Sleeping in crib

[Lakababy]

Hi, my LO is 5 months and not sleeping in his crib. He will feed to sleep most nights and when I try to put him down he either cries straightaway or after 20/30 mins. I then have to hold him and try again. It’s getting worse and I end up holding him most of the night. At first I thought it was sleep regression but I’m not so sure how. We had a good run when he was around 3 months where he was sleeping for 6 hours without waking. I’m teaching breaking point and don’t know what to do

Well if he’s feeding to sleep, he’s presumably falling asleep in one place then suddenly waking up and finding himself in another? It’s the old analogy of you falling asleep in your bed then waking up finding you’ve been moved to the bathtub. You wouldn’t be happy or stay asleep either.

He should ideally fall asleep in the place where he’s going to stay asleep which either means co-sleeping with you or you say he ‘mostly’ feeds to sleep - what does he do when he doesn’t feed to sleep?

Thanks Elphabathegrren. If he doesn’t feed to sleep then I hold him and rock him till he falls asleep. This was working up till a few weeks ago which is why I’m confused. I don’t know what’s changed. I understand your analogy but he’s never fallen asleep in the crib before and is still sleeping in the room with us

If this is the start of moving him to his crib, I would start with naps and a good routine (a song etc). Feeding and rocking him to sleep isn't advised generally just because they then rely on you to fall asleep and don't learn the skill of self soothing. He is still quite young though and needs to determine the difference between night and day. Does he have a dummy? This could help him especially if he's feeding to sleep at the moment. All of this does take time, although it doesn't feel like it, this will end eventually!

I’m going to take a punt that OP’s baby will only fall asleep rocking/feeding and attempt at any unsupported alternative results in defcon 4 screaming and no sleep. Which is fine and normal at 5mo. Also - at 5mo, day/night differentiation shouldn’t be an issue. 5 weeks, possibly, but not five months.

Co-sleep, OP. Sleep is a rollercoaster until they’re two or three years old, not a steady improvement until they reach a magical 7-7 12 hour stretch before the age of one. Just because he ‘could’ sleep longer stretches in his cot a few weeks ago, doesn’t mean that’s what he ‘should’ do from now on. In fact, the more aware of his surroundings he is, and the change in them, the more sense it makes that he’s more thrown by the change in sleeping environment.