Nap Advice Needed

[Gee72]

Our boy is just over 5 months and now settles well in the evening at 7ish, sleeps til fed at 11pm and then usually on til 7am.

Nap times are becoming more of a problem. He's always napped in his pram and needed a little rocking to sleep. But now he's started to scream before each nap; he won't nap anywhere else (cot or bed) and the rocking doesn't seem to help. He will fall asleep eventually but gets very upset first.

My DW is torn between letting him cry it out (as the rocking and shushing doesn't seem to help anymore) or giving him a dummy - but he's never had one up until now. Any ideas on how to make him more flexible with where he'll sleep or how to help him get to sleep at nap time more easily?

Gee, is he tired? My DD started to change her nap times about that age. I've also had a couple of periods where she is tired but won't nap and I think it's her growing out of the nap but not physically being quite ready if that makes andy sense. The only way I can stop myself going insane is to just get her up and put her in the sling.

Also could teeth be causing a problem. Try a bit of teething gel.

I'm not of the school to just let them cry, especially as his night time sleep is so good. He obviously knows how to sleep so it's not that he needs training. (You are very lucky if you ask me. My DD doesn't sleep day or night and she's almost 7 months)

Thanks gingerninja. I only get to see his daytime naps at the weekends but he does still seem to be tired. He's always been a 'little and often' type of boy with food and sleep (he's bf apart from his last feed at 11pm) although I have suggested to DW that maybe he needs to be awake a bit longer now.

He'll only nap in his pram or if he's absolutely exhausted in a sling (but getting him in there causes WW3!) I think he knows the cot is just for nightime.

We know we're really lucky with his night sleep. We started early with a bath-feed-bedtime routine and he picked it up well after many fraught evenings of ssshhh-pat. It's just he gets SO distraught before naps when we know he's just tired. The last thing we want to do is to mess up his evening sleep by tinkering with the naps!

My advice would be not to worry too much about the day time naps. My little girl has the same nighttime routine as yours - and i am just so chuffed that it works! I just take her out in the pushchair once a day and she usually drops off at some point.

My ds went on a short-term nap strike and it turned out it was linked in to teething so my vote would be on that front. He also really needs a walk to fall asleep generally.