17 week old not napping but good sleeper at night

[archiesmum1]

Hi, I'm really hoping to get some advice.

My 17 week old boy, Archie, is a wonderful sleeper at night, mostly goes to sleep between 7-8 and will wake at around 5-6 for a feed, then go back to sleep for an hour or so and I wake him at 8. He goes to sleep pretty much awake but sleepy but normally with no dummy, just some white noise.

He has always had some trouble with napping but I have been trying to get him into a routine (not schedule) as he seems to fight sleep so much worse now. He will scream and cry and go rigid. But it is obvious this is because he is tired. I feel like I have tried everything. Putting him back to sleep in his own cot, in our bedroom still. That worked okish for a bit but then he just starts the screaming, this will continue for ages and will only settle with rocking. Bought a new bed for the front room as he seems to like some noise around him. Again, this was ok at the start but now he's back to screaming. Yesterday he only had 2 naps for 20 minutes a time. Prior to this a good nap for him is 30-40 minutes, 4-5 times a day, which he seems happy with, if he's happy I'm happy.

But he will only fall to sleep with rocking and it's now back down to 20 minutes (it was the same before I started his little wind down routine).

Sorry for the long post, but I hate seeing him in distress and don't want him to rely on rocking as he's a big boy now, and I've got a terrible back so won't be able to continue that for much longer. Also, I don't want this spilling into his night routine.

Has anyone please got any advice? Thank you xx

I'm afraid I'm no expert but my DD1 was like this, she didn't sleep for as long at night but was generally a decent nighttime sleeper and a terrible napper (DD2 is totally different!). I'd say do whatever you need to to get your DS napping - don't worry that it will affect night time settling as somehow babies seem to be aware of the difference. So if your back can handle it, rock to sleep.

My understanding is that about 4 months, a babies sleep changes to be more like an adults - with sleep cycles of approx 20 mins. So your DS sounds like he's waking after 1 cycle. So when he wakes after 20 mins, don't autonatically get him up but try to get him back over. This is the bit I never cracked (it changed when DD was 11 months). I tried rocking, pushing in pram, driving, anything I could think of.

On the occasions I did get DD back over, she then had a really good nap and was rested and in a good mood when she woke up again, but it seemed random whether I would manage it or not.

One thing I did find made her worse was if she was overtired, basically the more tired she got the shorter her naps got.