5/6 month old naps failing everytime, stressed out :(

[Kittiewhite89]

Hi all
My baby is 6 months in a few days and has suddenly forgot how to self settle since about 2 weeks ago.
Every single nap she wakes after the first sleep cycle without fail when she used to nap perfectly.

Old nap routine:
9-10am
12-2pm
4-5pm
Sleeps through from 8pm-7am

I make sure she's active in her awake time, calm and quiet leading up to the nap and do the same routine before each one. I make sure I take her up as soon as she shows that she is tired.

Nothing has changed, she's got no teeth coming through, feeding is the same and she's fully winded for 30 minutes after each feed. Her room temperature is ideal too. It can't be different things waking her up each time because it's almost spot on 30 minutes into every nap and she's never fully rested after one :( I've tried feeding her more incase it's a growth spurt but she won't ever take more than 6oz.

She sleeps through the night fine and doesn't wake up at all. I'm losing my mind with all the crying and grumpiness because she's still tired after every nap and I just don't know what to do.

She naps in her sleeping bag, has no sleep props apart from dummy but she still cries if it's still in her her mouth anyway. I've also tried timed comforting but it doesn't always work and makes her even worse. Even if she does settle again she wakes up maybe 10 minutes after then it's game over snd I have to get her up. I don't rock or feed her to sleep either.

I've introduced the fisher price soothe and glow seahorse to see if this can help her, I turn it on when we start our nap routine and then put it in her cot with her but no luck yet she just beats it up when she's angry!

I don't want her to nap longer for me, but for her. She's just so upset and hard to handle because she's grouchy all day.

Sorry for the essay
Thanks in advance

Welcome to Leap 4 (as the Wonder Weeks has it). My 5 and a half month old previously great self-settler is the same. Her naps are just one sleep cycle long most of the time now. Life is just too exciting for them now they can grasp things, etc.

Trust me - if your 6 month old is sleeping through the night, even on reduced naps she's getting an awful lot more sleep than most babies! I've not had that luxury yet - I once had 3 hours :-D

Monkeybrain haha she is getting a full nights sleep but she is tired in the day and I want her to stop being so upset and crying all day due to tiredness, I know were pretty lucky with the nighttime x

Teething? Try a shot of calpol or baby nurofen and see if that helps her go off to sleep. If it does then it's probably teeth.

Also - not a popular idea round here - but have you started giving her any food yet?? DS naps went up the spout at 5mo and he was miserable until I tried him on some food which cheered him up no end.

my dd did this. i ended up making her wait for her nap, playing longer, trying to entertain, doing a morning activity (eg swimming) and she now doesn't nap until she's had her lunch. she falls asleep about 12:30 in her cot (no dummy, just a mobile and couple of teddys) for around 2hrs. occasionally she's grouchy around 9:30/10 and so we go for a walk in pushchair where she just chills for half an hour or so.

this took a while for us both to adapt to.. but now that we've cracked it it's perfect.

dd wakes around 07:30am
chills around 09:30am-10am
lunch around 11am
sleep about 12:30pm- 14:30
bottle around 15:00
dinner around 16:00
bath around 17:00
bottle around 18:00 and then bed (between 18:30-19:00 depending on when she's ready).

this routine started around 2wk ago and she'll be 7 months this weekend :)

Maybe she's under tired? Only 2 hours of wakefulness between naps is quite short for that age.

At 6 months my DS went to two naps a day (approx 10 & 2) and this lengthened the sleeps to at least an hour each.

Thanks for replies everyone. I think i might try to lengthen her awake time and see if that works, still no teeth in sight! We've started weaning today aswel so will see how it goes x