I have had 2 different babysitters so far for my 7-month-old and she will take 1.5 to 2 hour naps for them. With me, she RARELY sleeps for more than 30 minutes and it's a struggle to get her to go down. What do you think is the cause? Do you think they're letting her CIO? I do not CIO, for what it's worth.
I don't let my baby cio either and she sleeps for my husband more than for me. I don't know the reason except that I am more likely to play and cuddle with her than to assume she's tired and rock her to sleep. Perhaps it is something you are not doing with her that gives her the cue to go to sleep. Did you ask the babysitters?
Sounds like she's trying to maximize her "mommy-time". Smart girl!
do you work? if you do, this is the most probable reason. Your daughter just wants to spend as much time with you as possible. I've also seen babies who resented their mothers for not being there and didn't sleep because of that.
I doubt that your sitters let her cry.
I went through this with my daughter who is now 5 1/2 months old. She would go in great for a nap with her sitter, but not with me or my husband. The babysitter claims that she doesn't cry when she puts her down, just talks talks talks and plays until there is silence, or she simply falls asleep right after she's put down. We struggled with this for a while until finally, we decided that as much as we were against it, we needed to let her cry it out. Our babysitter happened to be out sick recently and when my husband was home with our daughter, he decided to try it. She cried for 15 minutes the first time then slept for over 2 hrs and cried for 7 minutes the 2nd time and slept for over an hour. Now when we put her down for naps, she usually talks/complains for a bit but eventually falls asleep. However, she doesn't always take super long naps, sometimes only 45 minutes. I think that the problem was that she wants to play with us rather than take a nap (understandably) and I would perpetuate the problem by constantly going in to check on her to see if she was sleeping yet, taking her out of the crib to try and rock her, then put her in and if she wasn't sleeping yet, pick her up again. It's definitely not easy to listen to her cry or complain, but we decided that we needed to do it because we knew she was tired and needed to nap.
Also, the doctor recommended not to go into her right away if she wakes up after a really short nap but to leave her in there for a little to see if maybe she'll fall back asleep on her own.
If you don't want to let her cry, I would suggest you try to avoid picking her up.
Good luck! I know how frustrating this is!
I have the exact same problem. I wouldn't blame the problem on working because my baby did the same thing even before I went back to work (when I had sitters for occasional relief). She also eats solids much better with the sitter than with me. I think babies just are more bonded to their mothers than to the sitters, and behave differently as a result.
My friend works at home two days a week and still has a sitter on those days, and the sitter says that the baby takes much shorter naps on the days that mom is home. Even though the mom is busy at work and the sitter isn't doing anything differently. So this seems to be a common issue.
