I loved celebrating Chinese New Year (CNY) as a child. But as a parent, especially one with an overactive kid and a baby, CNY preparation and visiting can be rather overwhelming.

One of the issues we had to deal with this year was Elise’s naps when we were out for CNY visiting and her being overstimulated and overtired after that.

Elise is currently 10 weeks old and over the past month, we have established a somewhat regular nap and sleeping pattern for her. She typically wakes up around 6am in the morning, feed, play for a while, bathe and goes for her first nap just before 9am. She’ll then sleep for 45 mins to an hour before waking up around 10am and play and feed before she’s down for her lunch time nap which typically can last around 1.5 to 2 hours. After another round of play and feed, she takes a 30-40 mins late afternoon nap till around 4+pm. Then she’ll stay awake till we wipe her around 6pm to prepare her for bed at 7pm. She will then sleep till 1-2am for a MOTN feed and then around 5-6am for her morning feed.

Everyday can be a little different in terms of timing but so far she has been rather consistent, especially her 7pm bedtime where she can usually fall asleep on her own when we place her (still awake) in her Dock-A-Tot after feeding. However, when she gets over tired or over stimulated, it becomes extremely difficult for her to fall asleep even with our help.

On the first day of CNY, we had to visit 4 different places, all with lots of new faces that she has not seen before. She was awake most of the time even when we took turns carrying, rocking and shushing her. She was crying and whining on and off throughout the day, but slept through the night from 9pm to 6am after we wiped her when we reach home.

I thought the next day will be much better for her since she had an undisturbed full night sleep and we will be at home most part of the day to host our family members. Her morning nap was great and she even fell asleep on her own for her lunch time nap. But woke up after sleeping for less than an hour and got distracted by everyone around her.

When it was time for her afternoon nap, she refused to sleep even with carrying, rocking, shushing, latching, bottle feeding, pacifier and placing her in the carrier. I even went for a walk downstairs with her in the carrier but she simply wailed her lungs out inconsolably for a good 2 hours before she became so exhausted she had to stop. I quickly made her latch on to ensure that she won’t be famished when she wakes up. She slept for 30 mins and woke up like the wailing episode never happened before and we manged give her a quick bath. She was barely awake for 30 mins when she started crying again and fell asleep at 630pm within 5 mins of carrying.

I was so worried after her wailing episode I asked on my Instagram the following day, how did everyone deal with overstimulated and overtired babies. I received some useful advice from fellow mamas and decided to consolidate them in this post.

1.Shorter Awake Time and More Naps

This tip was shared by Zoe (@sgsupernanny), who is a sleep trainer. Rather than trying to catch Elise’s sleeping cues after 1-1.5 hours (her usual awake time), I kept a close watch for her sleeping cues while she plays and realised that she gets tired a lot faster when she is overstimulated/ overtired. That day she took her naps after awake time of just 30-45 mins and napped a lot more in terms of duration and frequency.

2.Staying at Home

This worked for Elise too. We spent a full day at home without any guests and she managed to nap and sleep a lot better that day. No fussing or wailing episode at all and she managed to fall asleep on her own quite a number of times!

3.Let Baby Sleep in A Carrier

Several mamas suggested using the carrier and I agree it is such a life and arm-saver! I believe it won’t have been so bad if I had remembered to bring along my carrier when we went CNY visiting on the first day.

When Elise seem to have some difficulty falling asleep for her late afternoon nap yesterday, I popped her in the carrier and went to run errand at the supermarket. She napped soundly for close to an hour.

4.Carrying and Rocking

Overstimulated/ overtired babies usually have difficulties falling asleep on their own, so they may need some “help” from us by carrying and rocking them to soothe them to sleep.

5.Comfort Items

6.Early Bedtime

This tip is also suggested by Zoe and a few other mamas. I got Elise ready for bed around 5+pm that day and she promptly fell asleep on her own by 6pm. No fussing at all and her nightime sleeping hours are back to normal (although I was wishing she could sleep through again lol).

I’ve been trying these tips for the past 2 days and they have all been really useful. I had some mamas messaging me on IG after I posted my question, saying that they are also dealing with overstimulated/ overtired babies post-CNY, so I hope these tips will be useful for you guys too!

P.S. I have some time to do up this blog post because Elise’s lunch time nap is back to it’s 2 hours duration! If you have anymore tips, let me know and I will try to update the list here 🙂