6 month old napping nightmares (sorry bit long!)

[rony]

Having huge problems gettng my 6 month old ds to take daytime naps. He has never been particularly fond of them but I used to be able to get him to take 3 naps of around 30 - 40 mins per day without too much bother. but lately it has got harder and harder to get him to sleep. I try to watch for sleep cues and make sure he is not over tired, he has a winding down routine and usually when I put him down he is nicely sleepy; however within a few minutes of being in his cot he is howling and wriggling all over the place. I've tried everything - leaving him to settle himself and only going in when he cries, feeding him, rocking, singing, putting background music on - nothing works. He will only sleep when absolutely shattered afer 3-4 hours of being awake, and then has to be fed to sleep, and will only sleep 40 mins max.

I also have 2 year old dd so can't do any strategies which involve me staying in the room with him for lengthy periods. He won't nap in the pushchair at all, the car is the only place he will happily sleep - and it's not always possible to do that.

He is an extremely lively and active baby, crawling already, and I think maybe he is just too busy these days to sleep! also that he can't seem to stop himself from crawling around when in his cot. he does get tired and by the end of the day is in bits with tiredness. he just doesn't seem to know how to settle himself down to sleep.

Nighttimes aren't too bad, he always goes off to sleep at 7 pm no probs (so tired by then!) and although he still wakes several times in the night he is usually not too difficult to get off again. Sometimes in the early morning he even wakes up, chatters to himself then goes off to sleep again by himself.

any ideas really appreciated as I'm fed up spending so long each day trying to make him sleep, also feel I am neglecting my dd while doing this. but if he doesn't sleep then he gets more and more hyper and grizzly.

ideas please!

Maybe he is ready to drop his morning nap and have one longer lunchtime one rather than 3 shorter ones?

Is his room dark enough?

Maybe try and persevere with leavng him to re-settle if your certain he is tired.

I've tried dropping the morning nap on occasion when he's slept in a little later in the morning - he was totally zonked out by lunchtime but still only slept 30 mins!!

My dd is still having a lunchtime nap too and she gets woken up when he really cries - so can't really leave him to resettle himself much.

Good idea about making the room darker though - it is quite light in there. I figured that as he resettles himself well in the mornings when it's light then that didn't matter - but maybe it's worth a try...

my dd has only ever done short naps. when she was really little she had 2 half hour naps, sometimes they'd be an hour, usually half an hour. since she was about 7 months she's only ever had one nap, usually just half an hour, after her lunch. odd times now and again she has an hour, but that's normally if she's ill. she sleeps 13-14 hours at night i'm hasten to add. she's now 18 months old and seems to only need her half hour nap every other day now.

that's interesting ruddynorah, did she not get tired during the day if she was having so little sleep?

I guess some babies just need less sleep than others....he definately has less sleep than my 2 yr old!

There are so many threads about this at the momen. I think 6 months is just a difficult age for sleeping. I am having exactly the same problems. No answers just it is getting a BIT better with more solids going into her but it is just a phase i am hoping will pass! I am convinced it is not about how much sleep they need as my DD is clearly permanently exhausted!