How do you do naps?

[cookietime]

I'm a lurker and first-time mom of a 5-month old, and I have NO idea what I'm doing when it comes to naps. She sleeps pretty well at night - sleeps in her crib, goes down fairly easily with nursing (though sometimes she fusses and needs to be soothed a few more times before she stays asleep), usually wakes up once a night to eat and goes back to sleep while nursing. She gets 11-12 hours of sleep most nights.

But naps totally suck. I rock and sing to get her to fall asleep, and sometimes I can get her in the crib, but she won't sleep in the crib for very long during the day (30 minutes max, more likely 10 minutes), and more often than not I end up letting her sleep on me in the rocking chair or on the couch. By later in the afternoon I'm usually sick of her fighting and screaming at me while I try to get her to sleep, so I take her out somewhere in the hopes she'll fall asleep in the car (sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't).

I know some of what I'm doing wrong. I'm not as consistent with naps as we are with bedtime (bedtime is pretty standard - diaper change, pjs, story, nurse and rock and sing in the dark, crib). For naps I keep trying out different things, so we haven't gotten into a real routine with them. I've read that nap routines should be the same as or similar to the bedtime routine, but I'm terrified of screwing up her nighttime sleep (like, what if I make her hate her bedtime routine by trying to use it for naps?).

So, what nap routine works for you? And if you had a bad napper who improved, how did it happen? I don't expect her to start taking 2-hour naps, but I know she needs more sleep during the day than what she's getting. 

[bowies]

I need to follow this post because ditto everything you wrote.

[pinotgrig]

I felt like naps were so easy when he was little and I was on ml. He couldn't stay awake that long so it was easy. Now that he's consolidated his sleeping a bit more, I struggle here too. I actually asked his daycare how they do it since he naps fairly well there. Lol Their advice:
* They offer a nap about every 3 hours.
* They watch for the first cues of tiredness - G always rubs his eyes when he starts to get tired but won't stop playing / acting alert.
* They walk or rock him to help him closer to sleep and then put him in his crib. They offer a paci and rub his belly or back to help him fall asleep.

I try to follow this advice on weekends and days he's home with me. I've had mixed success. :/ I also try to nurse him to sleep whenever possible and then transfer him to the rnp.

[cookietime]

Oct 22, 2014 17:31:11 GMT -5 pinotgrig said:

I felt like naps were so easy when he was little and I was on ml. He couldn't stay awake that long so it was easy. Now that he's consolidated his sleeping a bit more, I struggle here too. I actually asked his daycare how they do it since he naps fairly well there. Lol Their advice:
* They offer a nap about every 3 hours.
* They watch for the first cues of tiredness - G always rubs his eyes when he starts to get tired but won't stop playing / acting alert.
* They walk or rock him to help him closer to sleep and then put him in his crib. They offer a paci and rub his belly or back to help him fall asleep.

I try to follow this advice on weekends and days he's home with me. I've had mixed success. :/ I also try to nurse him to sleep whenever possible and then transfer him to the rnp.

I should try nursing to sleep at naps again - we used to do that, but then she had reflux and started REALLY fighting nursing. Trying to nurse her to sleep just got her too worked up to sleep at all. The doctor prescribed zantac and she's been nursing a lot better since then, but I've still been nursing after she wakes up from her 'naps' (though sometimes she falls back asleep on the boob ). 

[daisycat]

No advice but I do want to follow.

[humpforfree]

I couldn't get mine to nap not on me at that age. Just over 6 months though it was like a magic switch flipped and he just started sleeping in the crib for a couple hours at a time.

[rbp]

For naps I swaddle, put him in the crib in his dark nursery, turn on white noise, give him the paci, rub his belly, and make shhh sounds. I leave the room while he is elated but not necessarily asleep. This works maybe half the time. The rest of the tune I'm back in the room for paci reinsertion and soothing. This can take anywhere from 2-20 minutes. But at least half the time he'll reward me with an hour or longer nap! This is 1,000,000 times better than where we were before, so I'll take it!

ETA: M is only two months old, so I have no idea whether this is at all helpful.

[daisy24342]

We were in those same shoes until about 7/8 months when we nap trained. I had basically just let him nap on me or with me in bed and those naps were longer, and naps in his crib were short. We had success with CIO at night so decided to give it a go for naps. We used a lot of the same routine from bedtime and just stuck with it.

1. Waited for rubbing of eyes
2. Went upstairs, changed diaper, put in sleep sack.
3. Read one or two stories.
4 put In crib with several pacis, turned on noise machine, "time for nap"
5. If he cried, I did interval checks.

After about a week of CIO, he was napping awesome, and went down easily. I wish I had done this sooner....he very RARELY fights naps anymore. When I say, ok time for nap, he actually crawls, walks to stair and crawls up to his room. I think it's more about his love of climbing and less about nap but I'll take it!

[daisycat]

Oct 22, 2014 18:04:22 GMT -5 humpforfree said:

I couldn't get mine to nap not on me at that age. Just over 6 months though it was like a magic switch flipped and he just started sleeping in the crib for a couple hours at a time.

So you mean there is hope?

[cookietime]

Oct 22, 2014 18:17:39 GMT -5 daisycat said:

Oct 22, 2014 18:04:22 GMT -5 humpforfree said:

I couldn't get mine to nap not on me at that age. Just over 6 months though it was like a magic switch flipped and he just started sleeping in the crib for a couple hours at a time.

So you mean there is hope?

Seriously, this is what I'm hoping for!

Getting her to sleep can be hard, but usually happens eventually. I don't know how to encourage her to STAY asleep. We probably need to work on self-soothing, but when we actively tried to put her down sleepy but awake when she was younger, it just stressed us all out and made bedtime awful (we did it accidentally a few times before that). Since she sleeps so well at night, I figure she must know how to put herself back to sleep (she must wake up a few times at night without us knowing, right?), so I stopped worrying about it. But now I'm starting to worry about it again

[sjh722]

Once she was about that age we loosely did a 2-3-4 nap schedule. First nap 2 hours after she woke up, second nap 3 hours after waking up from nap 1, and bedtime 4 hours after waking up from nap 2. (She wasn't one to take two 2-hour naps every day, but loosely following that helped.)

[cookietime]

Oct 22, 2014 18:12:51 GMT -5 daisy24342 said:

We were in those same shoes until about 7/8 months when we nap trained. I had basically just let him nap on me or with me in bed and those naps were longer, and naps in his crib were short. We had success with CIO at night so decided to give it a go for naps. We used a lot of the same routine from bedtime and just stuck with it.

1. Waited for rubbing of eyes
2. Went upstairs, changed diaper, put in sleep sack.
3. Read one or two stories.
4 put In crib with several pacis, turned on noise machine, "time for nap"
5. If he cried, I did interval checks.

After about a week of CIO, he was napping awesome, and went down easily. I wish I had done this sooner....he very RARELY fights naps anymore. When I say, ok time for nap, he actually crawls, walks to stair and crawls up to his room. I think it's more about his love of climbing and less about nap but I'll take it!

When you started nap training, how long would you let him cry and do the interval checks? I think we did OK with convincing her to sleep at night because we had a very clear goal - it's dark outside, you're staying in your room and sleeping in your crib. With naps I'm not sure when it's been long enough to be happy with how long she's slept, when I should try to get her to sleep more, and when it's time to give up on a nap completely.

[magpie]

naps sucked for us until 8 or 9 months. The only way we could get her to go down for a nap was to either nurse her to sleep, drive somewhere in the car (and yes, I'd sit in the car with her while she napped so as not to disturb her!) or push her somewhere in the stroller. She got much better at napping gradually and now I put her down at the first sign of tiredness near her usual nap time (rubbing eyes, yawning, moving in slow motion), turn the white noise on and leave. She usually plays quietly in the crib for a few minutes and then goes to sleep.

[daisy24342]

Oct 22, 2014 18:30:55 GMT -5 cookietime said:

Oct 22, 2014 18:12:51 GMT -5 daisy24342 said:

When you started nap training, how long would you let him cry and do the interval checks? I think we did OK with convincing her to sleep at night because we had a very clear goal - it's dark outside, you're staying in your room and sleeping in your crib. With naps I'm not sure when it's been long enough to be happy with how long she's slept, when I should try to get her to sleep more, and when it's time to give up on a nap completely.

We followed Ferber I think.  Might have been like 5/10/15/20..... Then we ended nap.   Only really had to do that once.  First day went well, second day he tested.  I think we had to abandon morning nap once but he was so tired by afternoon he didn't fight much.  Once He was able to put himself to sleep, he really slept much longer.  However if he only slept 30 min, I would let him cry a bit to see if he would go back to sleep.  I would go in and give him a paci ( that he normally threw out), laid him back down and said to back to sleep.  It works 70% of the time.  I watch him on the monitor and if he is laying down crying, I know he is sleepy and will prob fall asleep.  If he is jumping around, probably not and I'll end nap.  

We we also used blackout shades which seems to help keep him asleep longer.  

[kershnic]

Loose 234 schedule and put them down at first tiredness signs. When mine are a little tired they sleep easily but if they're overtired they fight it. Use at least some aspects of the bedtime routine.

We did some modified CIO with one kid. She just needed to get the message that it was sleepy time.

Naps got a lot better at about 5 months with these strategies.

[purplecow0206]

Oct 22, 2014 18:25:03 GMT -5 cookietime said:

Oct 22, 2014 18:17:39 GMT -5 daisycat said:

So you mean there is hope?

Seriously, this is what I'm hoping for!

Getting her to sleep can be hard, but usually happens eventually. I don't know how to encourage her to STAY asleep. We probably need to work on self-soothing, but when we actively tried to put her down sleepy but awake when she was younger, it just stressed us all out and made bedtime awful (we did it accidentally a few times before that). Since she sleeps so well at night, I figure she must know how to put herself back to sleep (she must wake up a few times at night without us knowing, right?), so I stopped worrying about it. But now I'm starting to worry about it again

We had the same experience at around 6 months, it was as if she just decided that she no longer wanted to be in the Ergo for naps, and the crib was the only way to go. It was awesome when it happened.

[ssmjlm]

We did a loose 2-3-4 schedule, but she would only nap on one of us until we nap trained at 7.5m.

Really with naps it just takes time. Night sleep and nap sleep are different with sleep training.

[VillainV]

We aren't nap experts, but here's what we do:

- Naps are ROUGHLY 9am, mid-day, and 3pm, but we try to nap "on demand," so as soon as he shows signs of being tired (rubbing eyes, getting fussy) we try to put him down.

- We put him in the crib, pull the blinds, and turn on the mobile, then leave and use the video monitor.

- He will sometimes fuss for about 5-10 minutes, and we might need to re-crank the mobile or replace paci.

- If he's not asleep in 10ish minutes (and is REALLY fussy or screaming), or if we've replaced paci more than 3 times, then I'll nurse or we'll try the bouncer. If that doesn't work, then we just try for a nap later. If he's actually tired, he will fall asleep in 10ish minutes.

- If he's not asleep, but is chilling quietly in the crib, then we just leave him there. He'll either fall asleep on his own, or get bored and start "talking" to us. Quiet time in the crib is good rest for him, even if he isn't napping, so as long as he's happy we'll just let him chill.

[arch01]

We did what I affectionately call nap bootcamp at 5.5 months. Best decision ever. Basically, it was CIO-we followed the 2-3-4 routine (which was more like 1.5-3-2-2 to start). The key is to anticipate the time-and get them down before they really start showing signs of tiredness. There's a magic window that you have to catch-about 15 minutes before the yawns/rubbing eyes start.

I nicknamed DS the no nap wonder when he was a NB/infant-he sucked at naps. After nap bootcamp? He was (and still is) a nap rockstar.

[lloydchristmas]

Oct 22, 2014 18:12:51 GMT -5 daisy24342 said:

We were in those same shoes until about 7/8 months when we nap trained. I had basically just let him nap on me or with me in bed and those naps were longer, and naps in his crib were short. We had success with CIO at night so decided to give it a go for naps. We used a lot of the same routine from bedtime and just stuck with it.

1. Waited for rubbing of eyes
2. Went upstairs, changed diaper, put in sleep sack.
3. Read one or two stories.
4 put In crib with several pacis, turned on noise machine, "time for nap"
5. If he cried, I did interval checks.

After about a week of CIO, he was napping awesome, and went down easily. I wish I had done this sooner....he very RARELY fights naps anymore. When I say, ok time for nap, he actually crawls, walks to stair and crawls up to his room. I think it's more about his love of climbing and less about nap but I'll take it!

We had great success doing CIO at bedtime and I've been trying it for nap time. At what point do you consider it a loss? I put DD down, but she cried for over an hour. She just wants to be in my arms.

[rex]

we do a mini bedtime routine for naps, so the sleep cues are the same.

lights off, white noise, diaper change, bed. i do not read books at nap time.

ditto if you're happy and not sleeping, that works for me. we both need time alone to recharge.

[daisy24342]

Oct 22, 2014 19:58:55 GMT -5 lloydchristmas said:

Oct 22, 2014 18:12:51 GMT -5 daisy24342 said:

We were in those same shoes until about 7/8 months when we nap trained. I had basically just let him nap on me or with me in bed and those naps were longer, and naps in his crib were short. We had success with CIO at night so decided to give it a go for naps. We used a lot of the same routine from bedtime and just stuck with it.

1. Waited for rubbing of eyes
2. Went upstairs, changed diaper, put in sleep sack.
3. Read one or two stories.
4 put In crib with several pacis, turned on noise machine, "time for nap"
5. If he cried, I did interval checks.

We had great success doing CIO at bedtime and I've been trying it for nap time. At what point do you consider it a loss? I put DD down, but she cried for over an hour. She just wants to be in my arms.

I think after an hour I called it a loss, and tried again later that day or next day.  I will say that nap training was harder and took longer than night time, but it stuck with it and it worked for us.  DS was soooo used to napping in my arms too....it was a hard habit to break and he crriiiiiiieeeed.