Suddenly no naps! 5 months old

[KaliShanti]

Hi everyone. My five month old has just started fighting naps for the past week. She has also just learned to roll over, which I know can disrupt sleep, but has gone from 2-3 two hour naps a day to NO naps. She will fall asleep nursing then wake right up when I put her in bed. We stopped swaddling for naps (not night) because she was rolling over in her swaddle, plus the swaddle wasn't helping her stay asleep anyway. She will not take a pacifier. She sleeps in a dark room with a noise maker.

I tried five times yesterday and today to nap her and tried the PUPD method and she just cried every time. How long is it acceptable for her to cry (I mean, not once I put her down as I picked her right back up, I mean how long to try PUPD before giving up? I homeschool two older kids and have a two year old... I've felt so bad neglecting them this week to fight naptime.. Plus with a small house, it's hard to keep the noise level down. I am at my wits end.

She also has started waking up at night once when before she'd sleep 10 hours. Now she wakes at 5am, sometimes she will be back down in twenty minutes, other times, it's 1-2 hours! 

I know it's only been about nine days since she started this but it's awful.

[Martini~]

Can you post your EAS routine? It may help to answer your questions.
Is she an independent sleeper? Do you feed her to sleep?

[KaliShanti]

I do nurse her to sleep.  I guess I never had an issue doing this with the older kids because they'd nurse some, get sleepy,mid give them a pacifier and they go to sleep happily in their crib. She can't take a paci and squirms and cries with removed from the breast before dead asleep. At 5.5 months, should I stop the swaddle for naps and do a shhh pat?

[KaliShanti]

Ok, she slept from 9PM - 8AM last night without waking swaddled (she had been doing that for maybe two months but just the past two weeks been waking once to eat around 5am... Maybe was growth spurt now over? Or wonder weeks?)

I fed her at 8. When should I try to put her for nap? At 10 or is that too early?

[Mom-of-boys]

The average awake time for 5 months is 2-2.5 hours, I think.  If you suspect she needs more sleep typically, I'd go around 2 hrs.  If you think she typically needs less sleep, try for closer to 2.5.  Usually if LOs wake up after 45 minutes, they are UT, so if that happens, maybe you could try for a longer A time tomorrow.

[KaliShanti]

Today, I did a modified routine

E: 8am
A: 8:40
S: 10:05 started rubbing eyes and fussing. Change, cotton swaddle at 10:10, lullaby in dark room with white noise, nursed for 3-4 minutes, crib still awake but very drowsey, shhh pat, laid on side. After shh pat for about 5 minutes, she was totally sltill. Walked out of room: 10:20!


Still asleep at 11:20!! After two weeks in no naps, I am SO thrilled!!!

[weaver]

Good job all round!

[KaliShanti]

E: 11:40am
A: 12:10pm
S: all of the above (shh/pat, lullaby, swaddle... but took then cried frantically in the crib during more shh/zoster so picked her up, 4 more mins of more nursing). Sleep at 1:50pm

How do I drop the nursing to sleep? It's such a strong association, and I think it's sweet. Do in really need to do it as long as the nursing doesn't take a long time (under ten mins) and she really stays down? And maybe should I have waited a little longer to try to put to bed, maybe that's why she fought me?

Also, her naps havnt been much longer than an hour. Shouldn't they be longer if her bedtime is between 8:30-9pm? Or should I try to move the bedtime earlier? I just do not want her waking in the morning before eight. We are a homeschooling late rising household.

[weaver]

? I just do not want her waking in the morning before eight.

Generally we're talking about a 12 hour day so 8-8(ish) is perfectly fine.  How much longer than an hour have her naps been?  Over an hour doesn't really sounds like a short nap to me (I'm thinking more of 20, 30 or 40 mins).  If she's happy after an hour plus of sleep then I would just assume that's her natural rhythm. If she's late 5 mos she may be working towards dropping the catnap, and the remaining two daytime nap may well lengthen again when that is gone. 

As for feeding to sleep, well, it's up to you what to do.  If it's a problem for you, then you might want to drop it.  An easy way to work towards dropping it is to make sure she is rousing a bit before going into the cot/crib, so not asleep on the breast as such.  The recommendation round here is that you feed after waking up and not before sleep, to avoid a feeding to sleep association which can be a problem if baby can't make it through the sleep cycles without feeding, or is waking many many times a night in order to feed back to sleep.  This might help:
Gradual Weaning Process (Recommended for young infant)

I used feeding to sleep as my 'secret weapon', when all else failed I knew I had a way of getting LOs to sleep, but it definitely wasn't every nap or even every day.  So it's useful as long as it's on your terms

[KaliShanti]

She took two naps yesterday, they were  about 1 hr 10 mins. She went to bed at 8:30 and I'm feeding her now briefly at 5:50. She will hopefully go back to bed in a minute. I don't mind nursing her for a few mins before bed, I just don't want it to take long and I'd like to be able to put her in crib drowsey but awake instead of dead asleep. I nursed all the other kids before bed until they weaned slightly before age two.

[weaver]

I'd like to be able to put her in crib drowsey but awake instead of dead asleep.

Just work on that gently then.  Do what you feel is right for you.

1hr 10 mins sounds fine.  An average sleep cycle is 40 mins, but they can be shorter depending on the individual, so it sounds like she's doing two sleep cycles and waking up. 

Oh yeah and a WU for a quick feed around 5-6 am is also standard at this age.  I found if I treated it as a night feed then we all got to go back to bed with minimal fuss.

Sounds like everything is tickety-boo!