5 month old napping issues

[CK22x2]

Hi all, I’m a first time mom and massively spiralling about naps. My daughter will be 5mo next week and we are definitely still in a bit of a sleep regression. She wakes at 7.30 and I try to get her to nap every 2 hours but it’s an absolute nightmare, she is fighting every nap and won’t sleep longer than 30 mins and is averaging 2 hours a day. We only contact nap at the moment. She goes to bed around 7.30/8 with bed time routine starting around 7-7.15. The last couple of weeks she will wake at 9(not always), 11, 1 and 4. She feeds and quickly goes back to sleep. Is she getting enough sleep? Could she just be low sleep needs? Before 4 months she was only waking once or twice so hoping we go back to this soon. Thank you and sorry for the long message!

Ftm here also and the DD is 6monthes old.
We stayed away from timings and just kind of focused on *sleep pressure" if she's been awake for 2 hours but not done alot of movement or had her brain doing loads of thinning we just found that she wasn't tired enough for a nap, even if on paper she needed one.
We are also in the realm of the contact nap or nothing else, but we find that if we let her play with some toys, wiggle for a good time on her playmat and get a bunch of stimulation it actually wears her out a bit for a higher quality nap.
We don't do a bedtime routine either though, if she's just up playing at 11pm because she's awake and vibing then so be it. Naps for us can be so variable day by day, but notice that the days that she has the least sleep are the days she's been least active and stimulated.
Best of luck!

Why are you trying to get her to sleep every 2h? It sounds like she’s not tired yet and so there’s no point trying. Why don’t you wait until the baby is actually tired? These schedules they give online are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Your baby doesn’t know she’s meant to live on a schedule! Every baby is different.

Also 30 min naps are absolutely normal. There’s no need to have longer naps if the baby is happy. Follow their lead!

A nap every two hours seems very normal to me at that age, to be honest. It sounds like you’re experiencing what some people call the four month sleep regression, which is when developmentally babies’ sleep changes and they start having the cycles. This happened to us, and one of the consequences was a major increase in overnight wakings. Another was that contact naps became much shorter because baby couldn’t make it past one little short sleep cycle. For my family, the right move was to let baby fuss a bit in the crib to learn how to connect sleep cycles and transition from all contact naps to naps in the crib. But everyone is different and that might not be the right thing for you! Within a couple of days, overnight sleep was solved. Naps took longer to become like clock work but usually got there in a few weeks.

good luck whatever you do!

Thank you! Yes I think this is where I need to move towards, I can definitely tell when she’s ready for a nap, even if she sometimes fights it! but the bigger problem is when I try and get her to nap when she’s just not ready.

Because as a first time parent you follow the guidance and if all the guidance says every 2 hours max otherwise it will impact your night, then you try and do that. And when that doesn’t work you start to think you’re doing something wrong, which is why I asked on here to get the opinions of other moms not just specialists or what you see on social media.

Thank you! I tried a crib nap yesterday which was a failure but going to try again today and the next few days. I think she could probably go longer when not distracted by my body movement etc at the end of a cycle. Hopefully if I persevere we will get there.

All babies are different, they have different sleep needs, different patterns, some wake at night more than others, and it changes all the time as they grow and change. The first 1-2 years you need to expect a lot of change and up and downs. That’s very normal waking for a 5 month old and not much you can do except go with it at that age, as they get older you may be able to tweak more depending on your child.

Most of the ‘guidance’ you’ll see is based on very poor or misread data or a mythical ‘average ‘ baby. Short cat naps are very normal for babies between about 3-9/12 months, the idea they should be having long naps isn’t evidence based. Your best bet is to learn your baby’s sleep cues and patterns and go with them, but hold them lightly because they will change as they grow.

It doesn’t go back to before 4 months. It’s regression then teething then regression. I have a 22 month old and I’m wishing she would sleep through the night like she did at 8 weeks.

Thank you! I think I just needed to hear it from other parents as all the stuff online had got into my head. Feeling better now and going to just go with what my baby needs rather than worry about what I think should happen.

When I had my first DC the most useful piece of advice I got was babies haven’t read the book. They don’t know they’re supposed to nap every 2 hours, or feed a certain amount. Go by what your baby wants, if she is fighting bad every 2 hours then that’s probably not her schedule. Mine never followed textbook either, I gave them naps when they were ready for one and mainly contact napped until they were older as they didn’t want to nap in the crib, and that was fine as they were little. It didn’t last forever.

Also yes, a return to pre 4 months is unlikely though may happen. 12 weeks is often the pinnacle of sleep in the first year, then growth spurts and development often make for a bumpy ride. This is worth a read

https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/

There will of course always be babies who just sleep through from the get go with little change, or who respond really well to routines due to their temperament, but they’re the exception not the rule.

Hi all, an update and another query from me really 😳 last two days we have used the possums approach, so ignored wake windows and just gone with her tired queues. It’s the least amount of nap she’s had but I haven’t felt as stressed in the day. However we’ve had two awful nights. She will sleep in her next to me from 8-10.30 and then will not go back down afterwards. She will fall asleep in my arms and then scream on transfer, so have ended up co sleeping both nights. Although this is fine for the short term, it’s not something I want to do really.
Did any of you experience this with the sudden upset in their own sleep space? Will it pass?