5 month old not settling in cot.

[MuddyWellyNelly]

We are currently on holiday with a 5 hour time difference so sleep is not about to fix any time soon. But it's been rubbish for ages. He was waking many many times at night so we started reducing the times I'd BF to sleep and instead would bounce him in the bouncy chair then transfer to cot. This usually works but some nights he'd be in party night and it would take ages. He had become a lot better at the first part of the night though. And every so often he'd throw in an all nighter. Then we went away for a few days and he slept in the travel cot for the first couple of hours. But after that he'd not settle and I ended up co-sleeping for most of those nights. He slept brilliantly the first night home, crap the second night, then we were away for Christmas. Again he'd do the first stint in his cot but not settle again after the first wake up and was back in with me. He slept a bit better when home again but not great. Now we're abroad and he hasn't slept a second in his cot. We have 10 more nights here and because we don't have work/a schedule, would like to try to work on this a bit. I think my DH is creating more and more sleep props (we dismantled the bouncy chair and took it with us! But also white noise, a blankie etc) but in any case right now he will fall asleep either feeding lying down, in the car, in the pram, or his bouncy chair. Never ever just lying down.

What could we realistically achieve whilst away? Should we start with daytime naps and see if we can get him to take those in his cot? He never does at home so it's not really a travel thing. I don't want to CIO but I think we (DH more than me) picks him up quite quickly. We are generally a bit chaotic and he's no set routine, EBF on demand etc. it's maybe no coincidence that his usually best bit of the night is his first sleep as we do have a bath/story/grobag/feed routine.

Posting on phone so apologies for random post.

[MuddyWellyNelly]

Sorry my post reads like I blame DH. I don't at all, he's spent many a night lying on the floor beside the bouncy chair and it gives him a proper role as he has no boobs. I just mean we don't always agree on the best approach.