if you had an unputdownable baby, when did they become putdownable?

[tealover1985]

Nearly four month old. Sleeps well at night, mostly self settles at bedtime and goes straight back to sleep at night feeds. Naps on the other hand are not going so well. He fights sleep and i think is overtired a lot. He will sleep in my arms, in the pram (as long as it is .moving) or the car. Wakes after 5-10 minutes if i try to transfer him to cot or bouncy chair.

I don't mind holding him for naps but he is getting heavy! And I'm worried about when i have to go back to work.

Is this something they tend to grow out of or should i be trying harder with sleep training do you think?

DS was exactly the same: fine in cot at night but refused point blank during the day: arms, pram, car fine but wouldn't transfer to cot. I accepted it, kept trying occasionally, and on the dot of six months he decided he was perfectly happy to be fed to sleep for naps and then transferred, where he'd sleep for 1-2 hours. By nine months, he dropped the feeding to sleep and now self-settles for naps in the cot. No sleep training involved, I just kept trying now and then to see if it would work.

Thanks thats good to know, hopefully this will happen here. He just never seems to sleep deeply enough in the day to be able to transfer without waking.

My DS sounds very similar. The whole napping on me thing was very cute to begin with but he's 22 weeks now and I just sit here looking at jobs that need doing! He sleeps well at night and in his buggy but if I try to put him down to nap in his cot it end in lots and lots of tears-even if I put him down really asleep. I don't really have the stomach for sleep training so I'll end up doing what pp says and just keep trying him every few days to see if he magically gets better.

No real answer; I just used the sling a lot. There is a golden period when you can sit them on the floor with toys - but then the clingyness starts...

Your baby sounds exactly the same as my 6 month old. In the last month he has become a lot better at napping (still rarely more than an hour) I found chucking a muslin over his head helped him go to sleep as it removed his senses. He still doesn't always go in his cot but I sometimes put him in a bouncy chair, dummy in, muslin over face and bounce for a couple of minutes and he goes off.
Bringing a sort of routine in helped a bit. I try to do eat Activity sleep. I alway play with him a bit before he goes for nap and look for tired signs

DS sounds very similar. I used the sling or car for every nap, and he really needed them despite fighting sleep so I just did what worked at the time. He generally wanted to be carried everywhere and didn't like being on his playmat, for example. I think it changed at around 24 weeks. Now he's 8 months and naps well in his cot. Initially it took a lot of soothing but now I can get him down in a few minutes, so don't despair, it will happen.

My DD was exactly the same including the being amazing at night and very challenging in the day.

I was able to get her in her cot for naps from about 7 months through a combination of Radio 4, feeding to sleep and using her car seat in place of the cot to just get her in the room to begin with.

Interestingly she was fine when she started nursery at 11 months. They all tend to copy each other at nursery in relation to sleeping and eating.

At 2.5 she is still always on the look out for a cuddle but it's nice now it isn't constant!

I don't know if this helps..... 11 week old DS is so different and happy to be put down. I spent a long time with DD thinking I was doing something wrong. DS has taught me that it was just her personality.

Yeah this is my first so i didn't know if it was something i have done wrong. Everything i was told when he was born said you can't spoil a newborn and don't worry about a rod for your back etc so whenever he wanted to be held i just held him but now i have a baby that won't be put down i was thinking maybe i should have been stricter when he was tiny but i guess all babies are different and i just have a high maintenance one!

Im just trying to remember there was a time when i thought he would never go to sleep in the evenings and now he does so everything can change so quickly.

4.5 months it got better. We did start putting dc in cot in day and baby would cry and I would return every 5 minutes. (Usually took about 15 minutes before settled on own). Now naps like a dream. I look back in horror at the horrible time of never being able to put the babydown to nap and people asking why I didn't just sleep when dcslept. (Baby would also scream if I moved an inch so once had to sit on a chair for 4 hours straight without twitching).

It will get better!

I co-slept with my baby and she always wanted to sleep on me and be held. At about 5 months she got a lot better then she suddenly got very clingy and had stranger anxiety in public. Now roll onto 9 months old my dd is very independent loves spending time with everyone else and not so bothered about me. I am glad I got my cuddles in when I did. Dd sleeps well by herself and it's been nice to get the evenings back.

Ds was the same, he got better around 10 months when he started moving. He's now a really happy 16month old boy who sleeps up to 3 hours a day and a full nights sleep without a fuss.

About 12mo.