6/7 month nap regression?!!

[Emmapuddle]

Anyone else struggling with daytime naps? Really nap resistant and wont go down in cot all of a sudden in day! Tried giving less naps but end up with bedtime overtired meltdowns!

[dickiedoodah]

Just turned 7 months over here and resistant to all sleep!!! Can't work out if he's getting teeth, hungry (not eating much solids at all) or he's about to come down with the cold his brother has. I forgot that this age is worse than having a new born baby!! Also, his party trick the last few nights is to go to bed, sleep for one hour then wake screaming at the top of his lungs.

[Emmapuddle]

Ahhh exactly the same here...just about to turn 7months...barely eating solids...AND...he just woke up after 1hr too! I feel your pain!

Hopefully a developmental phase???!!

[dickiedoodah]

Yep, could be that he's about to start crawling 😖 !! Forgot to add that he is waking at 5.30 and will not go back to sleep despite my best efforts. It feels like I've been dealing with one huge developmental​ phase for the last seven months!

[Emmapuddle]

We have the same child! 5-5.30 every morning nowadays

Ah well...hubby in charge tomorrow so can fight the nap battles! 👍

[Emmapuddle]

Is it getting any better for you? Even bedtime now is a disaster...taking longer and longer to settle with copious screaming I'm wondering if he doesn't have the ability to put himself to sleep we are doomed and this is going to get worse before better

[Emmapuddle]

Thats alot of gin!...i meant to post emoji faces lol.. but in fairness gin would probably help!!!!

[FATEdestiny]

What happens to get him to sleep?

What is his daytime sleep routine like?

[Emmapuddle]

Approx 6.30pm: bath, boob, book, cuddle, dummy, drowsy and put in cot was the normal sequence. Now it's a whole lot of screaming resorting in going out for a pushchair walk or sling walk to sleep 😖

Day naps in cot have also become tougher and he wont go to sleep in cot from awake/drowsy anymore and culminates in screams. Naps are mainly now in sling/pushchair/car or husband can get 1st nap of day by a cuddle sometimes then transferring to cot.

He wakes about 6am...(sometimes earlier) and due to being a short 45min napper...he generally needs 3-4 naps a day (approx 2-2.5hr awake time). Usually wakes 2-3 times in night (cries out) so I breastfeed dreamfeed him and put him back down in cot...sometimes he gets angry and rouses when i take my nipple away so replace with dummy which seems to settle him back to sleep.

I'm hoping he will settle back to getting to sleep and its just a milestone approaching (think he is about to crawl) and a mixture of teething etc... but i am worried that if he doesn't have the skills to put himself to sleep i am going to suffer 😣

[daydream86]

yep yep im in the same boat! DDs been a pretty reliable napper for several months. 3x40-50 minuteish naps a day, goes down at night pretty well and sleeping 7-6.30 several times a week (i know i should be thankful, I really am! it's taken a lot of work!) in fact you could set your watch by her morning nap. but this week not a chance!!! finally got her to sleep using the sling 3 1/2 hours after waking when she was basically exhausted, too knackered to take her bedtime bottle just screamed and rejected bottle and dummy til i managed to calm and rock her to sleep my arms. cranky, screechy and whiny, and i've barely seen her smile for days! she's on the very verge of crawling, and turns 7 months on wednesday.

[FATEdestiny]

Is he rocking on all-fours in the cot? That's the preamble to crawling - it's a time when you need to proactively teach baby that he needs to lie down and be still in order to sleep.

In-cot settling becomes important, going from awake to asleep all in the cot. A firm hand on baby's chest/back helps reassure baby if your presence and also reasserts the need to be still and lie down to go to sleep.

I would also try less awake time in the day, more like 90m-2h. I would keep naps in something that moves (ie pushchair/bouncy chair) until they are less hard-work. Transferring an asleep baby into the cot will create more problems than it solves. Sling naps at this age can be hard to wean off too - you may end up having to embrace baby sleeping in your arms during the day.

[Emmapuddle]

Its funny you should say that as last night he was rocking on all fours in cot...i was watching him on the video monitor!!! I'd better baby proof soon then!!!!

Perhaps that explains alot! I will try to encourage him to stay in cot with a firm hand on his chest and a nice and early bedtime routine in evening (perhaps 1hr45/2hrs after last nap) .......

.... may end in screams....however atm he screams through cuddles or nursing too (?guessing he is overtired at this stage) so better being in cot to scream?!!!

If this fails i will just resort to sling again as always works but as you say..I'm slightly worried he is not learning to sleep by himself doing this...but sling seems kinder than screams!!!... i will keep persisting with cot though in first instance!!...fingers crossed!

[JaxingJump]

I always think it's so unhelpful to talk about regressions! If you must, call it a progression. These things change because baby is hitting a more aware period.

You firstly need to decide if they need as much sleep. If so, then you can either stick at the original reotibe of being in the cot and go through a rough 3 days or so until baby gets the message that is how naps are done. Or you make life easy and find something else that works.

On my first I did the second option and it worked fine. I switched to naps in the buggy. Made the routine that I would hand him a bottle, put down the massive hood (baby jogger, can't recommend it enough) and rolled him round the house a minute to a quiet room where I'd park him in a corner and walk out. If he cried I'd gently walk the buggy a bit more. You get to know sleepy cry pretty fast and know if it's hysterical you might need to take him out and start again but that was rare enough.

My next two babies I just plopped in the cot and left as I had other screaming toddlers to attend to. This actually worked better but I didn't have the confidence or the distraction of other kids needs to do it on my first. Baby might scream like being murdered for 1 minute as I panicked downstairs trying to get back to pick them up but stuck with toddler on the loo for example but then suddenly they would stop and go to sleep. I never actively cried it out as it was unnecessary. They got it pretty quick and now as older toddlers my two youngest go into the cot for naps and bedtime within 1 min, no hassle. This has been the case for years. So first method of dealing with this has long term positives I would say.