Should I put ds in his cot for day naps, rather than the pram?

[Leah4]

Hi, my ds is almost 5 months and sleeps very little during the day. He normally has three short naps a day, which last a maximum of 40 minutes, and he wakes up tired.
If he awakes at 7.30am, he will be tired by 9.30am. He has all his naps in his buggy, which is placed in a quiet part of my house. I have to get him to sleep by singing and rocking it a bit. He will sleep longer if he is in the car or sometimes when I am out in his buggy. He used to go to sleep in his cot after a feed in the day, until he was almost 3 months. I do breastfeed him to sleep at night, before being put in his cot. He will normally stir after 10mins and cry, and my DH quickly gets him back to sleep. He wakes up a couple of times in the night and I have to give him a feed to get him back to sleep.

I would like him to go to sleep in his cot for day naps as there is more space and I am wondering what will happen once he gets bigger. This week I have tried to give him a feed before putting him in his cot but he just wakes up. I then have to cuddle him, and try again yet he awakes again.

How can I extend his sleep, and also get him to sleep in his cot for naps? Sorry for the long post! Any ideas would be welcomed.

he sounds pretty normal for a 5 month old except you're right he should have a longer 2nd nap out of the 3. mine dc did both - 2 short naps in buggy to coinside with goig out and big one in cot. i'm afraid i let ds1 learn how to get himself back to sleep at this age by leaving him to cry - i did this with his day time nap first and then his night time sleep when he stopped falling asleep on the breast - i was still doing 2 nightbreast feeds at 5 months but stopped at 6 months.
in my opinino/ experience - those chidren who learn to settle themselves do seem to keep napping longer my ds1 dropped his nap at near to 4 and the twins are still having 2 hours at 2 1/2.
the cot thing i would just say make sure he's warm, fed and due for a nap - then grit your teeth and leave him to it. many people will disagree with me on this though. but i rarely have to get up in the night and they sleep really well.

Hiya Leah, what you are describing seems pretty normal to me! My son is nearly 6 months and more often than not sleeps through the night and wakes around 6am, which is simply fantastic! However during the day he usually has around 2 hrs of sleep, split into 3 naps-so quite short really BUT he sleeps at night so I can't and wont complain!

I think you are doing all you can, it wasn't that long ago that I had to rock/sway him to sleep (in the day) and even then he still wouldn't sleep but I could tell he was exhausted. I don't know what changed but he began to sleep in his cot after being put down and he is very good at this now.

So I would continue to place him in his cot when he is looking tierd and he may not need as much sleep as you think if he is sleeping well during the night.

Sorry don't have much of an answer but wanted you to know that I think your son is v.normal in my opinion. Don't worry! xx

Thanks for the quick responses. I don't want to to do cc yet as he's still quite young and I find it hard hearing him cry.

I stopped feeding him to settle for day naps, at 3 months, and don't want to start again. But how can I get him to settle in cot without feeding him, or leaving to cry? He also awakes after a short time in the cot or pram, and very hard to get him back to sleep. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Leah4, I have just started putting DS in his cot awake for naps and bedtime - previously napped in the buggy or bouncy chair, and was BF to sleep at night.

For both naps and night-time I use a combination of routine (dim lights, put in grobag), musical toy that plays a lullaby, pat/shush, and (if he fights sleep) I give him a dummy to suck til he's almost asleep but whip it out before his eyes shut, so he doesn't get used to sleeping with it in.

We're only on day 2 of this new routine but seems to be going OK. He will only nap for 30-40 mins most of the time (you can sometimes jiggle him back to sleep in buggy or chair, but this is hard to do in the cot) but we get through the day and hopefully at some point he will start taking longer naps.

hacent read all posts but just to say my ds only jst started napping in his cot recently at 8.5mths (now 9mths). he always napped in his buggy but it miffed me that i had to heave the bloody thing round the hall rocking it before he would nap. Once he started rolling and now crawling I felt I had to address it. He had sleep issues at night too which i fixed first. Now he naps fantastically for in excess of 1 hr every time. Do it if you can

Hi Leah, unfortunately I don't have any suggestions but just to say that my 5 month old is exactly the same (only that he takes hours to settle at night and then wakes every 2 hours!) and will only sleep during the day after being rocked to sleep in his buggy. I am thinking of implementing a formal nap routine next week (taking him to his room when I see the first signs of tiredness, putting on soft music, walking him around a bit etc.) so will let you know how it goes. Am afraid it may take some crying to crack this one though...

Hi all. Thanks so much for the suggestions. Especially on a busy Saturday!

Meg - good luck with the nap routine. let me know how it goes. DS used to have a dummy but now plays with it and gets frustrated at nap times when it falls out whilst trying to get to sleep. Do you feed your DS before he has a nap? My DS expects this as he thinks it is night time, but I don't want to start that again.

How did you get your DS to sleep in his cot Cruisemum, after being in buggy for naps? Did you have to feed him?

Hope you get more sleep soon Mamarug. My DS sometimes awakes a few times in the early hours, and then takes ages to feed. Probably feels like I have been up most of the night. I will also be trying a cot nap routine next week, and may have to go back to feeding him a bit before he settles. Will also mean not going out anywhere for most of it. Hope I don't get cabin fever! let me know how it goes.

will defo reply later, have ds's christening today so loads to organise before I can get on mn!

[happy christening to baby cruisemum ]

I diminshed the feed-to-sleep association by inserting a short routine between the feed and the actual putting down: put into sleeping bag, short play with a teddy, read a short book, switch on baby monitor and radio, switch off light, cuddle and say thigs like "sleepy now, time togo to sleep in the cot, night-night" and then I pit him down and stroke him untl he falls asleep. Same bear, same book and same words every night now for the past month or so. At firsyt it would take about 30mins from putting down until he fell aslep, and he did cry a lot but I didn't leave him. Now it generally takes 5-10mins, often without crying. Once he'd got the hang of going to sleep at bedtime, I started to do the same thing during the day.

He still wakes at night, though, but atleast aps and bedtime are easier and getting him down is generally less drawn out and painful.

Leah4, DS has taken to napping in his cot v well (though only for 30/40 mins at a time, but never mind).

I have always tried to avoid feeding before naps anyway - I feed straight after a nap usually. It was always movement that got DS to nap (bouncy chair or walking in pram) so a jiggle of the cot mattress seems to do the trick.

Also with my DS, timing is everything - he wants to nap exactly 90 mins after he last woke up, any longer and he goes into meltdown.

Thanks for all the replies. Hope the christening went well Cruisemum.

I decided to try to start putting him in his cot this week from today, and not go out for a few days. I started to sing to him like i normally do before he goes in his pushchair, and then put him in his sleeping bag. I gave him a short feed, in rocking chair, londg cuddle and turned on the radio. He thought it was play time, and held my hand. i left the room and he grumbled a bit then started to cry. It has taken over an hour to get him to sleep and he's still crying a bit. DH is with him, and he just fallen asleep. Not sure if I should just let him sleep for a short while as he is due a feed soon! Finding it so hard, espicially when it takes an hour to get him to sleep for 30 minutes. yet I suppose it will take a bit of time to get used to this.

Meg - how long did it take for your ds to get off to sleep in his cot? Did you stop if it was taking too long? I feel like going back to his buggy for his nap later this afternoon, yet I know I do need to have him sleep in his cot as where else will he sleep once he gets to big for his pram?!

Leah4, why not start with just one nap a day in the cot, and the others in the pram? Then you're not stuck in all day, and only have to battle over one nap. Once he's used to it you can then be flexible about where he naps.

Today my DS has had one nap in the car, one in his pram and is having one now in his cot. Took 12 mins to get him to sleep, but I did have to use the dummy - his eczema is flaring up 'cause of the heat so I think the itching is making it harder to settle without sucking.

Couple more things: I leave the room fairly light so he knows it's different from night-time. And I sit by the cot til he's fallen asleep - I don't think he's ready yet to be left awake in the room. (One step at a time!)

Agree with Meg's suggestion to just start with one nap a day in the cot and do the others in the pram. That way you give yourself a break and your LO will get some decent rest. A maternity nurse once told me that it's a good idea for babies to have one nap a day in their pram so that if you need to take them out they can still get the sleep they need. Just a thought.

How old is your DS Meg?

My first was exactly like yours at 5 months (he did 3x30 mins slleps though) but a month later he started doing 2 hours so I then started putting him in his cot.

What is your routine beofre your DS has a nap?

I started putting DS in his cot today, but I gave him a short breast feed prior to singing to him, and the putting him in the cot. He just looked at his cot mobile and thought it was play time, as he normally has it on during the day. It took about 45 mins to get him to sleep, by cuddling and singing. He then slept for the same amount of time. It did mess up his feeds today, and he later slept again in cot in the afternoon.

I didn't want to draw the curtains but it is so bright in our bedroom I doubt he would go to sleep.

Good idea to centre on one nap, as he likes being out and I also have a school run in the afternoon. His morning nap can often be an hour or more if out in the buggy in the morning.

Will try to get home for his afternoon nap, so that it can be in the cot. Very hard to extend his naps at the moment, even when in buggy. MSapp - did your DS just start sleeping longer by himself or did you have to help him to? One step at a time!

hi leah - just a quickie bofore i take dd to school. when it came to putting ds in cot for naps i first conquered his awful sleeping at night (waking 1.5 - 2 hourly some nights just to be bf back to sleep). Once I had done cc at night which took around 4 nights I guess getting easier each night, I decided that he could do it in the day. I simply put him in his cot and visited him every 2 mins or so until he got the message that that is his sleeping place. I would say he got the idea after about 20mins. I stil take him out in his buggy and he sleeps there if we need to be out at naptime as it is important to me that we are flexible. But i have noticed he sleeps sooooo much longer and better in his cot. Sadly, he still whinges when he goes in his cot but is much better for a quality nap so, to me, it is worth his 5 min whinge! Cannot be more specific as i have little time to elaborate. more later if you need

Hi Cruisemum. I did put ds in his buggy for his morning nap today, at home and then his cot at 1pm. I did not feed him before his nap and sang his normal sleep song, stayed with him and he went to sleep quite quick. He did grumble.

He slept for 35 mins, and he did not go back to sleep until bedtime! he wouldnormally have a nap in the buggy late afternoon when out. He wouldn't go to sleep in buggy at all and was very over tired. Made bath and bed routine harder, and he fell asleep in my arms after breastfeed. Felt he was far too tired to stir him, like I normally do before putting him in cot. Will see how it goes!

they certainly dont want us resting on our laurels do they

Cruisemum, do you close the curtains for days naps at home? I had started soing this with ds, but he finds it harder to get to sleep in buggy when out. I also used to partially close the curtains of the room he was in at home, when he slept in the buggy.
Have started to only half close the curtains to see if it helps.
What was your routine to help him stop falling asleep on the breast at bedtime? My LO is so tired it is very hard for him to stay awake after I feed him. Once I put him down, he sometime half opens his eyes, but then he has got into the habit recently of awaking after 10mins and crying out, and my DH quickly gets him back to sleep to picking him up and putting him down again in his cot half awake. Any idea how to help him settle himself? He wakes at 11pm and 4.30am, then between 630 and 7am. I always feed him and he does quickly go back to sleep. he doesn't feed very long at 4.30am though, so maybe a habit. Will see if he goes for longer!

leah, Hi . i do close curtains for daynaps but i don't put blackout blinds up for daytime. if he slept in buggy i just used to leave him in hallway in darkest part but still daylight iyswim.
AT bedtime if he falls asleep feeding (which is 9 times out of 10) then i don't wake him but if he does wake (very rare now) I just leave to see if he will go back to sleep which he usually does. When he was sleeping really badly though and i first tried cc I used to go in comfort, kiss, leave and repeat this every couple of mins then 4 mins then 5 mins then 6 mins etc. until he learnt that he didn't need my boob in his mouth to go to sleep (he used to wake 1.5 - 2hourly every night until 8mths of age so I was desparate enough to do cc). I was sure he was waking out of habit at night just to be bf back to sleep so he did not need actual feeding so i just banned the boob after 7pm until breakfast feed. sorry if this is muddled but i have to do this post in a rush! I wil clear anything up if you are unclear. but I hope this helps!

leah, Hi . i do close curtains for daynaps but i don't put blackout blinds up for daytime. if he slept in buggy i just used to leave him in hallway in darkest part but still daylight iyswim.
AT bedtime if he falls asleep feeding (which is 9 times out of 10) then i don't wake him but if he does wake (very rare now) I just leave to see if he will go back to sleep which he usually does. When he was sleeping really badly though and i first tried cc I used to go in comfort, kiss, leave and repeat this every couple of mins then 4 mins then 5 mins then 6 mins etc. until he learnt that he didn't need my boob in his mouth to go to sleep (he used to wake 1.5 - 2hourly every night until 8mths of age so I was desparate enough to do cc). I was sure he was waking out of habit at night just to be bf back to sleep so he did not need actual feeding so i just banned the boob after 7pm until breakfast feed. sorry if this is muddled but i have to do this post in a rush! I wil clear anything up if you are unclear. but I hope this helps!

ooops

Thanks Cruisemum. DS is really fighting sleep when I take him out in the buggy after 3.30pm. He normally does this later in the day, and has been for a couple of weeks. He may be getting so overtired from not sleeping well at earlier naps.

He awoke at 8.15am today, which is late for him. He has not gone to sleep in his cot today, and yet he is showing he's tired. He is just grizzling. Will take him out soon and go out later in buggy as meeting friends. Trying to get him to nap,and him getting overtired has been exhausting over past few days so trying to relax today whether he sleeps very little or not in the day!

leah - sorry you are still having nap traumas! ds was erratic at 5 mths to say the least. Sometimes he would do the same thing for around a week or so and i would think I had it cracked but then it would all go pearshaped and i would be tearing my hair out again. I used to get soooo frustrated about him only napping in the buggy as my dd (now 9yo) would sleep perfectly anywhere including her cot so it was all rather new to me. at that age, i just used to be thankful that he had napped somewhere and he often did over an hour or so but it was unpredictable. I do think that once he was on three meals a day things started to fall into place a bit more as he had to eat at structured times. I hope your issues resolve themselves. Confusing little buggers aren't they