizabeth Pantley's Gentle Sleep Solution.

But for us, the white noise has always been a winner. We used Sounds for Silence CD, Track 1.

HTH Kate