5 month old fighting every nap - help?!

[Penellodix]

Sorry in advance for the long post!

For the past month or so my almost 6mo DD will scream and fight every nap time. We were working on moving towards more naps in her cot (which she was doing fairly consistently) but contact naps were usually a fail-safe (and I quite liked them too!). Then all of a sudden it all went wrong. Now, no matter what we do, she will not settle for sleep without getting insanely worked up first. If I try rocking her she will cry, arch backwards and writhe around in my arms. If I put her in her cot she will flip onto her front, spit her dummy out and scream. If I bf her she will start to drift off and then pull off to scream and start to writhe again. At first my husband could get her to sleep much easier than I could but now she won't sleep for anything and will only give in once she's screamed herself hoarse, crying herself to sleep in our arms after a long battle.

it's like she's really angry that she's tired and has to stop for a nap. She is obviously sleepy and once she is out, she'll stay down for a good hour or so, sometimes longer. She will go to sleep without fuss in the car, carrier or pram but they will only be short naps and sometimes it just isn't practical.

At bedtime, we will do our routine, feed and cuddle, then she'll go into her cot and drift off without a peep (then she is up every 2-3 hours to feed but ... one problem at a time!)

I hate that she has to get so worked up before she falls asleep. Does anybody have any advice/experience with this? Is it something we have to just ride out? She's usually such a happy little girl, it breaks my heart to see her so distressed and I'm worried about what all this stress and lack of sleep is doing to her little brain.

TIA.

she will cry, arch backwards and writhe around in my arms

All that writhing around is overtiredness 101. Flapping around, arching back, head going side to side, seeming furious - all that means: "I'm now too tired to get to sleep! WHY THE FUCK DIDNT YOU GET ME TO SLEEP AN HOUR AGO. I feel awful now and I'm so tired but can't get to sleep! Do something!".

This will be a timing issue. Baby likely needed to be asleep at least an hour earlier than your trying. You probably need to review your routine. What is babys usual nap and feeds routine?

She usually wakes up for the day between 7 and 8 and I breastfeed on demand, usually straight after she wakes up (and then again in desperation if she won't sleep), generally every 2-3 hours day and night.

She still has quite short wake windows and starts to look sleepy about an hour and a half after she wakes up. I try to "wind down" the best we can as soon as her sleepy cues appear or when its getting close to nap time (her cues arent always obvious so we also use huckleberry sweetspot which was always pretty dead on before).

I have no doubt she's overtired after an hour of desperate crying and fighting but if I try and put her down any earlier she'll not spend any time awake! For reference, if she goes into the buggy/car at her usual naptime she'll calmly drift off to sleep in about 15 mins.

I'd suggest that 90 minutes awake time is long for the age. It does depend on how long baby naps for tho.

A decent approximation for awake time is double previous nap length. So if you're getting 45 min naps, 90 min wake window is fine. If the nap is 30 mins, drop wake window to 60 mins. That means asleep 60 minutes after waking, so starting getting baby to sleep 45 mins after waking.

There's also the process of helping baby learning to still their body to relax in order to sleep. Things like tightly tucked in sheets help with this. Also, laying your hands firmly but gently on babys chest and thighs to help stay still. Keep putting the dummy back in to encourage active sucking (because you cant cry whilst sucking). Stay close and stay still and quiet yourself to promote relaxation.