Is drowsy but awake just a lie?!

[WanaBeMillionaire]

I have a gorgeous little 6 month old girl who has just started to seem to want to extend her say time naps. Until now she's been a solid 30-40 minute every time with no hope of going back to sleep.. but recently she seems like she wants longer when she wakes up or has a half hour play and then shows tired cues again and will go back to sleep.

The problem is she solely relies on dummy & rocking to get to sleep & trying to put her down for naps is getting worse by the week. I used to be able to put her down after being around 10 mins asleep- now her eyes just ping open and there's no hope. As she's getting bigger the contact naps are getting harder, we're both uncomfortable, il going back to work soon etc I just feel now is the time to really stop this now but I'm at a loss of how!

I've tried this famous tired but awake, shushing,patting, white noise- nothing works. And the thing is she doesn't even cry when the eyes ping open, she will just happily lie there and play with her hands or bang the cot around for hours if i let her.

Please help!

For some babies yes. Mine didn't have the drowsy awake stage they could be put down in at all.

You need an extremely solid routine with a baby like this. She sounds adorable by the way.
what’s your routine currently?

We don't really have a nap routine, maybe this where I'm going wrong!
I'm trying to work on wake windows and her cues which is still about 4 naps a day currently most days- then have a little cuddle pop the dummy in and if I've timed it right the eyes will start to roll and off she goes... along as I don't move ha!

Is it possible that she doesn’t need 4 naps a day now and so she’s not actually tired enough for a longer nap? At that age I would have done approx a short morning nap about 30-40mins, followed by long lunchtime nap of 1.5 hours and then another short one in the afternoon. It took me a while to get that long nap sorted and I often had to re-settle a couple of times until they got used to having a longer nap at that time. Also 6 month is still young, I found it got much easier to put them down at 8-9 months, even if you don’t change anything.

Exactly as @Dal8257 says, her overall sleep needs are changing and she wants to consolidate her sleep.

Routine for 6 months:
7am wake and milk
8am porridge or toast fingers with banana, water
9.15-10am nap 1 (wake her up at 10)
11.30 lunch
12.30-2.30 nap 2
3pm milk
5pm supper
6pm bath
6.30pm milk and bed

Never worked for us either, and putting him down always failed for naps. Ended up just leaning into the contact naps, but appreciate this isn't possible for everyone.

Definitely think it's worth looking at naps, we'd dropped to 3 aroubd then and he needed to be away from a busy environment (previously would nap anywhere).

I would ideally go down to 3 naps, but with her only sleeping 25-40 max most of the time without a forth nap she just ends up too tired..

If by a miracle I can get her to sleep longer- we had one hour and a half last week after some resettling in the middle- then 3 naps could work but I just don't think she's there yet. Maybe she's just not developmentally ready at just 6 months this week?

Wake up is around 7-8am- and bedtime is 7- 7.30 most nights normally always alwep by 8ish. She doesn't wake in the night for feeds & were still on 5 bottles a day. For someone who thought I was quite organised pre baby finding a 'routine' that works fitting naps, bottles and starting solids in is honestly impossible ha!

Thanks for your comments everyone- its going to be a work in progress I think!

Yes, it's a lie for some children. I had one that would sleep anywhere under any circumstances. Drowsy but awake was no problem. My other son wouldn't be put down - not even if he was already asleep. He has never in his life been drowsy. He's 8 now and still struggles with going to sleep. He would say he's never in his whole life been tired 😂

People who haven't had a non-sleeper don't believe it and will tell you it's your fault, but it's not. It's just how they're made.