Hi M., If you don't mind some old school advice, let me share how i did things. First let me tell you that my kids are 26 (son) 23 next month (son) and a 20 year old (daughter)
being a mother was and still is my greatest joy. I personally never believed and still don't that a baby should have to put themselves asleep (just an opinion) I always rocked and sang my baby's to sleep, for night time and nap time, holding and rocking my baby's are some of my most treasured memories from when they were baby's, I just couldn't see laying an awake baby in the bassenet or crib to fall a sleep on their own. My baby's always always fell asleep feeling safe, secure and loved, because they feel asleep in the security of my arms and with the sound of my voice, I think this is one of the reasons my baby's slept through the night at 6 weeks old. I also started giving them rice cereal at bed time, baby's sleep better with a full tummy. My mom, a mother of 5 gave me that advice. Your baby at 5 months very well can be teething, here's where you get in between a rock and a hard place, because if your baby is in discomfort, you want to comfort them, but at the same time if you start going to them when they are supossed to be sleeping, they start to rely on that and it becomes a very bad habit, for some reason teething bothers baby's more at night than any other time, I believe because they are still it's quiet around them, where as during the day, they have the sounds of life going on around them, TV, talking every day stuff, so they don't notice it as much. Breast feed baby's don't usually sleep as well as bottled fed baby's, I have got that from almost everyone of my daycare parents of new babys,so no one blast me for saying that. They breast fed for 6 weeks only cause they had to go back to work and can't be up all hours of the night, and they all told me when stoped breast feeding their baby's slept through the night. I never breast feed my baby's for MANY reasons, and I never had sleepless nights with my baby's. Another thing I did, I have a fish aquarium in my baby's/childrens rooms, had a blue light in the aquarium which served as a night light s well, the blue light and the movement of the fish and water was very relaxing so if they did wake up. I believe that helped them fall back a sleep. This is old school I know, but I never had any, and I mean any of the sleep, behavior, issues that the moms write into mamaaource about. There were no such thing as the CIO cry it out method, that I ever heard of, myself nor any of my friends used pacifires, I knew no one at that time who breast fed, there was no such thing as co sleeping, swaddling I never heard of back then, all these things are being used and done now, but the mom's today seem more stressed and more frustrated than I or my friends ever were. When I was a young mom, I got advice from my mother and grandmother, not others moms who had no more experience than I had, but today that's even different. take my advice for what it's worth, and enjoy being a mom, it goes fast, and then their grown, and everything you say and do, will determin what kind of people they will be when they are grown. J.