Nap help. Please

[Lottie2488]

Hello,
This is my first time posting but I'm really pleased to have found this forum. I'm a ftm and after a rocky start (didn't have a clue what to do) I'm trying to teach my ds to become and independent sleeper. My ds has every bad sleep association in the book (held to sleep, dummy, feed to sleep). I have gone back to basics and am trying to put him to sleep drowsy in the crib. This works well when I put him down for naps at first but he cannot transition from one sleep cycle to the next. I am currently trying to leave him when he wakes for a few minutes to see if he settles (his crying escalates quickly). I then try and shhh in the crib to calm him. This rarely works. Finally I try pu/pd with shh. I always put him down drowsy but it takes a while (3-8 attempts) before this works
He's a spirited/grumpy baby and is 4months old. Am I doing this right? It still seems a struggle even after 2 weeks of trying. Any advice would be much appreciated. I'm slowly loosing the plot.

[deb]

Spirited ones especially find lots of things overstimulating, and Spirited/Grumpy is an interesting mix too!

When you try to help him transition between sleep cycles, are you there when he stirs - probably about 45 minutes in - or do you wait for him to get fussy? We had success with re-inserting pacifier/dummy the moment ours spit it out between sleep cycles so she never really woke fully and settled back down (she was Touchy). We had to avoid eye contact and be there BEFORE she stirred, but she was predictable as clockwork with the 45 minutes so we'd go in around 40 minutes, wait for it, re-insert without even looking, before she even opened her eyes, and then sneak out again once she resettled a couple minutes later.

[Lottie2488]

Thanks for your reply deb.
I have tried w2s a few times but ds is not always predictable with timings. I think I'll have to observe more to look for stirring cues. He was so OT this evening (he has roughly 2h of nap time in total) he was a nightmare to settle to sleep. It took around 2h.
Last nap 3:15 - 3-50
Tried to resettle but no luck
BT routine started at 5:30
BT 6pm
He slept for 45 mins then woke up.
Tried to settle with pu/pd
Eventually settled with a feed at 7:50
Asleep at 8:30

[Katet]

My first was/is a spirited Grumpy. From experience, joining sleep cycles is not easy & my DS1 definitely didn't fall back asleep if he got the slightest upset. He pretty much needed to be soothed back with a gentle stroke of his head over his eyes.

I found with DS1 he needed shorter than average A times as he took so much of the world in, that the became exhausted (the plus side was when he got older he was & still is very observant)

I do think too with grumpy spirited, you 100% have to parent the child you have & not clock watch, you have to look at what they are showing & not time naps based on a textbook timing. My DS1 at 11mo would crawl to the daycare sleep room & sit by the door to say "nap NOW" & they'd ring & check if it was ok as it wasn't the normal nap time.

[Lottie2488]

Thanks Katet,

I struggle to get him down doing shorter A but perhaps I can try a longer wind down to see if it gets him calmed before naptime. I know he's only young (4m) but I want to try and get him on track now so that it's not too tricky in the future.