Napping and sleep training

Hello everyone,


I have a 5 month old. He was on no routine first 3 months and then magically started the Gina Ford routine (not sleep training) kind of by himself.


For sleep training, we first tried Elizabeth Pantley, then tried Baby Whisperer and was at my wits end till I read Dana Obleman, Sleep sense manual. I guess it is similar to CIO method but probably more compassionately written and gives you more options as what to do in various situations. But clearly it doesn't cover this problem I am facing now! We were so excited at how fast we got results- we were able to put him down with about 2 min of whining within 4-5 days for his bedtime. For his naps, crying/ whining/playing would vary between 0-15min


I really do not want to be a slave to "the routine" but I find myself becoming one. I have to rush back home to put him down for a nap because he won't sleep otherwise and it can throw off his entire day off. Like tonight! We were out for lunch and he just could not settle himself. He doesn't like the pacifier:( He cried/ whined entire lunch, then slept in the baby bjorn for 1/2 hour. Took his 4:30-5 nap as usual, had his bedtime routine. We put him down a little earlier as he was showing all signs of tiredness but he cried for an entire hour. This is really stressful to have him crying like the first night. We also have a holiday coming up where his "routine" is bound to get disturbed.


My questions are- how do you help them to sleep anywhere during the day? I would really like to go out for lunches/ outings with the baby. When I go out for a quiet country park walk when the day is beautiful, and if it gets close to his nap time- he whines and whines and whines till finally he drops off. Its really frustrating to listen to, probably is very upsetting for him too which is why he is whining and I really want to do something about it. And does one have to keep retraining them to settle on their own anytime there is any change?

Some babies are more flexible than others -- yours may be quite routine dependent. That being said, try to incorporate as many of the normal naptime cues as possible even when you are out. For instance, if he normally sleeps in a dim room with a stuffed cat [my 7mo], if you will be out with him, let him sit up in his stroller until naptime approaches, then lay it back flat, use a blanket to make it a bit darker, and don't forget the cat. Try to figure out what in his bed environment signals "okay, this is where I sleep" and reproduce it when you are out.

Thanks Z. We have a couple of key words which we hoped would work, I will get his stuffed toy along now. The baby likes to sleep on his tummy normally, being out and about changes that part of the equation too. I will try again perhaps in a park when the pressure on both of us is not much ie social situation in a restaurant. For his bedtime, today there was no crying at all! We put him half hour past his usual bedtime. If it were only easy to figure things like this out! And the moment we have, we are leaving on a holiday.......

Another thing that you might want to do is to make it part of his routine to have one of his naps out -- did this with my daughter when she was wee and it made both of our lives much much better. Of course, she is STILL [2y 5mo] very easily knocked off kilter when we deviate from her routine -- so when we go away, we try to keep things as much the same as possible. The good thing about babies in the 5 month range is that you can generally put them onto a new routine within a week if you are willing to be quite strict about it.