I know I’m going to get grief for this as I’m very lucky to have a baby that sleeps well at night but I’m struggling a bit so thought I’d seek advice anyway.
My daughter is 5 months old at the end of the month and has been a great sleeper at night for about 6 weeks now, going to sleep at around 8pm (7pm bedtime but she can take a while to actually go down) and sleeping to 7/7.30am with a dream feed around 10.30pm. She’s very big for her age (between 91st and 98th percentile) so don’t know if that’s helping. She feeds to sleep but is able to self soothe in the night by sucking her thumb. I also play white noise all night.
Her napping has always been hit and miss but recently she started to get into a vague pattern of a morning nap at 8.30am (45 mins- 1 hour), a lunchtime nap around 12.30pm (around 90 mins) and then a brief late afternoon nap around 3.30pm though this was often a cat nap. She feeds to sleep for all her naps - if I put her down drowsy and awake at the first signs of tiredness, she simply won’t sleep and eventually starts crying.
Over the last few days, she’s just stopped napping and it is so draining. She is clearly tired but won’t sleep. If I put her down in the crib now, she wakes after 10 mins. If I take her out in her buggie (a couple of laps around the park walking on the grass used to be a sure thing), she gets extremely tired but won’t actually fall asleep and just gets really upset.
She hates slings and always has, even as a newborn. Bouncy chairs etc just make her more awake.
I’m at a bit of a loss what to do - she clearly needs the sleep and I hate seeing her tired in the day and not being able to do anything. I actually prefer her waking up a few times during the night and napping during the day than sleeping through at night but refusing naps all day - I find the latter more exhausting.
Is this just a standard phase or is there anything I can do to improve things? I’ve just put her down for a nap at 11, she slept for 10 mins and woke up and is now crying.