Fractious 5 month old having meltdowns.

[CeylonSapphire]

Can anyone offer any help or advice? My dd has recently started to go into meltdown two to three times a day.

She has never really slept during the day, and she needs to - she gets so tired (yawning, rubbing her eyes and nose etc). The only way I've been able to ever get her to sleep during the day is to take her out in her buggy for a 2 hour+ walk.

I've recently tried to put her down into her crib for daytime naps, and she goes crazy. She headbuts me when I hold her, against my chest, she then arches her back away from me, and she throws both arms back to the rear of her head as if there is something bothering her there. And she screams. Sometimes this behaviour has gone on for an hour or more.

She has now started this behaviour without even going close to the crib, sometimes shortly after she has woken up in the morning.

Often, the only way to calm her down is by feeding her (even though she may have only just fed), but even that doesn't always work.

Note: We never seem to have a problem with bedtime - she's always happy to settle in her crib for the night, waking up once or twice during the night.

As you can imagine I am now starting to find this tiring, and very distressing. I would be so grateful if anyone could suggest any reasons for this behaviour, and any remedies!

TIA.

you have my dd!!! Well mine is 9 now but she was exactly as you describe. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that bedtime was 7pm!!
Ime you have purely an awkward demanding challenging dd.
It gets slightly easier but not much, every day is a constant battle over something in my house. Thankfully she is the only 1 like this in my family, other 3 dc are 'normal'

Hi Ceylon

My ds is 25 weeks and up until 18 weeks ish was exactly the same as yours.

What worked for us was following a tip out of the baby whisperer book. For daytime naps we basically swaddled him (even though he would fight it), lay him in his cot and then say 'sshhh...' while patting his bottom so that it sounds like a ticking clock. If he was screaming in his cot we would pick him up and keep shushing and patting him in our arms, and then lay him down when he calms down continuing to shush pat.

After about a week of doing this it got to the stage where we could literally swaddle him, lay him in his cot, say shush and pat his bottom once, and walk out of the room - he'll now settle himself to sleep which is bliss.

The only problem now is trying to get him to sleep if we're out and he's not in his cot, but that's a different story!

I know exactly what you're going through, the overtired screaming fits were horrendous and very draining.

Hope this might work for you x

Thanks for your words of wisdom. I had started the ShushPat - but it only seems to make the situation worse. I end up holding her for 1hr or more trying to stop the tears and crying, and then if I so much as move my hand she starts crying again. Vicious circle.

Will keep perservering, and if anyone else has any bright ideas, let me know!

Mention it to your GP if you're concerned. My DS did this at night and it turned out to be silent reflux. Acid burning his gullet, breastfeeding washed it back down, only for it to come up again burning about an hour later. It wasn't too bad for the first 4 months but after that oesophagus had got really sore and he had to go on meds to sort it out. (Cleared up at 7 mos, BTW, he's fine now). Might not be that but worth checking out if you think she's in pain.

Hi, just wanted to say that you're so right to keep persevering with the day time sleep. I have an almost 5 month old too and she is horrible if she doesn't get her naps. Fortunately mostly she will sleep if I catch her before she gets overtired.
When I was trying to get her sleeps established I did some reading about sleep cues which seem to be the things that help them get into a sleepy frame of mind. We use a dummy, close the curtains, put a muslin over her grobag and put her music box on.
Also is it possible that she's getting a little bit big for her crib? I noticed that my DD slept much better once I moved her to a cot. Before that her hands used to hit the sides of the basket as she was drifting off and she would wake up again.

my dd never slept during the day no matter how much i perservered! She'd nap for 10 mins max!

I feel your pain! My DD is 6 months and daynaps have always been a struggle.

Nights are fine and she pretty much sleeps through now so I try not to worry too much (and thank my lucky stars for that!!!).

I always do the whole routine thing with each day nap (closing curtains, telling her she is having a lovely sleep, singing a little song etc). Sometimes I get a good result other times I just give up. At the moment I'm trying really hard to get her to have a little 'power nap' at around 4 or 5 as she seems to have an hour or so around lunch time. It's a long stretch when she wakes at 2pm and I have to entertain her until 7pm!!!! I've tried for the last four evenings and have failed miserably.

Alot of the literature on baby sleeps suggests that they need anything from 2 to 3.5 hours during the day so I figure as long as you get them to do something your doing pretty well!