For the first 5.5 months of my son's life, we held him in our arms for all of his naps. Since he's a big boy now (literally, he weighs about 19 pounds and is 27 inches) and is 6 months old, we decided to move him into his crib for naps. We have a naptime ritual similar to that of bedtime, although it's more abbreviated. We put him down drowsy but awake and sometimes he cries for a few minutes, sometimes he goes to sleep. However, we can only seem to get a 30 minute nap out of him regardless of how quickly he goes to sleep. When he was on our laps, he slept for about 90 -120 minutes at the same time each day. Since we started with napping in the crib, the schedule we had for him is kind of all over the place.
My husband and I are wrestling to determine what's more important - setting a schedule for naps and sticking to it, or following the baby's lead (even if it results in shorter, but more frequent naps)? Should we watch for our babies sleepy signs or keep him up until he would normally be taking a nap? My gut feeling is saying go with the flow for now until he starts sleeping longer and then the schedule will naturally shift, but the other part of me says, consistency and routine are important to my child. This is how we've had such success with sleeping through the night. (He sleeps 9-10 hours at night and puts himself back to sleep if he wakes up)
I want to try to establish some consistency in my son's schedule, but I also don't want to be so rigid that I'm keeping him up for 5 hours just to stick to a schedule. It's a conundrum I know many of you have faced.
In addition, do you all eat/play/sleep or eat/sleep play? Or do you go with the flow?
Any advice is appreciated.
Any advice on what you all would do as f
Find a bigger blanket and try swaddling again. My son was a terrible napper. I use to cry because of his bad nap schedule. swaddling helped.
Your son is younger than my daughter was when we had this issue (I adopted her at 10 months) but we had the same thing--she would NOT sleep for more than 30 minutes at naptime. We had better luck getting her to sleep in her stroller (I had to practically run the stroller to get her to sleep) and then she'd sleep for 30 minutes in the reclined stroller. (Doing this every day, I lost 7 lbs in one month!)
So, by the time she was a year, I kept her up a little longer, and tried just one nap at about 12:30 instead of 2 naps (one at 10 and one at 2) and she slept longer in that one nap than she did in all of the previous naps combined! So, that was my solution, but at 6 months, you might not be able to get away with only one nap. It's an idea for the future though. My daughter abandoned her morning nap about 6 months earlier than my friends' kids. (And, ironically, she is STILL napping at age 5, and all my friends' kids aren't anymore!)
Hello L.,
My son is now 8.5 months old and like your son he has slept through the night for quite a while. He puts himself back to sleep if he wakes up (in most cases) and will sleep 12 to 13 hours most nights. But he does not nap as much as I would like hime to. During the week he is distracted at day care and will take 1 to 3 naps during the day but sleeps great at night and is not fussy until right before bed. On the weekend we try to not do anything until after his morning nap and then fit in another nap at some point if we are out, even if it is in the car, which I know is not the best. He is a happy baby and we are well rested. My 2-cents is do what works best for you and your son. It sounds like having him sleep in your arms for 1 to 2 hours is not working. His short naps will likely become longer in the crib as he gets more comfortable sleeping in there during the day. Also, he time awake will get longer and he won't need so many naps. Also, helping him be more flexible on his nap times aill help both of you.
Good Luck!
Since he's getting a good chunk of sleep at night I would go with he shorter more frequent naps since he's 6 months he will take what he needs during the day and doesn't need too much fuss. Eventually you'll find he will go to fewer longer naps ie. 1 morning, 1 afternoon...and then (sadly) down to 1 afternoon...and then(even more sadly) none at all (since our kids got good sleep at night they start trying to skip naps as early as 2-3 years, unless sick I'm fighting to keep afternoon nap though and my big kids will start taking a quiet time too! MOM needs a NAP :)
Just adjust your schedule to include the new pattern of naps, and know that it will change...in other words...trust your gut :)
i have a six month old also. ive never had a hard time with nap time its the seleping through the nite thats got me. but what ive always done was "go with the flow" he put himself on a nap schedule. he sleeps from 11-1 then is awake til 4 he sleeps for about 45 minutes to an hour then is up til 9 or 10.
I would "go with the flow" and let him dictate when he is tired. An overtired baby is less likely to sleep well, so keeping him up will probably work against you at this point. He will eventually put himself on a schedule (probably 2 naps per day, maybe 3 for another couple of months), so it should naturally become more consistent as he gets used to sleeping on his own.
Also, I always used the eat/play/sleep schedule when they got to this age. That way, they don't get dependent on the milk to go to sleep.
Naps were always hardest for my kids too, but they do get used to it and now my kids both do great. It might take a couple of weeks to get into a groove, but you'll get there! Good luck!
With our first child, I was (overly)very worried about schedules. After #2 and #3 came along, I went with the flow. I tried to get our first baby to always nap in her crib. After the second and third, that wasn't possible. Consequently, my second and third babies had fewer sleep issues and were more flexible. I didn't let any of my babies "soothe themselves back to sleep." If they had a wet diaper, or were thirsty, I responded. I noticed if they had a cold, then it interfered with their eating efficiency and they would wake up because they were thirsty (like myself). I read a book three times--that everyone swore by about eat,play, sleep and it didn't work for me. I learned later that it didn't work for most other people either. I threw the book away and was able to enjoy my baby much more. Some parents seemed so caught up in schedules, that they missed very important cues their baby was giving them. Also, some people had very different definitions of "sleeping through the night". Bottom line: it is okay to pick up your baby if he needs comforting. It is okay to change your baby's wet diaper in the middle of the night. If your baby wakes up in the middle of the night, the idea is to respond quickly and get him back to sleep ASAP. I could usually get them back to sleep in 15 - 20 minutes. One thing to try is putting your baby to sleep on his tummy. He is probably flipping, scooting and almost crawling already. I was flexible on the naps, but we all go to bed around 9:00. Enjoy your baby~
Try putting him to nap on his stomach. Docs say that once a baby reaches 6 months and/or can hold their head off the floor, then stomach sleeping should be fine. Especially since most of the time they roll on their stomachs anyway. Maybe he just needs stomach sleeping to simulate sleeping on something, you. Check with your doc to see if this is ok before doing it. Doctors all feel differently about stomach sleeping.
I had a similar problem with my first child--around 6 months her naps suddenly shortened to about 30 minutes. A friend recommended the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. The book suggested that children actually need to go to bed earlier than we all realize. So I started moving her bedtime earlier to around 6:30. She had a couple of nights adjusting to that, and within 3 days she was sleeping 12-13 hours at night and taking naps that were over an hour each. Somehow sleep brings on sleep...anyway, I recommend reading that book if nothing works for you. Good luck!
How many naps a day is he taking? I don't think one nap is enough. As I remember, my daughter went from 3 to 2 naps at that point and it was a conundrum! I never knew when to put her down.
The book the 90-Minute Baby Sleep Program helped me out a lot. This book recommends eating, playing, winding down, then napping. According to the book, babies run on a 90 minute alertness cycle, and as they get older, they go to 3 hours, then six hours. Basically, your son will get tired after either 90 minutes or 3 hours of wakefulness. You just have to do trial and error. I'm thinking at 6 months after a full night sleep, he should be able to go 3 hours before his nap. So, about 3 hours after your son wakes up, do your routine and put him down for his nap. He should be ready for one at this time. If he only sleeps for 30 minutes, then about 90 minutes from when he wakes up, put him down again. If he does not go to sleep, put him down at 3 hours after he woke up from the first nap. If he sleeps closer to an hour or more, put him down again 3 hours after he wakes up. He might even need an evening nap as well. I highly recommend this book. It has a chapter for each age group, because as they mature, their napping pattern changes. Good luck!!
My advice is to stick to a schedule. If you are concerned that the naps are spread out too far, consider moving them closer together. If he starts napping on demand you will see that he will stop sleeping through the night. We had this problem with my oldest son. When he started daycare they didn't keep him on a schedule and he was waking up all hours of the night within a couple of weeks. It took us about a month to get him back on track and sleeping through the night again.
And...I do eat, awake, nap.
