5 month old will only sleep in my arms

[Jayarose]

My dd is almost 5mnths old and will only sleep in my arms or in a "kango" pouch. She used to fall asleep very easily in her cot but would wake after 30 mins and only go to sleep again if I hold her. Now she won't even fall asleep if she's not being held. Even the car and pram don't work. I'm at the end of my tether as my back is getting sore and I have a 2yr old who needs entertaining too. Even while awake she won't play happily on her play mat for long before she wants attention. Any ideas??

I have found ring slings like this one are ideal and very comfy to wear.

Have you tried swaddling?

She's probably just having an insecure phase - it's perfectly normal and the quickest way through it is just to be with her as much as she needs you.

I don't really want her to need to be rocked to sleep all the time. I haven't tried a sling yet for this reason.
I did try swaddling once and she didn't like it at all. I swaddled ds for ages and he loved it. At night she sleeps fairly well so that adds another dimension to it. Sometimes she only wakes after 6 hrs at night.
Maybe she is feeling insecure, but I don't understand why she only has a 30 min sleep cycle when she's not held!

Perhaps she surfaces to a much lighter sleep after 30 minutes and realises she is not being held.
A sling can be useful just for this phase - doesn't mean she will always want to be in it.

Jayarose, my DS 6mo is exactly the same, I'm trying to wean him off sleeping on me at the moment, he'll only take his daytime naps on me, so I BF at the beginning of the feed then sit on my bed with the blind down reading for 3 hours a day! - I know this won't help you at all, but just to let you know you're not alone.

Haha Choolie, thanks! I walked around the steets of our neighbourhood for about 5 hrs a day every day, rain or shine, with my ds!!! I have just managed to get dd down right now for a day nap by pushing her back and forth in the pram in a darkened room. How is your ds at night?

not so great at night either - I've joined the Sleep is for the weak thread! at 13 wks it was great, he'd progressed to sleeping from sleepy feed through to 5am, even did 7am a few times, then it just started going pear shaped, I think as life became more interesting, so he wanted to feed less in the day, which meant he started making up for it at night! he feeds about 3x a night, some nights he's a dream, barely wakes, lovely sleepy feed, straight back down. other nights, babbles on and off for up to an hour at a time, only sleep on me!

bed time has also become more difficult, I'm trying to get him to go down in the cot awake, but this means I half break my back leaning over the cot for 30 mins till he's asleep!!! and to think they won't realise what we've done for them for another 30yrs or so when they find themselves in this position themselves!

I know what you mean, about them only realising what we've done for them when they're 30! I still can't believe my Mum made the same sacrifices I'm making....or that she loved me as much as I love dd and ds!
I don't know about this whole thing of getting them to fall asleep without a dummy or something. I fed ds to sleep..only for night feeds....and up until a few weeks ago he still had a bottle to fall sleep. Now he's decided he doesn't need one and falls asleep at night listening to relaxing music.
I think as long as they sort of rouse a little when you put them down, that's great. But at this stage if feeding to sleep is the only way I can put her down, I'll do it!