5 month old baby naps please help

[Freya1990]

Hi, Sorry for long post. My DS is now five and a half months old. I managed to get him on a great eat, wake, sleep routine from three months, and would go into his cot awake at nap time and settle himself to sleep. This was great up until the day after he hit four months old when he started to refuse naps and the dreaded sleep regression kicked in. Since then I have either had to feed him to sleep for naps which typically only works for nap 1 and 2 but never nap 3 (we dropped nap 4 recently because it was so stressful and we stopped being able to fit it in with the amount of time he was battling naps) or I take him out in the pram. A typical day looks like this... nap 1: if I’m lucky feed to sleep on our bed and transition asleep into his cot (normally he will sleep 30 mins), if he wakes upon transitioning we go out walking in the pram. Nap 2: the same as nap 1. Nap 3: Straight out in the pram or car. I walk for hours every day googling baby sleep and have basically come to the conclusion I’m just going around in circles. I am so tired from constantly walking and very emotional all the time. I just want DS to nap in his cot. Does anyone have any tips for this? I also have a 4 year old daughter and can’t remember for the life of me how I got her on a consistent nap schedule. I know we ended up doing a pick up put down method. I’ve tried this with DS when he was 4 and half months, he just got angrier when I went in and it would take 40 mins of crying before a crap nap. All the books/ articles I’ve read say I need to stop the feed to sleep association and teach him to sleep on his own. It just feels like an impossible task. Does anyone have any tips for this? I’ve started at night time keeping him awake during his last feed after his routine of bath, massage, sleeping bag, feed and putting him down ‘drowsy awake.’ Inevitably he’s annoyed so I sing twinkle twinkle little star to try and soothe him before I leave the room. Sometimes I have to pick him up and sway him gently. Should I not be using voice cues to soothe? Does anyone have any better soothing methods? I think I read somewhere that mums voice can agitate them. I am trying to eventually, hopefully switch up the routine by placing a story after the feed or bringing the feed to the start of the routine. He is awake every 2.5-3hrs most nights and is fed back to sleep. Should I be trying to cut out some of these feeds to stop the feed to sleep association? Also when should I start nap training? I’m petrified of him becoming over tired and not getting enough sleep as I know sleep induces sleep and an over tired baby does not sleep well.
I am so empty and drained all the time, I’d love some advice. I’m petrified I am running out of time and that it will get really hard to sleep train him after he hits 6 months. I can’t keep these pram naps up, I get no time to do anything and my mental health is suffering from it. Thank you In advance.
Ps has anyone successfully sleep trained without white noise? We tried it when he was a newborn and had to phase it out as it kept us all awake even on the quietest setting on my phone.

Poor you. I’ve been there. DS would only nap on me or being pushed in his pram - when it stopped he’d wake up. Add in lots of night waking and I was exhausted and fed up too.

It’s very common for the last nap of the day to be hard to achieve, so that may be best as a pram nap all the time. Rather than transition him after he feeds to sleep could you feed to sleep lying down and he sleep on your bed? Depends on whether he’s rolling and you can make it safe of course, but it might make it easier to leave him than physically putting him down. Or, rather than PUPD maybe patting his bottom rhythmically at heart beat rate? I did that with DS from 6/7 months when co sleeping and he found it soothing and would go to sleep. Also, I’m sure you’ve thought of it but didn’t mention in your post - does he take a dummy? Or would he sleep in a sling? I know they’re not for all mums or all babies though.

It’s so difficult I know, but try not to worry about what he’ll be like at 6 months/8 months/a year old. Just because he’s finding sleep hard now, doesn’t mean he always will. Personally I found I coped a lot better with the situation when I accepted that he needed help to sleep at that stage, rather than stressing that he had to learn to do it by himself. But I did stress a lot too! We eventually did gradual retreat at 7.5 months successfully, but because of this I don’ t really have much more useful advice for a 4 month old I’m afraid, except to say you’re doing an amazing job even though it’s so, so hard.

Thank you so much for replying, it really helps to know I’m not the only one who’s been through this. DS is the same, wakes as soon as you stop pushing. Some days he only gets 30 mins nap at a time, I find it so stressful worrying he isn’t getting enough sleep.
I often feed him to sleep on the bed, however he is rolling and moving quite a lot and I do worry he will roll or move off.
He doesn’t take a dummy and has never slept in a swing. When he was a newborn we used to walk around the dining room table until he went to sleep. I was slowly able to do less of this until I could put him down at 3 months awake and he’d self settle. Now if I try to do this to settle him he goes mental :-/
I’ve tried to go with the flow and not obsess over it, but it causes me so much anxiety. Did you do gradual retreat for naps too? Also did you have any success with white noise? A lot of the books suggest using it? Thank you again for replying :-)

How about pram naps, but without going out?

You could, for example, park the pram in your kitchen and push it back and forth to get baby to sleep. Then slowly reduce the tempo of the pushing as he goes to sleep. This is something you can't do when out, the tempo will be a constant walking pace so it's difficult to wean-down the movement - which results in an all or nothing, dmso baby wakes when you stop. Instead rock the pram vigorously at the start, then gradually reduce.

The most important factor for good sleep habits is that baby goes to sleep where they stay asleep. Not to be got yo sleep somewhere, and moved once asleep.

So if feeding to sleep, feed to sleep on a blanket/mattress on the floor and leave baby there once asleep.

To break your feed to sleep habit, I would focus on daytime naps for now. So accept feeding to sleep at night, just try to unlatch before baby is fully asleep. Then focus the change on daytime naps whereby you don't feed to sleep and instead use pram movement to get baby to sleep.

Yes my son never took a dummy either! Tried about 6 brands, all rejected. I consoled myself with the fact at least I’d never have to face taking it away from him!

Yes we did gradual retreat for naps too, but not at the same time as night sleep. We did it just for night sleep from about 7.5 months, very very slowly, and did naps only in the pushchair (luckily it was summer) once we started doing the gradual retreat so he wasn’t getting mixed messages about feeding to sleep in the day but not night. From about 8.5 months we did it for naps too but he got the hang of it much quicker as he was doing it at night time with one of us sat in the corner of the room by then.

We use white noise - he’s always loved it. The kitchen extractor fan was on a lot when he was really small! We find brown noise better than white though actually - slightly deeper tone - and he also used to love womb music but DH hated it with a passion. We bought a white noise machine with different sounds from Amazon and leave it on all nap and all night - he’s always been a light sleeper so it disguises other household sounds, fireworks, music next door too.

Thank you so much for replying and your suggestions. I used to do that when he was a newborn during lockdown, stand in the garden pushing until he fell asleep. I’ve tried it a few times since but he gets annoyed if we aren’t going forward if that makes sense. I guess he is just too aware of his surroundings.

Glad I’m not alone Peelspeelspeels. My DD was a great self soother she sucked her fingers. DS has no interest :-/ That’s a really good idea. How long did it take for him to get the hang of naps? With gradual retreat did you talk to him or was your presence just enough? Sorry so many questions.

Hi Freya

We're nearly a month ahead of you and I've been right where you are!

I think PP advice to think of it that the baby just needs some help sleeping and don't raise your expectations too much is good advice.

My son was fed to sleep then rocked to sleep then had a dummy and I'm now transitioning him to try and self soothe but in a way that doesn't mean I leave him and tugs at the heart strings too much. I've put it below but it's long so sorry.

Regarding white noise-I can't help you there as I don't mind it but I play pink noise all night as I find it more natural sounding. Maybe try a my hummy or equivalent so not on all the time?

So we signed up for the Little Ones Program after being wowed by all those FB adverts (I know). It didn't give me a magic wand but did give me some routine and structure. Essentially the way I did it was just to progressively move the feed back from the nap. So 5 minutes before the nap and then put them down so they're fed, full and drowsy and then 15 mins before the nap...and so on... and eventually we moved to eat play sleep routine.

So putting the baby down to go to sleep. This is the method I used which a friend told me. It's worked for us and we've gone from 6 wakes ups to almost sleeping through. However, there will be tears but having tried some of the more brutal ways and deciding it wasn't for me, I found this was great and my son remained fairly calm with a few whimpers.

Dark room, baby changed and in sleeping bag (white noise ideally). If trying to wean off feeding to sleep then a feed in another room so baby is still awake when you move them to where they'll sleep.
Put a chair right next to the cot so you can see and reach in. Give baby a rock or sing a soothing song and put baby down with a phrase you decide. Put your hand on baby in a way that they find soothing (my son just likes heavy hand on his tummy) and keep the hand in for a minute. Then take the hand away for two minutes and repeat. However, the whole time you're sat there you can sing, hum, shush, talk in soothing voice or repeat a phrase you decide on. I found that the combination of my voice and touch meant my son fussed and whimpered but never really escalated.

Keep doing the above and stay in the room for a few minutes once they're sleeping before leaving to make sure they're asleep. I'm told the first time you do it it can take an hour but my son did manage to go to sleep after 30 and he stop whimpering and fussing after 15 and so was quite calm when he went to sleep.

The suggestion my friend made was to do this first at night when they're more likely to be tired anyway but then continue for all naps. And she kept feeding to sleep at night but found the night feeds did start to reduce.

She said after a week she was able to put her son down and leave the room almost instantly as he settled himself. I moved out of the room more gradually and sometimes I still have to stay for 5-10 minutes but mainly as I want him to go to sleep calmly rather than crying.

My only other thing to suggest is a rockitt pram attachment which rocks the pram and May keep your son asleep?

Hope the above helps or at least gives you something to try?

Sorry just thought of a couple more things!

Don't get obsessed with long naps! I don't think babies are supposed to be able to sleep
more than one sleep cycle in the day consistently until 7-8 months so 30 minute naps sounds about right! Also with lockdown, they've probably not been getting the interactions that usually tired them out!

Awake windows! I used to try and ensure my Ds didn't have more then 2 hours between naps but I realised he wasn't that tired. I read somewhere that it's usual for babies to get tired in the mornings but be able to be awake much longer in the afternoons. So 2 hours from wake-first nap, then 2.5-3 between the next one then 3-3.5 between the last and bedtime.

I stopped following a specific schedule a few weeks ago and decided to focus on my Ds's signals. I'm lucky that he yawns a lot when tired to difficult to miss. I've found he generally falls into the above category of 2-3-3hours between naps-but some days he's more tired than others so I watch for his cues. Does your DS have cues you can pounce on when you start to see him tire?

It only took a few days with naps I think because he was used to it from bedtime by the point. We used voice - decided on a specific sleepy phrase, night night DS, time to sleep - and patted his bum if he needed it too. So very similar to what JimandPam outlined above. We followed a plan from Lucy Wolfe’s book, which is essentially a strong routine plus gradual retreat but with helpful details, such as getting Dad/partner to do bedtimes initially if you’re trying to break a breastfeed to sleep association as baby won’t expect milk from them.

Also yes to JimandPam’s rockit suggestion - we have one, and a snoozeshade to black out the pushchair. The rockit wasn’t enough on its own to get DS to sleep in a stationary pushchair but if I had to stop pushing for some reason I’d put it on and he’d stay asleep if he wasn’t coming to the end of a sleep cycle.

Thank you so much for the advice @JimandPam ☺️ Sorry am typing this as walking with the pram. I’ve seen the little ones ads, I’m sure Facebook knows my internet search history from all my googling! Did you find the program helpful? I am becoming increasingly stressed about not having a routine as we are coming up to time to start on solids. Feeling very lost with it all, even though I’ve done it once before, but I’m sure sleep deprivation causes you to forget everything.
Sorry just a couple of questions, did you ever have a time where your son refused to nap after sitting with him?If so what did you do? Did you take him out in the pram or just hold out until next nap? I’m terrified DS will become so overtired he won’t sleep at all (sorry I have really bad anxiety!) Also, did you follow your friends advice and start the day after you changed your nightly routine? Or did you wait until your nightly routine was established first? When you started pushing the feed back did you read a book in between or just keep an eye on timings ie if he’d been awake say 2 hours and you know he usually feeds for 15 mins then feed him 20 mins etc before he needed to be asleep? Sorry so many questions?
I do try to keep an eye on sleep cues, sometimes his eyes get very red when he’s tired and rubs his eyes.When he gets overtired he makes these horrible groaning noises 🙈Thank you so much for the advice.

At 5 months my daughter would only have irregular short naps, never on a schedule so different times every day, and only with her dummy and movement. Her naps were mostly in the pram - either outdoors, so like you I did lots and lots and lots of walking and she would wake as soon as I got back in. Or I would push her back and forth in the hallway with lullabies playing on my phone and the hood of the pram quite far down with small soft comforters squashed on either side of her head as she likes to squish her face into things (I removed the toys once I'd left the area for SIDS risk). Occasionally she would nap on my arms or legs if I rocked her to sleep, but I mostly preferred to be out walking even in the cold as it was winter then, than hurting my back/arms/legs rocking her for ages on the sofa and then being trapped unable to move as if I moved her she would wake.

TL;Dr - it is HARD but what you're describing is totally normal for this age. It gets better and easier as they get older. I'm not sure there is much we can do to influence their nap habits unfortunately. They're not robots we can program although I sometimes wished that she was!!

Thank you again @Peelspeelspeels so much. Did you find DS reduced night waking once he was self settling at bedtime?I will take a look at Lucy Wolfe’s book too. Currently reading ‘previous little sleep.’Maybe one day I’ll be able to have a couple of full naps at home and stop trudging the streets with the pram. I’m sure the neighbours think I’m mad!

Sorry one more question, @Peelspeelspeels @JimandPam did you wait until your babies were in their own room before starting this? Thank you ☺️

So having read your reply I would actually suggest ditching the LO schedule altogether. I have and it is FREEING.

I did find some elements useful but on the hole I would get constantly stressed that ds was supposed to be napping and wasn't, or had slept 40 minutes when the program said 2 hours.

The program is full of what babies should be doing but honestly I don't know many babies at that age that do this! And it just puts undue pressure on you.

Now I go by awake times. So I look at when Ds woke up and at around 2.5 hours I look for cues. He will often have 3x40 minutes nap and has never suffered overnight for not having a big sleep.

-Yes, my ds still refuses naps with this method. Just yesterday he started getting worked up and after 20 mins he was crying. I stopped, got him up and we played some games and as soon as I saw him yawning I took him back up and he went to sleep. I completely ignored when his next nap should be

-If taking him out in the pram works then do it but my suggestion would be if you're trying to work on a new routine, I'd keep naps to the cot until established

-Does your son often suffer from overtiredness and is then unable to sleep? I wouldn't let it worry you too much-If you know he's usually tired around 2 hours and it's pushing 3 and he hasn't shown signs then I'd try putting him down maybe?

-Don't wait time establish nighttime routine first. Once you start at night, I would continue for all day naps so he gets used to this way of being put to sleep.

-When pushing back the feed, I would take him to his room, feed him then change his nappy and put the sleeping bag on for bed. Then, when trying to extend further I'd add a story too, then perhaps some songs...you get the idea

Really hope the above helps but I would genuinely suggest adding some fluidity to your day and don't worry about what your ds 'should' be doing. Most don't fit nicely into the LO schedule!!

@MeadowHay It wasn’t TLDR Finding it very helpful to know I’m not the only one out there that has this sleep struggle! I am envious of all these women who get to spend maternity leaving baking cakes and watching daytime tv rather than pounding the streets to battle yet another nap. I am struggling so much not having a routine. Did your DD ever get to have nice long naps like I read in the fairytales? 🤣

Nope, ds still in with me

And yes...unequivocally yes-as soon as he could self settle I found nighttime just clicked. He may wake up once or twice but mostly he'd sleep most of the way through. And if he was upset, I'd go up, shush, give him his comforter, place my hand on him but I didn't pick him up. He was soothed by this

No super long ones because she didn't get good at napping reliably until she was about 1 by which time they obviously need a lot less sleep. But by 1 I could pretty reliably put her down for two naps a day in a rough routine (never to the hour etc but I would know she would have one late morning ish and one late afternoon ish and look for sleepy cues) awake in her cot and she would sleep for between 1-2hrs each time. and yes I know the feeling. My woes were compounded by the fact that DD spent most the first 7 months or so of her life screaming hysterically for hours on end so definitely didn't have the peaceful happy maternity leave stereotype unfortunately.

I think DS had started to have a longer first stretch of night sleep thanks to taking to solids in a big way before we did the training, but was up every 2 hours after that. Definitely by the time he was 9 months he was only waking once in the night, about 3am for a quick feed, then he’d self settle in his cot so I was only out of bed for 15 min.

We’d actually started putting him in his own room for the first stretch of the night at about 4.5 months as he found it hard to sleep in the living room with DH (I was in bed and DH would do the first night feed with EBM). Then he’d come into bed and we’d co sleep from about midnight, waking every 2 hours for a boob though. When his night wakings reduced we just kept him in his room.

Thank you both again @Peelspeelspeels @jimandpam we are putting DS in his own room tonight as he was up 5 times last night, only two of those I fed him for, I managed to settle him for the others. Think we may be waking each other up as I am so on edge at every little grunt. We are also going to start gradual retreat from tonight. Praying it works. I did start by keeping him awake during his last feed last night, reading him the quickest book in the world then popping him in his cot and running out the door. 🤣 He did go to sleep almost instantly but I think that he was so milk drunk and drowsy he probably was nearly asleep anyway. 🙈Fingers crossed it works, I need some sleep.