How to get a daytime sleep routine, baby distressed

[MusicMum18]

Hi,
My lo really struggles to nap during the day. She is teething and has just started weaning and she is bf. she is 5 and a half months old.
I have tried putting her down when she yawns, rubs eyes and ears etc. but as soon as I settle her she screams her head off. I dont like the controlled crying idea, but am tempted to use it if it works, as she needs to sleep during day!! I kept going back in this morning to settle her, in the end she just played and eventually I took her out the cot as she needed a feed.
I've also tried walking her, she used to nap in the pushchair and car, but now she doesn't anymore.
Having said that today she had a half hour nap in the car, and then got so tired she fell asleep on me after a bf at 6pm but I woke her up as it was too close to bedtime at 7pm. It was hard to get her down as she was overtired.

Bedtime routine is fine, she goes down at 7.30 and sleeps till 7.30am. Wakes about 2-3 times in the night for feeds.

I need her to nap during the day as she is exhausted poor thing and she's not the happy smiley baby she used to be as she's just so tired. She fights sleep all the time.

Please help me, I'm worried about her. What can I try?

By the time you are seeing tired signs in the daytime, baby is approaching over-tired. Ideally she would have wanted to be in asleep about half an hour previously. Possibly even 45-60 minutes earlier. Tired signs mean over-tired.

Could you anticipate her need for a nap before seeing tired signs? If she's waking at 7.30am, then I would guess at her needing a sleep by 10am ish and then again at 1pm ish and again at about 4pm ish. I don't know your daughter though, these are just 'average baby' estimates.

DS often fights a nap despite being excessively tired and normally we let him cry for 5 mins or so which is usually enough for him to conk out. We've found a little musical toy in his cot with him distracts him for a minute or so from the fact we've put him down.

Fate destiny, that's useful to know, I didn't know the tired signs meant over tired. In that case I think I've been putting her down when she's overtired and she can't nap. I'll try putting her down tomorrow at 10am. I'll offer feed first as that's what we do before bedtime. Should I put her in baby grow and in gro bag to nap during the day?

I don't bother with Babygro but do use the sleeping bag and cot for daytime naps. I usually remove trousers/bottoms and leave baby just in her top in the sleeping bag for daytime naps.

The other day I tried the picking up, putting down baby whisperer technique, but she cried for an hour, then wanted to play so I gave up. She needed a feed by that time anyway!
How long should I give her trying to get her to nap?
Will it help putting her down at 10am each day consistently?
I just want to try a new plan tomorrow. I'll put her in grobag like you say. I suppose it's just tying to find what works!

I'd try putting her down earlier than 10 personally, so allow time for her to get up, have breakfast, have a little play then a nap no later than 9am. I used to aim for 9am every day but some mornings he was only up for an hour before needing another snooze. I suspected it was because hunger prompted him to wake up after 12 or 13 hours rather than having had enough sleep - so was ready to go back to bed quite quickly.

My DD is 4.5 months and has roughly 4 naps a day still. I try not to let her go more than 2 hours without another sleep (though she does seem to be able to go a bit longer lately).

I struggle to get her to self settle but we had a victory today with a noise app called Relax Melodies. Mixture of wind noise & waves sent her right off!

At that age, DD couldn't have lasted anywhere near as long as 2.5 hrs from waking up in the morning until her first nap. She was usually down by 9/9.30. I think it was roughly 1.5 hrs between waking up in am and first nap, then 2.5 hrs between first and second nap (so she'd wake around 10.30 and go back to sleep around 1pm) and then she'd have another little one around 4.30ish.

So, try putting her down much earlier than you have been.

Also, at this age I still had to rock her to sleep at nap times and then transfer her from my arms to the cot. If she woke up when I put her down I'd rock her until she was asleep again and re-transfer. Eventually she got to the stage when I could put her down awake at nap time, but it wasn't until she was a lot older (although she could self-settle at bedtime from about 6 or 7 months).

If you don't want to do controlled crying (I didn't either) the book The No-Cry Sleep Solution has some good tips in it.

And bibb has reminded me that we used a white noise app on the iPad for naps until she was about a year old.

I've always struggled to get DS to self settle for daytime naps, in fact at the age your DD is he would only ever nap in my arms having been fed to sleep.

When I did get him to nap in his cot eventually it would be after he was already asleep, and transferred very gently into his cot without waking him up.

So have you tried feeding or rocking/cuddling her to sleep? Then putting her down asleep rather than awake?

I know the end game is to try to get her to self settle, but she's still so little and they sometimes need a bit of help.

DS is 15 months now and I still put him down asleep for his day time naps (although he self settles beautifully at night) but at nursery he's more than happy to go down for his naps while awake.