Sleep problems in 5 month old - Infant Care (up to 18 months old) Message Board

WhiskersOnKittens · 10-11-2007, 10:34 PM

Hi everyone,

For awhile now my ds has been having problems going to sleep. He sleeps in his crib for his naps, and at night time, and has been since he was 3 months old (he's now 5 months). He did just fine with that until about 4 or 6 weeks ago. Now, 1 out of every 6 or 7 times, he will cry and scream and throw a huge fit when it is time to take a nap (which he does 2 or 3 times a day, depending on their lengths), or go to bed for the night. It doesn't matter what I do with him--I can try just about anything to get him to sleep and I almost always just end up letting him CIO, which I'm not crazy about. So I've been doing research and decided to really stick to a bedtime routine (story, bottle, then bed--if he cries, go in and check on him--rub his back, then leave--every 5 minutes until he's asleep), but my question is this: how do I get him to sleep at his nap times? I'm hoping that after a few nights of following this routine he'll be able to go to sleep at bedtime (which will help me keep my sanity), but do I need to develop a whole different routine for naps, or do the story, bottle and bed for naps as well?

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Any advice, ideas, etc. will be appreciated!

Whiskers

kdel · 10-12-2007, 04:18 AM

I wouldn't do the same thing at night as you do for naps because eventually you want your baby to be able to tell the difference between the two.
Have you tried playing some soft music at nap time? daytime is noisier in general even if you are quiet and it may help drown out some noise or just be soothing. Beware the lullaby music-some babies love it but some like my son did not and after several attempts and noticing that he enjoyed the radio I put an eagles cd in his cd player in his room and guess what ? It was like magic! He loved that cd and it was the only one that would calm him and to this day (he's 5 now) he will recognize an eagles song on the radio and still has the cd and plays it himself now. So don't be afraid to step outside the box!

sem627 · 10-12-2007, 06:12 AM

How many naps is he taking? Perhaps he's ready to drop a nap if he's taking more than two.

WhiskersOnKittens · 10-12-2007, 12:35 PM

I will give the music a shot, thanks for that idea!
For the longest time, he would sleep from about 9pm-9am (and wake up 3 times during those hours at 12am, 4am and 7am--sometimes only twice at about 12am and 6am), and then take 2 longer naps during the day at about noon for a couple of hours, and then again at about 5 for a couple of hours, and then go to bed again at 9. But for the past week or so, he's changed his sleep patterns yet again and now he's waking up at least 3 times a night, and is more tired now during the day. He's been wanting to nap at around 11am and will only sleep for an hour or so, then he wants to nap again around 2 or 3, and take another hour or so, then again around 6. So as you can see, this is much less convienient for me, and he doesn't seem as well rested as he was before. I'm not sure if he might be teething again (when he got his 2 bottom teeth in, his sleep really got messed up as well), and maybe that's why he's not sleeping as well, or what.... ?

Whiskers