DS is 5 months next week. For the past 3+ weeks, he has been fighting sleep SO HARD! First I thought it was the 4 month sleep regression, but we have gone from waking up every hour at night to only two wake ups at around 12-1 am and 3-4 am (I feel like I'm cursing myself by writing that!), so I'm assuming our sleep regression is over.

However, DS screams and cries for 30-60minutes for naps and bedtime. We have a consistent nap and bedtime routine. We take him upstairs as soon as he starts yawning for naps. I nurse him or DH feeds him a bottle, because we had been nursing to sleep, but 3/4 of the time he will stop eating and start screaming and crying. Bouncing, swaying, rocking, walking and shushing ensue until he cries himself to sleep. The only other option is waiting until he is super super tired (really, overtired) and then he will just fall asleep eating because he can't fight it anymore. Naps are usually only 30 minutes. But at night I'll see him on the monitor wake up and stir and go back to sleep.

I feel like our only option at this point in cry it out. It seems like if he's going to cry that long anyway, might as well be to learn to put himself to sleep. But not sure if that will work. And "drowsy but awake" does NOT work. He will start screaming at some point, never falls asleep on his own! He also doesn't take a pacifier anymore (that used to soothe him from drowsy to sleep, but he's caught on and refuses it, screams harder). What should I do? I didn't want to do CIO but I can't take the incessant screaming for so long every sleep time!

PS: if I co-sleep or let him sleep in my bed for naps, it's not as long but he still fights. But he'll usually fall asleep nursing more often and more quickly. Don't know if that makes a difference.