5 month old wont sleep during the day..

[babyboysmum]

I have a DS who is nearly 5 months old.

He sleeps quite well at night I think - normally 7pm to 8am with a quick feed about 5ish.

But I really struggle to get him to sleep during the day. I have been working on his morning sleep and now most days I can get him to go down in his cot in the morning but he rarely sleeps longer than 30-40 mins. Sometimes, like today, he wont go down at all in his cot - I ended up feeding him to sleep on my bed where he slept for about 30 mins.

Other than that I am lucky if he has another 30 mins in the afternoon, and then only if he is out in the car/pushchair or if he falls to sleep while I feed him.

Understandbly he is pretty tired and grouchy from about 5pm onwards because of this and cannot really stay awake past 7pm but other than that, he doesn't seem to be suffering any other ill effects from his lack of sleep during the day, however everything I read says he should be having about 3 hours of naps a day which at the moment seems like a pipe dream.

In total he has about 14 hours sleep in 24 -13 at night and then an hour a day. I suppose what I'm asking is if is this sufficient or whether there is likely to be any long term effects of his lack of sleep during the day?

Many thanks in advance

[Louby3000]

My boy did the same, was only doing a 20-40min cat nap in the morning and then the same again in the late afternoon.
What worked for me was, I would put him down when he got sleepy in the morning, when he started to come to, i would race up and feed him back to sleep so he would have two 30-40 minute naps back to back, and slowly i began not to feed him, but put some white noise on (hair dryer, radio) and give him a bit of a rub on his tummy. It took a couple of weeks but now he takes a 2 hour nap in the morning and then the same again in the late afternoon. You just need to get him used to having that longer nap. Feeding back to sleep was a short term fix that helped us on our way.
I hope that helps.
Also, it sounds like your baby is doing fine and although a bigger nap might erradicate the grumps later in the day, i have not heard that there are any ill effects developmentally.

[babyboysmum]

Thanks very much Louby - I will definately give that a go.

To be honest I've never worried too much about his naps - I'm just grateful for how good he is at night. But whenever I've mentioned to anyone in RL and on here about his sleep during the day, I always get told he should be sleeping far more so I'm wondering if I am actually doing him a disservice by not pushing his naps more....

I'm also a little worried that if I push him to sleep in his cot during the day that it might somehow have a negative effect on the nights, ie if he screams in his cot when I try and put him down durung the day, he may be more negative about going to bed at 7pm.

[Louby3000]

Some good advice my sis in law gave me was that with any new thing you try, give it a week, and if it is not working then let it go. A week is a good amount of time I feel to give something a proper go, to see if it suits you. Also, dont worry what your baby does in relation with other babies, you know what works best, so trust that. Good luck