u/matchakite

FTM to a 4 month old and I still have a lot of anxiety about going out. Whenever we do leave the house (always with my partner), it’s only for about an hour or two at a time to grab groceries or to go to an appointment. Most days, we stay inside. I’ve also been declining invitations to go to dinner or to visit family as I still feel it is too overwhelming.

Is there something wrong with me? Is this harmful for my baby? I was already a huge homebody prior to having a baby, but having him seems to have exacerbated it. At this point, I’m afraid I’ll never feel confident enough to take him out as always be worried about his feeding and sleep schedule as he has been sleeping terribly since he was about 2 months old.

Starting at 9 weeks, no matter what I do, I cannot get my baby to take a nap. Rocking, bouncing, feeding, and anything that used to work no longer does. 90% of the time, it ends in failure after 30+ minutes of trying. My arms and back are killing me but no matter what I do, the most I can accomplish is getting him drowsy just for his eyes to pop back open in 2 minutes. He won’t even contact nap on me anymore.

Today, my mother in law came over and was able to rock him to sleep within 5 minutes. It seems that my husband is also able to get him down within 15 minutes. However, he’ll always wake up after 20 minutes and my attempts to save the nap always fail.

The one thing that does seem to work is sleeping in the car seat. As a result, I’ve forced a day of car seat naps in order to break the cycle of overtiredness, but this is not a viable everyday solution as it’s not sleep safe and I don’t have access to the car seat every day.

Is there a reason he won’t nap on me?? The only time he will fall asleep on me is during night wake ups, but during the day, my attempts only agitate him.

If anyone has any advice on what to do or who I can turn to for help, I would be eternally grateful 🙏🙏🙏

Not sure if relevant, but he is exclusively breastfed and has reflux.

ETA: I do my best to follow his wake windows and start the wind down right when I see sleepy cues. It just does not seem to be working.