5 month old settling to sleep issues

[HiMum2boys]

My 5 month old has generally always gone to sleep either being rocked, patted or breast fed - sometimes he'll transfer to his cot and stay asleep but most of the time he'll wake up and I'll have to hold him for the rest of his nap. I haven't minded massively up to now as he is my last baby and I'm enjoying the cuddles but It's starting to affect my toddler as I can't use nap times to play with him and he's always asking me to put the baby down which breaks my heart. I also feed like i need to start having some time to myself during the day and evening rather than constantly being nap trapped. Hello shower!

He generally sleeps well at night - when he goes to bed (anytime between 7pm-10pm) he sleeps 6 hours, wakes for a feed and then will go back to sleep until the morning, so I know he can self settle overnight but he will not do it to go down for his nap/ sleep.

We've tried in room settling and quick checks methods but both he just screams and screams. Tonight it has taken me 2 hours to get him to sleep as he got so upset I then couldn't even rock or feed him to sleep.

No judgements on sleep training please. I love my little one with all my heart and hate for him to be upset but I can't carry on the way we are. Does anyone have any advise on how we can achieve him going to sleep in his cot as gently as possible?

I'd like to know the answer to this too! A friend told me she just kept trying to put the baby in the cot for naps and one day it just worked. I think that was around 8 months though.

Out of interest, how did you get on with this with your toddler? Did they nap more easily or did you just accept being nap trapped?

It was a bit of a mixture with toddler. We definitely had lots of contact naps but as far as i remember he would settle for naps whenever I put him down. I remember just putting him in his moses basket around the end of his wake window and he would just settle himself, if he did get upset I'd sing to him and he would doze off that way.

We did a bit of sleep training for night time sleep though - we did have tears but it didn't last long!

They have very different temperaments!

Being able to just put them down for a nap awake sounds like an unimaginable dream to me! Thanks, I find it comforting to hear stories of siblings responding differently to the same parenting as it makes me feel less like it's just me doing it all wrong.

we started with settling in the cot rather than transferring when asleep. so patting/sshing etc whilst in the cot until asleep. then just reduced and reduced what we were doing until we put DS down and then just left to see what would happen and he put himself to sleep within 10 mins. it was quite a long and gradual process. we would also go in when he stirred at 30 mins to resettle him to extend the nap, and this was even finishing the nap as contact before we could resettle in the cot. then around 5.5 months he started lengthening naps on his own and connecting sleep cycles.