Hiya, I'm hoping someone can help with this cos I'm at the end of my tether...

DD is almost 4 months old and until about 2 weeks ago, she naturally did the feed-play-sleep thing during the day and same at night without the play. Brilliant, couldn't ask for better. I had to either feed or walk her to sleep (in HAB) though, but didn't mind cos I was happy to feed her to sleep and DH happy to walk her to sleep.

Now, she doesn't sleep as much during the day (3 x 30min catnaps), and it's really hard to get her down. She doesn't fall asleep feeding or walking. Sometimes takes 2 hours to get her to sleep for 30mins. So by 6pm, she's absolutely wretched, and inconsolable. Nothing we do seems to help. It seems she really just needs to cry it out (in our arms) and then eventually falls asleep.

I'm so confused by it all, I'm not even sure what to ask...

Maybe:

1) Does the feed-play-sleep thing make sense to everyone? I'm starting to think play-feed-sleep makes more sense. I mean, I'm always sleepy after a big lunch! Are there any negatives to doing play-feed-sleep? Has anyone tried it? Cos at the moment we're doing feed-play-feed-cry-catnap, repeat.

2) How can I get DD to sleep longer? Feeding, walking, rocking, patting, music, wrapping don't always work.

3) I'm sure I have something else to ask... if anyone can help me to fix this, I'll be grateful for ever. I just want her to not have to cry to sleep. She's so adorable when she's happy.

The great thing is that she feeds to sleep at night. I am so sooo so grateful for that.

PS These are the settling things I've tried, all while wrapped and with music:

feeding
feeding lying down
patting with dummy
walking and singing