Please help me put DS down in cot for naps

[Eminybob]

I've posted before about DS (5 months) only sleeping one during the day (at night he's fine) but I'm getting desperate and really need some help now.

I started last week putting him down after he had fallen asleep feeding, with varied success, about 50% of the time he would wake up, I would then pick him up, rock him and try again. As the week has progressed it has gotten harder and harder to the point today where it just isn't happening at all.

I am desperate, I need to be able to get stuff done/have a rest in those naps but I can't because the only way he'll sleep is on me (or in car/pram if we are out).

I've tried leaving him to self settle but he won't. I know he's knackered but just will not sleep. Although I'm happy to feed/rock him to sleep, I just can't then put him in the cot! I would prefer him to be able to be able to self settle but I'm not prepared to let him cry it out etc. I need some help!

Please can I have your best advice for getting baby to nap in the cot. Thanks.

[RoganJosh]

I don't really agree with the 'being ready for solids' affecting sleep. Milk is more filling than a bit of roast/mashed carrot.

It's oitdated to mash a rusk into milk. Bits of solid in a bottle are a chokong risk. Plus most rusks have added sugar which I wouldn't want to give a five month old. Also they are wheat based. If you were to wean early I wouldn't be starting with wheat.
Back to the original question, I didn't try getting mine in the cot every time, but just every week or two to see if it worked.
He will get there, probably fairly soon. In the meantime perhaps you need to go to bed mega early and give up the idea of daytime naps. There is nothing worse than hoping for a nap and not getting one!

[Eminybob]

DS is ebf so rusk in milk and bottle in pram ideas cant work unfortunately.

When I put him down for the night earlier he was looking at me smiling as I kissed him goodnight and turned off the light. Then about 2 mins later he was fast asleep. HOW CAN HE DO THIS AT NIGHT BUT NOT IN THE DAY?!?! I just don't get it! I try and recreate night time, close the curtains and put him in the grow bag but he's just not having any of it. Short of bathing him before each nap I can't do much more!

[waitingforwombat]

My DD (now 16 months) was exactly the same. I tried everything - taking her to bed with me, going on long walks, slings. She eventually "got it", and slept in her pram, being rocked, with white noise on (kitchen extractor on loud) at around 10 months. I just tried every few weeks. She didn't sleep for more than 45 minutes during the day until around 1 year (even if I was driving/constantly rocking pram/cuddling her the entire time). She now sometimes sleeps for around 75 minutes at lunchtime, and has never slept for more than 90 minutes during the day in her life!

It was infuriating - I had lots of friends with babies who slept for several hours during the day, and I was always comparing how much I could get done in a day to them, and drove myself crazy with trying everything. In retrospect I wish I had just accepted it, and allowed her to cat nap and realise I'm not going to get anything done - I think the ONLY thing that "fixed" it was time. I was knackered and frazzled and desperate to find the "cure", and feeling like I was doing something wrong - it wasn't, it was just how she was!

I know the fear about nursery - I was really worried about her having to sleep in a cot too, and actually they still put her in a pushchair and rock her to sleep. There are several babies who sleep in bouncy chairs. (Although when we started and I said she only slept for 45 minutes both days they clearly thought that I was bonkers - it was only after she had been there for several months that they also admitted defeat and if she sleeps for an hour her keyworker makes a special note of it in her diary with stars around it!)

[Redling]

My DS has decided at 17 weeks to only want to sleep on me again. I just slide out from underneath him and gently place him on the sofa. I don't leave him though as he's not far off rolling, but I do get to move my limbs! I also have far more success putting him in a swing chair to sleep. For an hour or so it's fine as it reclines back. He's still young and naps loads so I don't want to be up and down, in and out of cot all day, when he settles to two sleeps in the day I'll tackle that one!

[123upthere]

Umm

I never said put a rusk into bottle!

Fgs - it's a rusk in a dish mixed with breast or formula milk and fed by a spoon 3 mouthfuls at most to start - my paediatric doctor actually told me that all 3 of my babies were ready at 5 mths for solids. Hence sitting in upright setting in pushchair being fed helped them & me it did improve their overall daily sleeping routine.

Whatever works OP - prob best to just get on with it and not compare your situ to others, just do what is right for you and baby

[RoganJosh]

Ok, sorry I got that wrong 123, most people who suggest rusk mean that.