Nap training for 5 month old

[GowriSankar01]

My son is 23 weeks old and has never been a good sleeper. His naps usually last only 30 mins. He slept in our arms till about 12 weeks old and now we rock him in our arms and move him to the bed. But if we let him sleep in our arms, he can nap for 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs.

Over the last few days he has been super cranky, crying all the time and has been very difficult to get to nap. We first fed him a bottle of formula (he is ebf) to see if it was hunger making him cranky but formula didn't make any difference. So we have been letting him nap in our arms for the last 2 days and we see a huge difference in his behavior. He napped for nearly 4.5 hrs today ( with 2 long 1.5 to 2 hr naps) and was giggling and happy till bed time. If let to sleep on the bed, he takes 4 to 5 naps of 30 mins each.

Now my question is do we let him nap in our arms and have a happy baby or train him to sleep on the bed while having a tired baby for god knows how long? I realize he needs to learn to nap on his own, especially since he will be going to nursery in another 4 months. But I don't have the heart to leave him to cry. Suggestions are welcome

Could he sleep in his buggy and give the buggy a rock when he wakes to get him to nap longer?

Sadly, he doesn't sleep in his buggy. He sleeps in a carrier but carrying him around for 2 hrs is giving me shoulder pain. It's much easier to hold him in my arms coz I can atleast sit down.

We had this issue with crappy short naps at around the 3-5 mth stage. So wearing and feels like a catch 22 because trying to solve it made things worse by delaying the nap further!

My brain has wiped most of the detail but I think I decided to encourage ‘independent’ sleep for the first nap of the day (usually the easiest to acheive and let me hop in the shower while DC was in the cot) using a sort of gradual retreat approach. Then I made sure there was one good long nap per day (usually after lunch) using whatever means necessary to avoid total meltdown.

Can’t say whether it worked or was just coincidence but at around 5/6 months DC suddenly started being able to do a decent nap by himself and then we could move on to the ‘classic’ nap at 9ish, long nap at 1ish, cat nap at 4/5ish schedule.

Thanks BaffledMcBaffled. I think I will give your method a try. It might just work.