I cannot emotionally/mentally handle CIO.
I am glad to hear that. We are very much against CIO and CC here:
Research on why 'cry it out' and 'controlled crying' is NOT recommended! Cry it out (CIO): 10 reasons why it is not for usAre there any signs of discomfort? Reflux?
The way I see it there are a few issues: there is that he is not falling asleep interdependently, his A times are not consistent and he short naps. This is all, IMO, interconnected.
If you look at the last sample on this page:
chronological EASY samples, 4-6 months you'd see that your first A time is pretty much age appropriate, but could be slightly too high for him if he accumulated OT. What I would do if it was me (and it was me a year and a half ago
) I would try and work out the right A for him - I would do this by reducing the A to 2:45h and stick to that A no matter what. This is a slightly short A for his age, so we are going to offer him an opportunity to sleep more if he can (if he is OT then most likely he won't manage) and if we will see he is giving us UT naps then we can up it again to 3h A time. But that means this is your A time throughout the day. If you are getting a short nap and you think he is very tired and can't manage 2:45h A time then you can shorten it to 2:30h, but not shorter than that.
After doing the new A time for three days we can revisit it again. Perhaps naps will get better or will be UT (between 45min and 1:20h) and we will increase A again. If naps will still be 30min then it could be that he has a problem transitioning through the sleep cycles by himself. In that case we would work on A times and helping him sleep through a nap with HTTJ (hold through the jolts). You can read about it more here:
How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods) (and this the link as well about W2S if you want to give it another try, it usually takes about a week to work).
The last thing is about him sleeping independently. Is this something you want to work on? I am asking because this is a commitment and perhaps you prefer trying on A times and HTTJ first and only then do sleep training.
Sleep training is not going to work in a day or two. I am almost certain you will see an improvement after a couple of days but it might take a while for him to be an independent sleeper. You see, he has always been swayed and when you'll start and do things differently you are almost definitely going to meet some resistance.
If you do decide to tackle the swaying prop then I think PU/PD is your way to go and the PU/PD board there is plenty of info:
FAQ's - Frequently Asked Questions & Related InformationIf you have Tracey's books there is also lots of info there. If he does have Reflux, then PU/PD is not an option and we can think of a different way.
I hope that helps for now, I am sure it's a lot to think about. If you have more questions, I am here and of course you can keep on posting your routines when you are tweaking A times
.