5 month old taking several hours to settle at night

[HJBeans]

Happy new year, all. I'm looking for advice on managing bedtime for my 5 month old. As with so many of these posts, he was a good sleeper until nearly 4 months than began waking very frequently at night. His night waking now a wee bit reduced but he has started fighting going to sleep for anything from 2 to over 4 hours each night.

He naps happily in a bouncer during the day and settles after feeds at night by himself. But the first nighttime settling is a nightmare and my DH and I are really struggling with the masses of time spent actively trying to help him go to sleep.

Our nighttime routine is bath around 6pm, into the grobag, breastfeed, into cot asleep or awake. While he'll make lots of sleepy cues and cry and fuss if he stays up, the act of putting in the cot starts a cycle of increasing fussiness, crying, screaming, calming and repeat.

CIO is not an option for me - can anyone suggest any other strategies or tell us things to avoid doing?

Hi Beans

As you're aware, lots of families find this age hard - I'll tell you what I did, though you prob won't like it - we took up co-sleeping. Result = everyone gets good sleep.
I remember around developmental leaps - rolling over, sitting, crawling and esp walking, that getting to sleep was nightmarish - I just gritted my teeth and dealt with hourly evening wakings till the chores were done then went to bed in the knowledge we would all sleep well. Each episode seemed hellish but they pass.
I think it doesn't matter what you do provided it works for you and yours and you are happy with your choice.
Sorry if not a practical answer for you but didn't want to leave you answered. Now, are you any good on 3 year olds!!

How much sleep (and when) is he getting in the day?

Thanks so much, catdoctor, for your lovely reassuring post. Feel much calmer just reading it - though this could also be due to my LO currently having slept a full ten minutes with only an hour's settling time! I know these things pass but it's so helpful to be reminded as they feel endless when you're in them.

I think I'd be happy enough to co-sleep if that would help him, but he doesn't seem to settle any better near me (unless I'm sitting up holding him following a long feed). It's like he's far too wired to turn off regardless of what we do or don't do. Which is understandable given how much more he's tuned in to what's going on in the world in the last few weeks.

lilyaldrin, he gets between three and four hours of daytime sleep on average, I'd say, though naps have been shorter since this started. After waking at 7, he's down for an hour or so in the morning, then usually another hour or so just after lunch and another hour mid-afternoon. He sometimes gets a short catnap just after 5 as well. Nothing is scheduled as he's with us some days and in nursery some others, but he pretty reliably needs a nap within two hours of waking.

Ps - no good with three year olds, I'm afraid- as you might have guessed I'm a newbie at this! Thanks again.

One thought is that a late catnap after 5pm may now, at 5 months, be knocking the edge off his tiredness at bedtime.

Hi HJbeans, my DS is also 5 months and I'm totally with you on this one. He wasn't what I had ever considered to be a good sleeper but up until 4 months he had been doing 6-8 hours ...occasionally doing up to 10 hours then a feed then back to sleep. Compared to what he does now I LONG for those days to be back!

Since the 4 month sleep regression started we've been through many different sleeping patterns plus different methods of settling to sleep. DS seems to change his mind on what he wants every week.

I was managing to get him to sleep lying beside me with his dummy in for a while. This changed to us running about jiggling him, then that stopped working. Then he went back to feeding to sleep again. Now he alternates between feed to sleep or if I want him to sleep quickly when he's fighting it I put him in the baby bjorn carrier and walk about for a bit and that puts him out without fail.

My plan is that right now ill do anything I can to help him get to sleep as I think there must be a lot of developmental leaps at this age. I'm not too concerned about habits and him relying on certain methods to sleep because he's changing all the time. And like your ds he can settle himself back to sleep during the night.

I have read a lot of sleep websites and sleep training books but in the end I'm always too tired and I will end up doing what's easiest. I'm not sure sleep training would work on ds the way he is now anyway.

So I maybe haven't said much that helps but I hope you feel better knowing you're not the only one going through this!

Hi both and thanks so much for your posts.

loveis - thanks for the suggestion. We've tried both allowing and not allowing the catnap and it doesn't seem to effect whether he settles or not - if anything he's a bit more fractious without the catnap as he tends to get overtired really quickly if he's had more than two hours awake time. (He'll start getting cranky after as little as 1hour 15min - which I hope is usual for this age?)

blake - yeah, it does help to know others are going through it and making pretty much the same choices we are. We too have read loads of stuff trying to work out what's best to do but most often just do whatever seems to work best on the night.