How do you put your 8 months old baby to nap / sleep pls?

[katerose2022]

Our baby boy is turning 8 months. He was relatively easy to put to sleep until a few days ago. We used to just do bedtime routine (sleep bag, milk feed, read a book, lullaby) and pat him to sleep while holding him. It took no more than an hour. But this morning I spent almost two hours trying to get him to do the first nap. He kept pushing me away while I was holding him, but if I put him down in the cot he rolls around all over the place. Despite him yawning and almost dozing off quite a few times. Now he's refusing to go down for the second nap. Blowing raspberry while I held him and currently moving around all over the place in the cot....

Any tips / advice please? He doesn't have teeth yet and is not showing signs of teething (no drooling or excessive fussing). Thanks!

Honestly, I'd try leaving him alone as long as he's not crying a lot. Ours always preferred settling themselves. Will give you a massive break as well. Can't see why it matters he's moving around?

@Rosesanddaisies1 thanks for the reply! I'll have to do that now as I haven't had breakfast or lunch so far today. Will see how long if at all it takes him to settle. Past experience was that it took him much longer to go to sleep than us holding and patting him to sleep. Him rolling around and getting up on his front didn't help.

Worth a try! We've never done rocking or patting, always just left them to it unless crying.

Yea I'd just leave him to it. I always put my kids down and they went off - I never patted/rocked/whatever to sleep.

After almost an hour's rolling around exploring his cot and trying to escape from it, he's finally zoned out. But not sure how practical it is going forward if he always takes an hour to settle down??

Download the Huckleberry app, it gives good indications of nap times etc and you can manually adjust if needed. It's free and worth a try, worked for us

@NewYearNewName2024 thanks yes we've been following their nap schedules and wake window recommendations and it worked well in the past when we could reliably get him to nap and sleep accordingly. These few days however he's taking much longer to be put to sleep. I feel like he is actually tired and sleepy already when I tried to get him to sleep but somehow he struggles to fall asleep

We strap our 7mo into her pram in the cosy toes and push it around the house a bit, always sends her off. She gets too distracted and playful being held or in the cot

We used to hold our DS to sleep but then he started pushing away and wiggling a lot too. We moved to getting him to settle on his own after that and he took to it really well! I saw something online (can't remember where though!) that said the pushing away was a sign that they want to go to sleep independently. No idea if that's accurate but it was for us! Might be worth seeing if he's more ready to settle on his own now and cross your fingers! :)

@LunaBear26 thanks that's really interesting to hear. Our baby went through it previously at about 3-4 months I remember when he could self settle to sleep. But then when he started rolling over it all went nuts if he's left in the cot, and we reverted back to holding and patting him to sleep. Maybe it is time to change again! Tonight his dad patted him for half an hour before giving up and leaving him in the cot, and he fell asleep himself 15mins after that. Will see how it goes!

I've always fed mine to sleep or used motion (car, pram or sling). So not the sort of thing I think you'd want to try! It's normal to have these little blips of resistance now and then. Could be gearing up to drop a nap or just be keen to practise a new skill. I'd try to give it a week before making any big changes.

Sounds like the 8 month sleep regression. Be consistent in your routine and it will probably pass in a week or two