5 month old won’t nap indoors

[Plantymum]

chababy hates to nap indoors

I’m a first time mum, and sorry if this is a dumb question but how on earth do you get a baby to nap indoors? Until she was 3 months old she used to nap well In her cot, or stretchy wrap indoors, or feed to sleep on me. She’s 5 months now and getting her calm enough to take an indoor nap has become a disaster.

I watch her wake windows and pay attention to her sleepy queues, 30mins before she’s due a nap I scoop her up and start rocking her calmly and walking slowly from room to room. (If you take her to her room to do a calm down routine she now starts screaming immediately) but what often happens is she gets calm, her little eyes start to get heavy, then she starts getting more and more upset until she’s screaming the house down.

It’s like she needs the noise of being outside to drift off?

Is this something they grow out of? Sorry, I feel like this is such a dumb question.

Babies change from month to month. What is normal for her now may not be normal in a few weeks.

I have 4 children. They all went through different phases. Mostly they would only nap if they fell asleep while in the car seat or buggy - or if i lay down with them until they drifted off.

I never tried to get them to have naps - especially with the younger ones. If i had to collect the older ones from school etc, the younger ones were tired, would just try to have a nap in the way etc.

Thinking back im pretty sure at least one of mine had to be taken out in the pushchair for naps. Once they had nodded off we laid it flat and bought them back into the house or if it was nice left them outside the back door in the fresh air.

I put chillout music on and rock to sleep in buggy in the living room. After the stress of trying to get my first to nap in a cot I really couldn't be bothered this time. If we go out he might sleep in car seat a while. If he's super upset i'll take the time hit and feed him to sleep on sofa.

You can look up background noise videos on youtube, like traffic sounds or cafe sounds. Maybe one of those on in the background would help?

Ok thank you! It’s reassuring to know that it’s normal, I know logically that at some point she will love her cosy bed. At the moment it suits our lifestyle as we love being out and about, just worried about instilling bad habits

My DS would only sleep with white noise playing. Have you tried that?

Yes! I have white noise playing while she sleeps, and have tried turning it up during the day to help her relax…. With some success?? I guess it’s just her age, something will work twice and then never work again lol

I had the same issue. Dedicated 5 days to stay in all day (like yourself I love being outdoors so it was a bit of a struggle!) I recreated night time with blinds shut, rain sounds on, put into sleeping bag, say goodnight to lamp and turn off, sang songs and put down. I still have to shhh him to sleep but he settles way quicker now and can nap at anyone's house as long as I recreate bedtime!

Apparently I only napped outside when I was a baby. There’s a photo of me asleep outside in my pram with snow on the ground! It’s quite normal for some babies.