From 4 naps to no naps at 5 months

[bunnyfrance]

Help! Up until a week ago, my DS (21 weeks)used to have 3 or 4 regular naps a day of an hour or so, every 2 hours. I could put him down awake as soon as I saw his tired signs (rubbing eyes, yawning) and he'd self-settle without a murmur.

All of a sudden, practically overnight, this has changed - he can no longer self-settle and will only nap in the car (waking up again as soon as we get to our destination) He will sometimes feed to sleep if really exhausted. I've tried rocking, pick-up put-down (he just gets more hysterical) and leaving him to cry - nothing seems to work. He will self-settle after night feeds (he normally has one or two).

I would just go with the flow and drive him around in the car, but I'm going back to work in 6 weeks and am worried about how the childminder is going to cope.

Does anyone else have experience of this? Is it just a phase??

teeth!
try putting him down for his first nap, an hour or so later than usual?

Hmmm, yes, I had thought of teeth - he cut his first two about 10 days ago...you might have a point there, thanks!

neurofen then

bunnyfrance - same dilemma here (incl childminder). DD is 17 weeks old. So worried about her screaming the place down every time she feels tired and even more worried about childcare arrangements. If you find anything that works, please let me know. Will try nurofen as well.

Hi mylittlefidget - I've had a bit more success today. DS had a 45 minute nap in his cot at lunchtime after only a few minutes of rocking. I think closing the shutters completely so that he was in total darkness helped (after 4 months they're so easily distracted and don't want to sleep and miss out on the fun?) He also had two 20 minute naps on my lap after a feed...and that was it for the day.

I gave him paracetamol on Friday night and we had our worst night ever (constant feeding), so don't think it helped!