How to get 5mo to sleep at night??

[SleepForTheWeek]

Just started taking my 5mo DD upstairs at bedtime as she wasn’t settling downstairs and was disturbed by us talking/watching tv.

First few nights were fine, fell asleep during her bedtime feed and I put her in the sleepyhead and that would be her for about 4 hours or so.

The last week she hasn’t fallen asleep during her bedtime feed and I’m not sure how else to get her to sleep!! She’s not unhappy after her feed, just not sleeping. She’ll happily lie in the sleepyhead for a while but when she’s actually ready for sleeping she starts getting really upset and loud - I have a toddler in the next room so can’t/don’t want her crying out too long or loudly!

I’ve managed it with a mixture of rocking, more feeds, more rocking - all the while she is getting more and more agitated, tired and annoyed.

She has a couple of comfort blankets she sleeps with and she suckles them but she doesn’t have the accuracy and dexterity to always get them in her mouth which again makes her angry. She won’t take a dummy - I’ve tried every method and every brand - it’s not happening.

During the day she takes her naps either in her pram or the sling.

She’s actually a very happy baby apart from bedtime - am I missing a trick??

DD1 fell asleep on the boob at bedtimes for nearly a year!!

My first son always fell asleep breastfeeding but my 4.5 month old doesn't tend to.

What works for him is laying next to me in bed, snuggled close with a dummy, and either holding my hand or with my hand for some reason over his face. I often play white noise really quite loudly near his head too. It seems hot and loud to me but sends him off. Rocking and walking winds him up more. When he won't settle sometimes DP walks him in the sling til he falls asleep then brings him in, lays him next to me all sleepy and we do the above. He likes the sling a lot so I mimic it in my bed holding him tight. Move him once he's been asleep a little while or pass out myself and just cosleep

Like everything it's probably just a phase and if you do find something it'll probably change next week!

She loves lying next to me but only up until a point, she then gets really resends and agaitated. I WISH she would take a dummy as I think she would like to comfort suck but doesn’t actually want any more milk which is why she’s coming off before she’s asleep.

Why can’t babies understand that when they are tired they just have to close their eyes!!

I want to start a bedtime routine but it’s hard without knowing how to get her to sleep

She also has white noise playing and she likes me singing to her but again, only until she’s wanting to go to sleep and then she starts getting upset

God I know. At least once a day I wonder why children won't just go to bloody sleep when they are clearly so tired. If someone laid me down in bed in the day and said hey don't worry about anything just have a rest I'd be asleep within moments but babies and toddlers fight it and mine always have such exhausted looking red eyes when they need to sleep too!

Not sure I can help, dummy is very helpful for us as it's the same here, he comfort sucks which is fine to a point but eventually he isn't even liking that and just pulls on and off which bloody hurts. At that point I stick dummy in which is usually acceptable to him. Also if I feed too much he just writhes around until he is sick all over the bed could you try another kind? Mine only likes tommee tippee ones.

The Gentle Sleep Book by Sarah Ockwell-Smith has some good routine tips in, and her website is useful too.

Hope you get some sleep tonight!

Honestly, I’ve exhausted all different brands of dummies, she just chews them, no sucking reflex at all. Same with bottles.

She feeds to sleep during the night thankfully, she’s on her second wake up at the moment so not bad (although looks like that may get be her for the day). Time to give DH a nudge!

What time are you getting her down? Could it be that she’s just not tired? My LO was going to bed for the night at about 9.30/10 at that age x

It depends when her last nap is, she usually has a nap around 5ish for about 30mins in which case she’ll be ready for a sleep 7.30/8 - or like last night she had a late nap at 6.15 for 30mins so wasn’t asleep till 9.

I take her up as soon as she shows signs of tiredness, so don’t really go by the clock, but it’s usually a couple hours after waking.

She’s definitely tired as she’s usually crying through closed eyes while trying to sleep.

With DD1 if she didn’t fall asleep while feeding she would suck on my pinky (also wouldn’t take a dummy) but with DD2 I don’t have anything like that for her and I don’t want to rock her in the pram or sling to sleep at bedtimes

@SleepForTheWeek ah yes wel obviously bedtime is right then. I would in that case agree with PP and say it’s a phase :) I had a particularly rough time at 5 months with my LO, now at 9 months she goes down at 7 and doesn’t wake until 1 for a feed. So it’ll pass I’m sure x

I feel I need to find out how she wants to go to sleep.

Instead of letting her sleep At 6pm tonight which is when she was due a nap, I distracted her till 7. She was tired but not outrageous. She’s just fallen asleep while feeding through exhaustion but the downside is she’s taken in a lot of air and she’s impossible to wind when asleep.

And I still need to put her down, of course...

I could have written your original post!!
My 5 month old is the same and I just want to know what he needs/wants to sleep, cos at moment it's boob/bouncing/cuddles on rotation till he falls asleep with exhaustion-arghh!!
Sorry there is no advice from me. But good to know you are not alone?!!