Contact napping 5 month old

[SillyHazelSwan]

Hi,
I have a 5 month old and need some advice for nap time. She is moving into her own room in a couple of weeks as she has always slept through the night from being 2 month old but nap times are terrible. She will only contact nap or fall asleep on the bottle. We have never had set nap times as she wakes up at different times on a morning. She has between 1.5 hour to 3 hour wake window depending on when she’s tired. Had any got any advice on how to get her to nap in the crib. I have tried rocking her to sleep then putting her down after 10mins tried feeding her to sleep she just wakes up as soon as I put her down. I have tried leaving her as she is able to self settle on a night time but she just won’t sleep independently during the day. She also cries every time it’s we get her to sleep for a nap but fine on a night time.
Any advice would be helpful thankyou.

You’re not alone. Never managed it with either of mine, especially at that age.
Can you put her in a sling? Could you put her in the pram (near nap time), walk her round the block and then bring the pram in the house?
Maybe just give in to the contact napping for a bit longer. Both mine did grow out of it. I know it can be a bit frustrating.

Yes she doesn’t sleep in a sling or the pram as she is way to observant she just wants to watch everything. I don’t mind the contact napping but it’s just a struggle to get anything done and we can’t go out for any longer then 2 hours as she’ll just cry either due to being overtired or because she cry’s every time she naps either way.

My son is the same. Sleeps well in his cot at night but absolutely won’t be put down to sleep during the day. He’s 9 months old now and has been this way since about 4 months. I’ve just accepted the contact naps now as they’re easier than having a battle to put him down every nap time.

My daughter switched at 5 months from screaming in the pram to only doing a good nap in the pram and I had to do 2-3h walks every afternoon.
At 4 months I realised that my daughter had irregular awake windows. She generally did 3h in the morning then 1.5h between nap 1 and 2. At 5 months this switched into one longer nap. Then she had a 2-3h window until a short nap in the early evening and then went to bed at 9.

You might find that the irregular time between naps starts to solidify from day to day so there's a predictable time for you to do stuff. For us the best time for getting out and about was the morning.

I'd try to put her in cot and sit next to her gently patting or rubbing tummy. It generally takes around a week if your consistent to be able to just sit near and then gradually start moving away a bit more every few days.