Day time naps...??

I know this has been discussed before, but if anyone has any suggestions on how I can get my very wide-eyed and alert wee girl to take ANY day time naps, it would be much appreciated!!

At the moment, I am lucky if she will stay down for longer than 30 minutes at one time. I have tried the whole controlled crying - I let her cry for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then another 10 minutes and so on, but only let her do this for an hour at the most before I resort to getting her up .

I have a routine with her day naps...she has very clear tired signs (yawning, rubbing eyes, and usually has been up for 1 - 1 1/2 hours), so at that point I take her to her room and we have quiet time for about 5 minutes where I either read her a story or sing her a song. Then I shut the curtains while saying to her "its nap-nap time", I put her down in her cot, give her her dummy, put on her cot-side music player for a couple of songs and leave the room. But she NEVER goes straight off to sleep, it takes at least 2 goes, and each time I go in, I usually just put her dummy in and repeat "its nap-nap time" without touching her and leave the room again, but this usually STILL doesn't work, and so it goes on, until I get VERY frustrated and either pick her up and take her for a walk or pick her up and let her sleep on me (I know, I know, but mummy is exhausted at this point).

Everyone keeps telling me she is so alert etc. but surely she needs SOME sleep during the day...??!! And come 5pm she is so grizzly and grumpy (just when DH gets home!) and we're all just over it !

HELP PLEASE!!!!!!!!!

Yeah lil ones do need sleep during the day.. have you tried rocking her cot/basinette to try and help her out a bit with going to sleep? Also, is she swaddled??

Does she cry when she wakes up? If yes she needs more sleep but if not then maybe she's had all she needs.
I would continue to swaddle her but maybe wrap her with one arm out? (We still wrap Kaleb's legs and when he's overtired we do one or both arms in too). If she's wriggling free maybe she need a bigger wrap?
Maybe take out the music and story after she's shown the tired signs otherwise its another 5+ minutes before she goes to bed. We had trouble with Kaleb when he was 3 months so went to Plunket Family Centre and one thing they said was when they were having playtime take everything away for about 10mins of that time (so when she'd been up for about 1hr20) so there's no stimulation then wait for tired signs and straight to bed. It really worked!
For more info you could try visiting the sleep store

I had this trouble with Spencer and ended up going to the plunket family centre, I had stopped swaddling cos I thought he didn't like it and one of the first things they got me to do was to start swaddling him again, and it works, he was startling himself in the gap between sleep cycles. He is such a wriggly little monster that he now gets swaddled with the aid of three safety pins, he then gets zipped into his sleeping bag and then I wrap his safety sleep over the arm holes. (believe it or not sometimes i still find him with one arm out his neck hole and the other out of a sleeve).
One other thing they got me to do was not wait ten mins for him to self settle but to hover around and as he was stirring pat/rub him back to sleep, sounds time consuming and it is but I only had to do it for a week before he was resettling himself.

Right having said all that, Spencer doesn't really sleep in the day. His routine has pretty much become this, get up have a feed, stay up for between 1-2 hours, tired signs, go to bed (he goes straight to sleep no props no grizzling) wake up, if it has been 3+ hours since he last feed I feed him, if not he ends up playing until he makes hungry signs. (sometimes he is up for and hour sleep for 30mins and then up for hour and half before feeding again and is then reenergised and up for another hour after his feed). When we went to plunket he was crying when waking up after 30mins but now he is quite happy when he wakes up and if he needs longer will sleep longer.
Generally on a typical day he will have about 2 hours sleep during the day and will then go to bed at 8 and not get up till 6 the next day.
Try not to get down about it, Spencer is also a really alert baby (or nosey as I like to call it), you will probably find in a few weeks time that the amount of sleep she is having in the day will fit in with what she needs, and she can be awake and happy/nosey.

Oh I just wanted to add something about controlled crying. I went to a sleep seminar at the parent and child show and the lady said that for some babies controlled crying works like it is intended but for others all they learn is that if they keep crying someone will eventually turn up and therefore don't learn to settle themselves to sleep.

When I put Spencer down he has no dummy or mobile or anything stimulating whatsoever, he is just in his boring bassinette with the curtains drawn, I hear him cooing to himself over the baby monitor for anything up to 15 mins before he goes to sleep, but that is his wind down, he is so nosey that I think anything like a mobile or whatever would just make him not sleep rather than help.

Hope you get some help from my rambling. If you do have family centre close by I highly recommend going they were fantastic.

I actually just swaddle him in a cotton sheet, I have to keep Spencer cool as well so as not to irritate his ezcema. I gave up with a wedge cos he could just barge the two bits apart.
I had relatives over recently and we were out and about alot and would have him in my frontpack facing in and he would lean his head right back as far as he could to see what was going on, ended up sticking him in it facing outward a couple of weeks earlier than recommended as he was gonna break his neck trying to see what was happening otherwise. So nosey.

And if you can't find a muslin big enough you can buy some pretty muslin fabric at Spotlight and then you'd just need to hem it. We always use muslin during the day and also take some of the blankets off the cot. I often put K to bed with no pants on either.

Well, I've managed to get her down for 1 2 hour nap so far, which is better than I've done for weeks! I wrapped her with one arm poking out, and she did wake and cry mid-cycle, but I waited and she self-settled herself. She was sweaty though, so will have to get a muslin wrap me thinks. Thanks guys!

More success, Bella's been asleep for over an hour now! I really think its the wrapping thats doing it. Its funny though, because I don't wrap her at night (I do use a sleep sack though) and she sleeps fine, and usually manages at least 6 hours straight before waking for a feed. Perhaps she needed something to identify her day naps with her night sleep..??? Anyway, will keep doing that...Does anyone know if merino is alright for wrapping too? I'm sure I read somewhere that this breathes really well, even in the warmer weather. Only ask because MIL has a whole heap, so I'd be able to make some swaddles out of that...

Just wondering is she in a cot or bassinette? As I remember it was at about this age that we had to move Xanda from his bassineete and into a cot, because when he wassleeping and turned over or flung his arms out he would hit the side of the bassinette and it would startle him wide awake, and nothing we did settled him.