For those of you with kids who nap well...

[Anonymous]

DD is 6 months old. She is a great night sleeper (sleeps twelve hours a night) but a terrible napper. She takes about three 30-45 minute naps a day. She gets really tired and fussy in the late afternoon/early evening so it's clear to me that she is not sleeping enough during the day.

I was hoping she would naturally start napping better/longer on her own, but am starting to think that I need to be more proactive. For those of you with kids who nap well, I have a few questions: Did you sleep train for naps? If so, what method did you use? What age was DC?

Thanks so much.

[Anonymous]

Mine was 7 months and I did CIO. It took us 2 weeks. I slept trained for naps first and then night time - and we actually didn't need to "sleep train" for that; baby just turned to the side and went "nana"...lol

She was always a great sleeper, but up until 7 months I would lay down with her on my bed and after she felt asleep I would leave, but then she began crawling and I couldn't leave her on my bed unattended anymore. What time do you put your baby to sleep for the night? Mine takes 2 naps and I put her to sleep at 6pm.

BTW, I only let her "finish" her nap after she sleeps at least one hour - if she awakes before that it is usually a diaper problem and after I change her and offer more milk (if she didn't drink much before) I put her back in the crib and tell her "go nana, go nana". And she does.

[Anonymous]

Our DD (now 21 months) has almost always been a great sleeper - I think it's partly her nature, and partly because we've been pretty proactive about "sleep training" since she was 5/6 months old. My advice is the following:

1) Your DD may be ready to transition from 3 naps to 2 naps (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). Maybe try that to see if she'll take 2 longer naps and feel more rested, rather than 3 shorter naps. I'd recommending reading the Weissbluth book if you haven't already - even if you don't want to follow his sleep-training methods, he has some good information about timing/number/length of naps at different ages, which can be helpful.

2) Even if our DD always slept wonderfully at night, we found that her naps have almost always been variable and changeable. She'd take great, on-schedule naps for a a few weeks, and then her naps would be disrupted/too short/nonexistent for a few weeks. This almost always ended up being related to teething or some kind of developmental milestone (learning to crawl, walk, whatever), but we'd never figure that out until after the fact!

3) We've found that having a really consistent "bedtime ritual" - which we use at both naptime and nighttime - can be really helpful. We do the following: change diaper; brush teeth; put on sleepsack; turn on white noise machine (we use a soft ocean waves sound while she sleeps); dim lights; sit in rocker and read 3 books while DD holds her lovey; sing a song; put DD in crib; turn on her little music box that hangs on the side of the crib; turn out lights and leave the room. Obviously at 6 months old this routine would be a bit different (at that age I would nurse DD rather than reading books and then put her down in the crib either drowsy or already asleep).

4) We have used some sleep training for naps, but maybe not until DD was a bit older than 6 months. We have always tried for naps on a consistent schedule, and (if she is clearly exhausted/ready to nap) we will let her fuss in the crib for a set period of time before going in to her (anywhere from 5 to 15-20+ minutes, depending on whether she's actually crying or not. If she's just playing in the crib we don't go in at all). At that point we will check/change her diaper, read a couple of books again, and put her back in the crib again for another try at napping. We usually give up if it doesn't work after the 2nd attempt (again...see point #2... usually a lack of nap ends up being related to some other factor). This really doesn't happen very often. We've found Weissbluth helpful for guidance on this kind of "sleep training" but there are lots of other methods out there. Really, I think if you work hard on the timing of naps and have a good routine down, you won't probably end up having to do much real "nap training" or cry it out (and you don't have to do the cry it out if you're not comfortable with that. You'll see lots of controversy on this board about that - just do what works for you and your baby).

[Shopmom]

I sleep trained as well, I used the method found at www.mybabysleepsatnight.com What time is your babies bedtime? Even though she may be a great sleeper at night, she may be overtired...or perhaps going down for her naps too late. Also its hard to get longer naps in when reaching milestones like rolling over and crawling.

[Anonymous]

our daughter has always been a great night sleeper but naps were challenging (30-40 minutes max) so around 13 months- we went to one nap and now for the last year she sleeps solidly for three hours. it is awesome

[Anonymous]

This was my DS 6 months ago. He slept through the night perfectly from 3 months old, but I could not get him to sleep more than 45 minutes during the day unless I held him or laid down with him and that just wasn't happening every day. At around 9 months he spent ONE day home alone with my DH, who apparently let him cry it out, and since then he reliably goes down for two naps a day of at least 90 minutes each and often more. I literally just plop him in the crib and he goes to sleep. I don't know if it was his age or DH's magical touch, but I do wish I had tried some kind of CIO sooner. We also coincided it with no longer rocking him to sleep at night, so life is better all around.