Naps question

[ladymoreta]

Yeah, the "bed is only for sleeping" rule is really more of a result of struggling to find something that worked for my crazy bad sleeper. It's probably not necessary for most kids.

Why does my 5 month old nap 20 mins maybe 3x a day when all of your much older children are napping for hours??? Omg, I get nothing done because you can't even gather laundry and start it in the time she's asleep. If I hold her, I can occasionally get an hour.

DS was the same way with his naps until he went down to 2 naps per day. Then his morning nap was about an hour, maybe longer if I was very lucky, and his afternoon nap was about 30-44 minutes. If I didn't have anything to do, when he woke up after his short afternoon nap, I could go in and hold him for about another hour, and he would doze. I could doze or play on my phone, but if I tried to put him down, he'd be wide awake.

Does she fall asleep on her own, or do you rock her? Is she napping in the same place she sleeps at night? For DS, we tried to make it exactly the same - he even still wears pajamas for his nap. How dark is her room? We have blackout curtains that we fastened to the wall around the window so no light would come through. I put a sheet over the top of the window to block out light above it. Do you use white noise?

Do you have a naptime routine? If so, maybe you can try making it longer to really let it set in that it's time for sleep. It could be something like feed, read a story, put on pajamas, sing a song, then nap.

Those are things to try, but really all I read about the short napping was that some kids just have to grow out of it. If/when you want to try cry-it-out, some people have had luck with just not going into their room until naptime is over.

Here are some good sample schedules to look at: http://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-sl...ing-schedules/

[ladymoreta]

Another couple things to try...

Wake To Sleep: Go in about 5 minutes before she usually wakes and jostle her a little, then get her back to sleep. I believe this is from The Baby Whisperer if you want to read more about it.

Also, you can try putting her down about 10-15 minutes sooner. She may be overtired, which is a common cause of too-short naps.

[Thirteen]

T&S, that was DS until he was 8 1/2 months old. No regular nap. I am so sorry this is happening to you, too! I wore him a lot, and he'd sleep in little snippets.
I also found he would sleep in his bouncy chair, and later on, his swing. He lived in both of them, but again, never really solid with naps until much later.

Laurie - he usually will nap for 2 hours, 1x a day. He's never done 2 naps. I think you might be onto something about the developmental milestone stuff (or was that Michele who said that?). Also, he's working on 2 molars right now, so that might be throwing him off. Plus, we're trying to pick up and move (always stressful and busy). I'm sure he's feeding off of my insanity. I hope this isn't "the end" of napping...

[ladymoreta]

Yes, that was Michele. I bet she's right about the milestones and/or teething. DS had the worst time with his molars. We finally got a couple of STTNs, and then he started cutting those, and things were bad again for about a month.

Have you tried introducing a toddler clock? I promise I don't receive commission on these, but the OK to Wake clock was a lifesaver for us. It seemed like DS just didn't know when he was supposed to go back to sleep and when it was time to get up. It turns green when naptime is over, so he can see when he's done. http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot...?tcin=11852371