"fighting" sleep

[Tannis]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and looking for help with my 6 month old son. He has always done what I call "fighting" going to sleep. Before every nap and at night, he screams and cries and if I don't swaddle him he hits himself (and me) and arches his back and writhes around etc. It makes me feel horrible. Sometimes I hold and rock him.... I know, bad prop, and sometimes I lay him down on my bed, but he always gets loose and then really loses it. And after about anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes he falls asleep. I hate this, though, and am about losing my mind after trying so many things.
He is on a fairly regular schedule, he actually sleeps a lot. He gets up about 6:30 - 7 and then naps at 9 until about 10:30-11. Then naps again at 1 for about 2 hours and then has a cat nap at 5 or 6 and bath, bottle at 8, bed at 8:30. He is also not a good sleeper at night yet, still waking every 4 hours. I've started him on solids to see if that helps as he is a big boy at about 18 1/2 lbs.
Any advice??
Thanks so much,
Tannis

[Katet]

Had to laugh... he's not a big boy... my 3.5mo weighs that.

Sounds like he is actually overtired/overstimulated (back arching is a sign of needing to unwind) when he goes down for a nap do you have a good wind-down, I would spend the last 20-30mins before nap doing quiet things... walk around the house/ reading stories/calm singing, NO TV or in his face toys etc. I think that should help calm him down

BTW his sleep amounts sound exactly what my ds#1 did at that age
HTH

[Tannis]

Thanks for responding, By the by, Liam has my birthday!
I have tried singing to him, but it's usually after I've already swaddled him and he's rejecting the naptime. Maybe I should try reading to him while we're still in the living room?
What about stopping the swaddling? He just flails around, but isn't 6 months kinda old to still be doing that? I think he's a mix of touchy and spirited and quite alert so he doesn't want to miss out on anything. You could be right about the overstimulated. Hmmm.... this is so confusing. Thanks again for writing.

[GraysonsMommy]

I am nowhere near a pro at this, and my lo is only 3.5 months old, but he is also very spirited and we just took away his binky, which made things even worse.  We have found that he goes down much better when we keep his days low key.  I am noticing a trend when we do anything overstimulating (and to each child that will be different).  We went to a retirement party for just a few hours one day, putting him down for naps and bedtime were hard that day.  The next day, I kept things light and stayed home with him, he went down great and slept well.  It may just be a matter of getting him used to going down easily and then you can start charging things back up a bit.  Try putting him down a little earlier too, that might help, if he is overtired.  Have you ever tried taking a slow walk with him about an hour before he is to go down?  We did that last night, then gave him a bath, his bottle and bed.  It was the first time he didn't wake before his DF.  We are going to try it again tonight, hoping that was the trick.

[Tannis]

Hmmm, maybe I'll try the walk about, it's getting harder the bigger he gets.    Let me know how it goes again tonight. My little guy is also cutting teeth and getting on to solids, so it's a trying time at the best. Thanks for responding, I'm going to give it a try. Did you walk about swaddled or did you just let him look and move around??