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When my baby was 3 1/2 months he started crying wildly
before naps. I would say it was closer to continuous screaming. I tried all
sorts of solutions apart from leaving him to cry it out (singing, introducing a
lovey, patting, holding him, dark rooms, earlier nap times, later nap times,
laying of hands, feeding, dummy etc). I had some success with vigourous
rocking/bouncing (not just your average holding/rocking). I was also able to
take him in the car and buggy to get him to sleep.

I hoped that it was a phase and he would grow out of it.

He is now 6 1/2 months and nothing has changed apart from
the fact that my original solutions are not working as well. The
rocking/bouncing, car and buggy are no longer guaranteed to work. I can usually
get one of them to work each time but everytime he naps is a challenge, trying
to work out what will help this time before he gets in a state. I have added
breastfeeding him to my toolkit and again, this has some success but is not
guaranteed. I have also tried up to 20 minutes of letting him CIO but the
crying was persistent and seemed endless.

The problem is I am TIRED of it. He still needs at least 3
naps a day which I time as roughly every 2 hours from waking as this is when he
starts to get grouchy. If he wakes early in the morning this can sometimes be 4
naps. From my reading, this seems like plenty of naps for a baby his age so I
don't think he is getting over-tired. He naps for between 30 mins and 2 hours
each time. No pattern.

(As an aside, I feed him or rock him to sleep at night
without much fuss. He doesn't sleep well in the night at the moment. Since
reaching 6 months and starting weaning, he has been waking every 1-3 hours.
However, he was fine before this, only waking once or twice for short night
feeds and dropping off again. I don't think this is related to the napping).

Can anyone help? Should I start to let him CIO? I don't
think controlled crying would work as he seems to get little comfort from me
returning to the room periodically or sssh patting, just screams louder. I
don't want to CIO if I don't have to as the thought of 3 days – week of hours
and hours of crying stresses me out. Wish I could see in the future so I know
whether to take drastic action now or whether he will just grow out of it. Any
other thoughts?