5 month old sleep issues

[LittleMissLottie]

DD (5 months) has always been a nightmare to get to sleep both in the day and at night. She won't sleep anywhere in the day except on me after a lot of rocking etc. The saving grace has been that once she is asleep for the night in her cot, she generally stays there till 6.30 or 7am, save for a quick feed or two during the night.

However, the last few nights she has woken up screaming when we put her in the cot for bed - she normally does this three or four times during the evening and we can settle her back down but not any more!!

We follow the same routine of bath, boob and bed that we've been doing for a little while but once we lower her into bed all hell breaks loose. We've tried putting her to bed both asleep and drowsy/awake - same result. She was up about 7 times crying last night before 2am when I finally took her into our bed where she settled fine.

She doesn't seem to be teething or in pain, we gave gripe water in case it was wind but that didn't seem to help. She'll sometimes take a dummy but not very often. Her last set of jabs were last week so maybe this has something to do with it? I have put my pillowcase and tshirt in her cot so it smells familiar.

Do I continue to co-sleep (don't really want to as I can't sleep properly when she is in the bed with us) or has anyone any other ideas?

Am exhausted and getting rather despondent to say the least!

[cookiebookie]

Oh you poor thing. If she likes being rocked, can you rock her to sleep in her pushchair? We do this with our DS (same age as yours). And it's less intensive than rocking in arms plus you don't need to transfer as they can sleep where the fell asleep for a few hours.
Does she sleep if you take her out in puschair/sling? I am currently preparing DS to move into his cot, he currently falls asleep in his pushchair then co sleeps from midnight, and I am trying to get him playing in his cot at least 3 times a day to create positive associations with it. The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley has lots of tips worth trying, but you might want to read Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber as well. Those two books are pretty much polar opposites in how to deal with your situation but in my opinion they are both worth a read. The latter probably not very poplar with most MNers but you learn alot about sleep cycles and sleep associations, even if you don't want to do CC. Also Sears writes about 'wearing a baby down' in a sling for the evening before s/he goes to bed. I have started doing this before naps and it has also mae a difference. Normaly DS goes 2 hours between naps, but if I put him in sling for an hour as I get on with jobs, he can stay awake for another half hour and gets really heavily drowsy instead of crotchety and fussy which makes it uch easier to put him down.

[cookiebookie]

Much, not uch!

[LittleMissLottie]

I've seen those books before so will get hold of a copy and give them a go. Health visitor says 'be firm and consistent' - easy to say but difficult to put into practise when you are being deafened by screams! Rocking to sleep in pushchair - fraid not, usually I take her out in the pushchair when it is time for a nap, hoping to send her to sleep, this pretty much always results in us coming home 10 mins later with her wailing in the pram ... she plays in her cot quite happily throughout the day, just doesn't want to sleep in it.

Will give her another few days in case she is feeling under the weather due to jabs, otherwise I shall be back on MN asking for help with gentle non CC sleep training methods!!