Distress at naptime

[MissHoney85]

My nearly 5 month old DD hates napping! Until a few weeks ago she was generally ok at going down for a nap in the day - she would grumble a bit but it was a half hearted tired grumble, and with some rhythmic rocking in her rocker bed, white noise and swaddling in a blanket she would go down for 30-50 minutes at a time.

Over the last few weeks though she's become super distressed when I try to put her down in the rocker. It's not a tired grumble anymore, it's proper real tears crying. Even if I try to cuddle her to sleep she gets similarly upset. The only thing that works now (apart from the car) seems to be feeding to sleep. I can't even transfer her once asleep as she wakes.

This is a pain as it means I don't get any time in the day. Also I used to be pleased to know that she could sleep without feeding - this is the only way I can settle her at night but I was reassured to know she was able to settle in another way. Now feeding is all we have.

She also complains about going in the sling before someone suggests that, my local area isn't really suitable for pram walks (and she doesn't really like the pram anyway), and won't take a dummy.

Any ideas? I'm finding it harder and harder to manage and think it is impacting night sleep too now.

Given she likes sucking to sleep, I would keep trying with the dummy.

Whilst sucking, baby cannot physically cry simultaneously. So, you may not want to hear this, but without feeding or a dummy, you may simply have to accept that baby is going to cry. Instead of seeing it as a need not met (which will cause you stress and anxiety), you could frame the crying as baby needing to learn a new skill and being frustrated while learning.

I would not advocate leaving baby to cry unattended, I would stay at all times and try to comfort baby at all times. But acceptance that there will be crying is absolutely necessary I'm afraid.

The gentler, no crying way to deal with this, if that's your preference, is:
(A) get a dummy accepted. The simplest of the no-cry methods to get independant sleep
(B) realise that the journey to independant sleep will be gradual and take many months, but make baby steps towards that. The idea is to unlatch baby slightly before being in a deep sleep and cuddle/rock to deep sleep. Then keep unlatching earlier until you cuddle to sleep. Then follow the same process for how asleep baby is when putting down.

Mine is the same age and to be honest he never goes to sleep without feeding and cuddling in the day. If I put him down he wakes up. He does sleep in the pram, though and he sleeps well at night so I’m not worried about it.

Is it so bad just to go with it? I make sure I have my kindle and a drink

I can’t give good concrete advice like fate but I’d suggest you google the four month sleep regression. It seems to be a thing, it hit our dd very hard. Every (every!) nap from 3.5 to six months happened outside, in the sling, while walking. In winter. The neighbours used to bring out tea for me.

It does pass

Mine used to fall asleep almost immediately as a newborn in the sling but he’s waaaay too nosy for that now

Thanks all. I will keep persevering. She managed to go down without too much protest today - only for 20 mins but a start!