6 month old terrible napper.....can I try CC? Long, sorry

[walrusmoustache]

Hi I am looking for help so please be supportive if possible

My DS is now 6 months old and he sleeps well at night, has a good bath, boob, bedtime routine and often (but not always) will go into his cot drowsy but awake and after a few grumbles fall asleep. He'll sleep until about 6.30 - 7.00 with one wake up for food in the night/early morning (I tried dream feeding and it didn't work). If he doesn't settle for the night at 7.00 me or my DH will pick him up and shhs until he is settled.

The problem is naps, since about 2 months old he just will not nap in the day. The longest nap he has ever had in his cot was 2 hours and I have no idea why; I did everything exactly the same as I always do for naps. The next day he got no nap sleep at all

He used to nap really well in his pram or car seat so I would time journeys and walks to make sure he napped. Now he won't even sleep in the pram or car seat and if he does it's a short nap which he comes out of really sleepy. Now he won't even nap in the sling, which used to be guaranteed.

We have a naptime routine with wind down time about 1 hour 45 minutes after he's been up then taking him up when he's been awake for about 2 hours. Change nappy, sing lullaby, pull blackout blind and cuddles. Then shhs in our arms. Sometimes he will get dozy in our arms and we can put him into cot. Sometimes I need to feed him to get him dozy. No matter what we do he will wake up after only a few minutes sleep usually about 20 minutes (today he slept for about 5 minutes then woke up).

We're always on the lookout for sleepy signs and can see his yawns, eye rubs, grizzles so we know he's tired and needs a nap.

If he was fine and happy after only 20 minutes I would learn to live with it but he's not!! He just gets more and more tired as the day goes on and is cranky and miserable. The day he had the 2 hour nap he was the happiest most smily baby ever.

So....we need to help him nap and learn how to sleep properly and settle himself. Is CC suitable for naptimes? If so, how long do you do it for before giving up on that nap? If the baby cries for 1 hour do you give up and try it the next naptime or do you keep going and going (what if he doesn't fall asleep???)?

I'm sorry this is so long but I want to help him get the sleep he needs.

Personally I wouldn't use CC ever as i don't agree with it. If I did try it though I wouldn't let baby cry for an hour
DD2 was a terrible napper and at 6 months she decided she didn't want to nap. She had a habit of nodding off but then waking after 10 mins and refusing to go back to sleep thinking she had had an hour. Luckily she would almost always sleep in the car so we went fop loads of drives.

She did get over it and eventually settled to a nap a day so maybe some perseverance and try altering his routine, he can maybe go longer than 2 hours between naps now
Could you feed to sleep for naps. i do that with dd3 if we can't get out, she gets a nap still

Mmm, I have a six month old DD and her naptime routine is different to her go-to-bed one. I didn't want her to confuse day and night so made it different eg no blackouts. Thing is, maybe your DS knows that it's not bedtime and is wondering why you're making it look like it is and is resisting it?

Also I've noticed recently that with my DD, 2 hours is now too short a time for her to be up and it's more like 2.25 / 2.5 before she needs to sleep.

DD is 6mo and exactly the same. She just will not nap at all in the day. The only way I can get her to nap is by feeding her lying on our bed and then very quietly and carefully rolling away when she's asleep. This was great until she could roll. Now it's a total no go so we're stuck with cranky baby cranky mummy. I disagree with CC and I'm far too soft anyway so any tips and ideas for OP would be great for me too!

I think previous poster is right about extending awake time slightly in the morning before putting him down. I seem to remember DD getting up about 7ish and going back to sleep about 9.30 for a bit. She had one morning nap and one longer nap after lunch

With us if took DD until about 6 months to stop sleeping in 45 min cycles. I used to put her to bed, then when she woke up, take her into my bed in the day. In the end she just ended up sleeping longer.

Our blackout blinds also really helped and I'm sure he's got the hang of night and day so shouldn't really confuse him.

I'd try waiting a bit longer, feeding to sleep and putting down in a really dark room. Best of luck.