Tips for getting 5 month old to nap!!

[Newbiemum76]

Hi, maybe someone can help me?!
My little one is 5 months old on Monday - I think we’ve come out of the 4 month sleep regression at night as he is sleeping through most nights from around 8ish to 5/6am (we do occasionally have a bad night though)

However he is so hard to put to sleep throughout the day for naps! He will only nap if I rock him for ages while patting his bum - he will fall asleep in the car and in the pushchair when out and about but when we’re at home I’m struggling so much to get him to nap!

We have a bouncer which I used to bounce him to sleep in but he fights it so much now I can be bouncing him for ages and he just screams 😫when he does fall asleep (usually on me after rocking him) he wakes up when I put him down.

Any tips on how else I can get him to nap? Thank you in advance mumsnet!!

What is his routine? If he's sleep I better at night could he be not quite ready when you are trying to settle him?
Personally, at that at i focused on very mine down at the same Tom every time and worked on making sure they had one nice long nap at some point. Taking them out in the pram worked really well.for all 3 of mine. Then a few weeks down the line when their body really "expected" the nap at that time I moved back to popping them in their cots. No trouble with it then.

Have you tried the pushchair at home? Dark room, white noise and rock back and forth until asleep? This is what I've done with both my children. You can use a snoozeshade if you're worried about it being too light.

Mine naps in the pushchair in the garden. There’s no need to get him down to nap in his cot if it’s a fight, do what works! We do about 40/60 contact naps and pram naps with my 6mo. He has never in his life napped in the cot.

@TinyTeacher he usually wakes between 6-8, first nap around 10, second nap around 1 and another nap 4/5ish. But it depends when he wakes up as too when his naps are.

@Nightmanagerfan yes I’ve tried the pushchair at home, he won’t sleep in it, even if I continually rock it back and forth, only seems to sleep in it out and about 🤦🏼‍♀️

@GinnyBee a lot of his naps are contact naps at the moment - I don’t mind too much but it’s annoying when I’ve got other things to do haha

My lo is exactly the same with naps. We still don’t have the answer. She’s 4 months but one thing that does work for us a little better is letting her nap on our bed. So I will sit and rock her then get on my bed with her still in my arms so she’s gently lowered and she can still feel me around her. Then I remove my arms. If I feel she is waking up, I put her on her side on the bed and pat her back. Normally this will work. Does yours also take a dummy? That helps mine to soothe

Sounds like quite a late first nap, could he be struggling to settle due to over tiredness? At that age mine only did about 90 mins before first nap.

Personally, I've usually opted for whatever method necessary to get the timing right so they get used used used routine (so out in pram was commom), then switch to cot when their body clock is ised to the routine.