Tips on how to get baby to nap?

[Gigi89x]

Baby is now 5 months and naps have become a challenge, unless in the car or pram. I have to hold him till he falls asleep with shushing and rocking.

For context baby goes down for bed around 9pm and wakes between 6:30-7am usually

He normally has 3-4 30 min naps a day

Naps have become a battle and takes me ages to get him to nap as he refuses to sleep, i often try to get him to nap around 2-2.5 hours after the previous sleep.

Am i doing anything wrong? Should i be getting him to Self settle? As this is impossible at the moment he just cries and i have to hold him to sleep and then lay him down.

Any tips appreciated x

A bit of a battle is not unusual at 5 months. If settling in cot is not working but motion is.... then motion it is for now!

My priority at this age was getting the routine nailed down so they got used to be tired at the same time and sod how it was achieved! I also started encouraging longer naps. With my boys, this could be achieved either by taking them in the pram and not stopping until they'd passed first sleep transition, or by feeding them back to sleep in bed (cots on the side of my bed). Didn't work with my eldest though... she didn't do more than 30 minutes until she was 13 months old, but you don't know till you try!

Most babies aren't good at self settling at this age. I've got to admit - I've not sleep trained any of my 3, it's just not my style as I don't like crying at what I feel should be calm times. You could of course try sleep training if self-settling is something you are keen on while they are still a baby rather than a toddler. Lots of books/websites to give advice on that. It's not essential though, only do it if it feels right to you - I worried a bit because some websites made me feel that if I didn't sleep train to get them self-settling in their cot then they'd never sleep through/have a long nap. Mad really that I believed that, but as a first time mum I worried about lots of things!

No words of advice, my 5 month old will only nap when I’m holding her and walking round the house. Have tried pram, car etc. I’m at my wits end, back is killing.

@TinyTeacher @Ifonlyiknewwhat its very hard, where are the sleepy newborn days gone!

What time were you guys putting your babies to bed at this age and what time were they waking in the morning?

My eldest j always had an 8pm bedtime. She's 6 now and we've shifted to 8.15, but that just ALWAYS seemed the right time for her. Bugger all luck ever shifting it deliberately!!! She was very rigid about her napping times too, she's always had a very precise internal body clock. She woke a lot at night but wasn't actually "up" until 7ish (which is still the case).

My boys were normally down a little after 7pm at this age, but normally woke at around 6-6.30. But again, pretty broken nights at this age. They were still having bottles at night, which I abjectly hated - much prefer a sleepy breast feed!

All 3 of mine woke regularly at night until 2, but only for very short periods (unless ill) so I was ok with that. My boys took a dummy and I didn't used to really wake up to stick it back in, never could tell you in the morning how many times they'd been up! I realise some are much harder to resettle.

I put her down at 7 and she wakes for one night feed and then wakes around 5:45! I forgot how much I disliked this stage haha 🤣

Embrace the pram. Even with my 2YO we still usually push it back and forth a few times on the patio, park it up then get on with whatever in the kitchen where we can keep an eye. It’s great because never any worry about being out all day, or in the evening, because they sleep in the pram.

At 5 months mine did 7-7 overnight: typically with a quick 3am dummy replace for the youngest (could replace himself at 6 months) and a 10pm dreamfeed for the eldest (dropped at 6.5 months once she was having solids for dinner).

I started writing this as I'm on a long car journey and now I realise it's mammoth! But I have a nearly 1 year old who naps beautifully after having a 5mo with no nap schedule at all so wanted to hand on some assurance that it can be sorted.

I gently trained mine at 5.5 months as I was getting stuck in contact nap / feed to sleep hell. We went on holiday in January which really helped as we could nail down the routine! I was a bit worried that I'd find it hard to replicate once partner was back at work but it was actually fine. Repetition, routine and attention to sleep cues are key. You just need to be prepared for some false starts and repeated attempts for a bit.

1. start by using Huckleberry to record wake windows and naps and start to get a sense of how long baby is awake for and whether they've got any particular habits. That way you can start to slowly wind them down before the nap rather than dropping everything when you realise they're tired.
2. make the nap room nice and dark, or darker than it normally is - blinds / curtains closed, lights off.
3. if you have a particular song or set of white noise they associate with sleep, put that on. We use Spotify - Sleepy Baby Suite by Wayne Gratz on the Google speaker.
4. put them in their sleeping bag prior to starting nap.
5. we started off by doing vigorous rocking from side to side until she fell asleep on the shoulder, and then put her down. I'd look at my watch and think 'right it's 3:22, I'll keep going until 3.30'. At first it seemed to take ages but then I realised she was falling asleep within 10 mins.
6. put them down! We started to put her on her front and it made a world of difference. There were a lot of false starts at first - we'd put her down and she'd wake up and cry. If so - just start again. We didn't really leave her to cry ever. If we put her down and she stayed asleep but woke up grumbling rather than crying we'd wait outside the door, but any actual crying we'd go straight in, pick her up and start again. She only managed shorter naps at first, 30-40 mins or so, but after a while they start to connect sleep cycles and sleep longer. This is just a developmental thing and will change over time.
7. after a while I noticed that when I tried to rock her she'd start wailing and pushing against me. She was actually wanting to be put down in her bed and not be rocked anymore! That's when I started the patting phase
8. have a stool or chair next to cot. Sit and rhythmically and firmly pat their bottom or chest. I would put her down and she'd always cry, but then when I started patting she'd eventually stop crying and make a sort of groaning noise, which means she's falling asleep. I'd keep patting more slowly until she was quiet and then would keep my hand on her bottom for a bit until I hear her snoring! After a while the patting phase shrank and I'd just need to pop her down, do a few pats and then leave the room! She learnt to fall asleep herself after that as she knew from the routine and the cues that it was time to go to sleep.

The only thing about the above is that she now finds it hard to sleep when out and about. She stopped sleeping in the sling for me at about 5 months, hence why I needed to start sorting her naps at home, but she finds it harder to sleep in the pram (though we've had a whole day out and she's done two pram naps totalling 90 mins so it can be done!). She still sleeps in the car though!

She now sleeps brilliantly in the day and has only just started nap refusing because she's learning to walk. It took about 3 weeks for it to really bed in I think, but I just kept going and going until we got there. We transitioned from 4 to 3 and then 3 to 2 naps fairly quickly, which I think is normal. She now does about 2-2.5 hours in two naps at home per day on her own and I get so much done!

However she is off to nursery next month so they will muck it all up I'm sure