5 month old will not nap - please advise

[Katty68]

I have a 5 month old (my one and only) who has never been a good sleeper or napper. Recently he has become even worse during the day. I am not a fan of Gina Ford or her type as I believe they seriously undermine breastfeeding. I refuse to follow the "cry it out method" for a baby this young. The more baby friendly books (Dr Sear, Elizabeth Pantley, etc) suggest following a short nap routine every day at around the same time to get baby to sleep. I have done this every single day for the past 3 months or so and try to make nap time as nice as possible. My HB and I spend hours trying to get him to take even a 20 minute nap. As late afternoon aproaches he is totally exhausted and finds it more difficult to settle for the night. During the day he fusses and rubs his eyes almost none stop, so I know he wants to nap, but somehow just doesn't. We take him to his room, pull the curtains and create his night-time environment as much as possible, cuddle him, rock him, put on Baby Motzart, you name it, he just won't nap. He does nap in the car and in his pram, but only for 30 minutes or so. I don't have the time or energy to take him out every single day and therfore desparate to get him to nap at home. Please HELP !! What am I doing wrong ?

Katty, if he'll nap in his pram, why don't you put him in there in a quiet/dark place in the house, rather than in his cot? That way he'll associate his pram with napping. Does he sleep OK at night? There was something on the news the other day about how babies who get more daylight sleep better at night, so perhaps if you have a garden you could wrap him up really warm, put him in his pram and put him outside the back door? Not such a workable idea in winter I know....

MY DS2 (now 7 months) also only naps for 30 mins at a time and is definitely worse at napping in his cot. He naps well in his buggy tho so I put him in there under the stairs. Still only half hour at a time but done 3 or 4 times a day, seems to work and he sleeps reasonably well (not perfect!)

DS1 was a textbook napper, 2.5 hours every afternoon until he was about 3, it was great! DS2 is having very similar routine but won't play ball, just goes to prove that not all babies are the same I suppose.

hello Katty -- when you say you and your husband 'spend hours trying to get him to take a nap', do you think it's possible that by rocking/cuddling/Baby M etc you are actually stimulating him, and keeping him awake? (my dd just got wound up by naptime cuddling when she was tired at the same age.)

what happens when you just put him down and leave him at naptime? have you tried this, to see if he can get past the overtiredness and fall asleep on his own? (or would his crying at this point put you off too much to try it, even if you knew he was well fed etc?)

my ds never napped in his cot and I didn't force the issue - mainly as I think it was better for him to associate night (long) sleeps with cot and shorter naps with pram/car/couch etc.
Thats also why I don't understand the logic of putting them in a dark room during the day - how do they know not to go for a long sleep as its dark/night?
During the summer I'd pop him in his pram when I thought he was getting tired and take the dog for a walk - he'd be asleep soon and then I'd leave him outdoors for his nap. Now I have to bring the pram back in and hope it doesn't wake him.
or go for a drive - in fact i'd do anything to get him to have a nap. He sleeps not too bad at night and has recently (in the past week) started to go for his naps in his cot - with the curtains opened.

Agree with bakedpotato about the rocking/cuddling thing - meant to say it before. This definitely winds my DS up and it's much better to put him down!

I may be horsewhipped for this but have you tried a dummy? I only use it when DS is tired and it does the trick. (DS1 didn't have one until he was 4 months old and it did calm him down, and he relinquished it with no probs at all at about 18m) If you're against dummies, what about some sort of comforter such as a favourite toy or blanket - something he will associate with sleep and is easy to replicate wherever you are.

Good luck!

DD1 only slept in 30 - 45 min stints until she was about 2 and vwent into a bed. But she always slept well at night.
DD2 is 15 wks and does the same! She sleeps in the pram in the dining room in the day, then basket at night. I agree that this helps them to know the difference. I put her in the pram when she starts to yawn, if she doesn't settle on her own, I might rock it a bit.
Have you ead Baby Whisperer? I found it good, also another one called Sleep, i think!

tracyk, i think one reason for putting a baby into a dark room for naps is that when they go into a light sleep cycle/surface slightly after 45 mins, as usually happens with small babies (my dd certainly followed this pattern), they're more likely to simply go back to sleep if there's no stimulation, ie if it's dark
i never felt bad about dd at the end of her long lunchtime nap, but i know lots of people have problems with this

whoops -- never felt bad about waking dd at the end of her long lunchtime nap

mine got tired very quickly at that age -- often within 1-2 hours of waking up. If I let them get overtired they were a nightmare to get to sleep. Try putting him to sleep a bit before you think he needs it, ie before he gets to the yawning and eye rubbing stage.

I also have a 5month old son, who was exactly the same- rubbing his eyes, wouldt settle for short day time naps and i didnt like the idea of controlled cryiny plus bcause i was breastfeeding he expected to be in my arms 24/7, but honestly katty 2 things ended up working for me- I used controlled crying in the end but went to him evry 5/10/15 mins gradually they appreciate that your there but the cot is where they are staying (first time it took me 3 hrs within a week he was going down by himself) but because he liked to explore with his hands - which often woke him- he has to be swaddled which works wonders, if he is fretting in his cot i take him out, swaddle him and put him back in- falls asleep straight away. Now he sleeps from 9pm - 7am plus 3hours during the day (broken into hours) i hope this helps.

I had a simlar problem when my dd was this age. My dd hated napping in her cot during the day and would not sleep for more than forty five minutes a day. (Which I found exhausting and so did she) Then, when she was ten months old I went back to work FT and employed a nanny. I have learnt so much from her and it may be helpful to you.

Firstly, she just let go of the idea of putting dd to sleep in a cot. She decided to let dd sleep in the hallway in her pram every day because that is where she was happiest. I was amazed but she started to sleep for 2 hours every lunch time and still does.(She's now fourteen months)The fact that she sleeps in her pram at lunch time is really useful too because it means at weekends me and dh are not chained to home and can go out for lunch. Our dd will sleep - other parents I know have been chained to the house at lunch time every day for two years. I now celebrate the fact that that is where she likes to sleep.

However, crucially, my nanny does not spend hours getting my dd to sleep but just leaves her be. I do think that it's easy to overstimulate babies at this point even when you have the best intentions. (Could baby Mozart and the attention of two of you actually be counter productive?)I have learnt that the best way to get dd to sleep at lunch time is to put her in her pram with nothing interesting in front of her and nothing interesting going on around her. With nothing to interest her it's a matter of minutes before she goes off.

I hope this helps - I do know what you are going through - I remember it well. Good Luck with whatever you decide to do

I completely understand what you're going through. When my little girl was your sons age, she would need sleep during the day but actually getting her to sleep was a different matter altogether! It would often take a walk or car ride to get her to sleep and she would fight it for as long as she possibly could.It often took longer to get her to sleep than she actually slept (always half an hour). When she was 5 months old, she needed about 5 naps per day, I was exhausted. All I can say is that as she's got older (nine months) she now only needs 2 naps per day and seems to be much easier to settle. Unless we go out, I keep her on my knee for her morning nap, when I do this, she'll usually sleep for an hour, I don't get much housework done but I do get a much needed rest! It may seem a long time away, but I'm sure it will get better. Good luck!