6 month old contact napping

[IssyFleur]

Hi, looking for some advice. My 6 month old generally is only able to nap in the day if she contact naps. I also still feed her to sleep. If I try and transfer her to her cot she will sleep for maybe 5-10 mins max or wake up immediately. She can sleep in her car seat or her pram.

I do love having a cuddle but I am finding it very hard to get things done during the day. In addition, her night sleep has also become extremely difficult. The longest stretches we'll get are 2-3 hours at the beginning of the night and then she'll wake up hourly or more. She becomes increasingly hard to settle in the crib as the night goes on but will instantly sleep on me. I'm worried the contact napping and preference for sleeping in arms at night are linked and I'm making things worse!

I guess I had naively expected things to get a little easier sleep wise at the 6 month mark and feel worried that I've done something wrong. I think maybe part of the problem is that she isn't able to self settle but if I try to put her down awake but drowsy she gets upset. We're moving house in a month and it feels super overwhelming alongside the sleep deprivation and very limited time to do anything during the day. Any tips or advice very welcome. Thanks.

We contact napped exclusively until around 13 months, had a few months where I managed to get her to nap in the crib then switched to a toddler bed and she quickly refused to nap there, since then it’s mainly been in the car or pram. It is tough. She slept fine at night though so I don’t think the contact napping was connected to that.

My boys both napped on me until they stopped napping about age 3.5. They both slept well at night so don’t think the two are linked. I loved the afternoon nap as it made me sit down and have a rest too rather than doing jobs.

My 6 month old started doing the same thing at night a few weeks ago so I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong! I’m thinking it must be developmental or some sort of regression or something 🤷🏻‍♀️
Hourly wakes and as soon as I pick him up he’s settled again.
Hope it passes for us both soon 😴

My baby is 8 months and always contact napped because he would wake when put down and scream. He was similar at night and got to the stage where he would wake between every 20 mins-1 hour after his initial couple of hours in cot. I would nod off breastfeeding. At 7 months I started bringing him in to our bed at his first wake and it has been life changing. We get way more sleep and I’ve found my mental health a lot better. I was quite opposed to bed sharing but now I wish I had done it sooner. I can also now sometimes transfer him to pram and he will stay asleep so it is getting better.