My son is 13 months old. When he was around 10 months old, we started laying him in his bed to cry his self to sleep at night. After three nights he was a pro, hardly crying at all before he dozed off. The problem is that I can not get him to do the same for nap time. He cries uncontrollaby for over an hour during the day so I give in a he falls asleep on me instintanely. If I rock him to sleep during the day and lay him in his bed he wakes up. I feel like I am doing everything wrong. Please help me.
I laid down with my son during the day and sometimes I fell asleep, too. He's 10 now, so no more napping, but I'm not sorry I did that for him.
~A.
One thing could be it is not dark enough in his room. Some suggestions I would try is to black out the windows with aluminum foil or get a special set of curtains. Also maybe some soft music playing quietly and even some white noise like a fan constantly going. Hope this helps!
I have 12 month old twins and I went through the same thing with my son. Both kids started to go to sleep great at night on their own at 7 months but for naps my daughter would go down and my son would scream. I was determined he was going to learn to nap by himself in his room and resolved that he would stay in his room for 1 hour for 2 naps day. I could see he was tired and he would fall asleep so easily in the car. I sat out on the deck crying right along with him many times. We struggled with napping for at least a couple of months. He would nap fine for a couple of days and then he would scream for an hour. He still isn't a great napper (he only naps for an hour, occasionally and hour and a half) but 6 days out of 7 he goes down twice a day without a fight. It just took a LONG time to get here.
I did do a few things that seemed to help him:
room darkening shades,
I put on the same music every time I put them down at night and nap,
we often play outside before naps and that seems to tire him out (if we get sweaty or dirty they take a bath and that seems to really calm him down),
I really watch the kids and try and notice when they are seeming tired. I want to put them down when they're tired but not really tired,
and each nap (am and afternoon) has it's own special routine (am- breakfast, play, diaper change, books in their room, nap and afternoon- lunch, play, juice and learn to read DVD, diaper change, nap)
I hope any of this helps. I will say that for me it took a tremendous amount of patience and consistency. There were many days in the beginning when he took no nap and that made for a very cranky afternoon. But I stuck to the routine and tried various little things. Good luck!
Oh, and I was also just reading that at this age kids can start to really feel separation anxiety and that it can make sleeping difficult (great news, right?) so if you stick to the routine and just plug on he might outgrow some if this.
My son won't nap in his bed and never did in his crib. He slept there at night but not during day. He knew the difference between nap and bedtime. We started to lay him down in our bed for naps and I would lay down with him. He sleeps wonderfully. He is three and I still lay down with him. Sometimes as soon as he is asleep i get up and other times I take a nap too. As my doctor says whats good for him is good for his patients and fully supports mommy naps.
L.,
I feel for you. My son is 13 months old and last week he stopped taking his morning nap. Up until last week he would take a morning nap and an afternoon nap.Now it is only an afternoon nap.
I have had trouble with him also at nap time in the past. However, I have noticed that if I put him in his playpen for naptime he does better. When I am home by myself I can place it in the living room and let him fall asleep by himself.On the weekends I have to place it in a quieter room and let him rest.
I feel for you and hope you figure out something that works for you!
S.
L.,
First of all, you are not doing anything wrong. This is very common.
My son did the same thing. With no warning, baby boy started wailing when we put him down for his morning nap. Completely inconsolable. We fought round after round until we finally caved and put him on a full sized mattress on the floor, surrounded by pillows to form a barrier from him rolling into the wall. (There is nothing on the floor that can harm him, sockets are covered, etc.) We would lay with him until he got sleepy enough and then we would leave the room. I'll be honest, 1/3 of the time, it worked. 1/3 of the time, we fell asleep with him and 1/3 of the time, he wouldn't have anything to do with sleep at all.
It was around this time that he finally gave up his morning nap and settled into just one nap a day.
The transition took about a month and boy-o-boy....was he a sleepy and cranky boy. Your son may be trying to give up this nap for a later one, too. Who knows?
In a nutshell, we had to figure out what works best for him and us. Our boy dearly loves to sleep with daddy at night in our bed and take a nap with mommy on his mattress in the afternoon. :-)
Its trial and error. I could give you a thousand things to try and I'm sure you will get lots of responses.....but give each new thing an honest try - at least a week or so - before trying something else. If you change things up too often, neither you or your little one will be happy campers.
Hang in there and I wish you the best of luck.
L.
We did the same, got our son trained to soothe himself to sleep around 1 year. He wouldn't want to nap in his crib either, still doesn't at 21 months. We caved and let him nap on the couch in the living room. He sleeps really great there, we just push an ottoman up against the couch to keep him from falling off(which he has done a few times!!). He will go to sleep on his own there, I guess he feels left out during the day when he's in his room. Do what works for you - don't feel like you're doing something wrong. As long as he sleeps, it doesn't really matter where!!
Good luck!
Try reading Marc Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." It helped me immensely with my first child, and has helped me reduce my colicky second child's bouts of screaming during the day. (I.e., he's getting more rest and so is a little less cranky.) One thing Weissbluth recommends for naptime is to recognize your son's drowsy cues and to start soothing him and lay him down awake but not overtired. Leave him in the crib for an hour, but if he does not sleep, then get him up and wait for the next naptime, then try again. (I sometimes cheated and let my son stay in the crib for a few minutes longer than an hour, because sometimes he would fall asleep right at the hour mark.) My son has been sleeping very well since we followed the advice in this book, so I hope it can help you too! :)
When my now 4 yr old twins were that age they wouldn't sleep in their cribs for naps either. They did fine at night. We kept on trying and eventually they did take naps in their cribs. If he's doing fine at night that's the most important thing. You are not doing everything wrong. Just hang in there!
