Naptime Help

How about pushing the afternoon nap back until 2pm? It might get her a bit more tired and sleep longer in the afternoon and not interfere with dinner.

Hi M.

I have had the same experience with my now 14 month old daughter! She sleeps well at night but getting her to have decent naps during the day has always been a bit of a challenge and being a clinical psychologist, i do not believe in leaving them to cry. I don't know if you have come across the No-Cry solution books written by Elizabeth Pantley? I think she is brilliant and i have found her books immensely helpful. She suggests that your baby needs help returning to sleep if her daytime naps are shorter than an hour i.e. the nap isn't complete, your baby is just moving from one sleep cycle to the next and hasn't yet quite worked out how to make that transition. She says to go in to your baby whilst she is sleeping and before she begins to stir so that you can be there to do whatever you need to do to get her back to sleep before she wakes up more fully. In order to not miss the window i dedicated a few days to this and stayed by my daughter watching her sleep until she started to move a little at the half hour mark. I then shooshed her and rubbed her back. Amazingly, the first time i did this, she slept on for another hour! I did that for a couple of days and then i transitioned to just shooshing when i heard her stir - i think i did it for a week or so - i just stayed in the room and either had a sleep myself or read something and as soon as i heard a slight movement or little cry i just went 'shoosh' and she went straight back to sleep! After that she seemed to get the hang of it and her daytime naps have been proper naps pretty much ever since. If she has gone through a point of teething or illness i may have had to repeat the process a bit but never for as long again.

I hope that makes sense - I am being somewhat distracted by my daughter as i write. It is worth getting Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Solution book for naps as she covers so much other wonderful, gentle behavior change stuff as well that you can feel good about doing and getting results. Also, do bear in mind that some babies do need less sleep and you might not get those magic two hour bursts during the day that other moms talk about!! But you should be able to get a least an hour to an hour and a quarter.

Good luck!

Two books...Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Baby and 12 hours of sleep by 12 weeks. Recommended to me. Try them

We had a similar situation with my son. He's always been a great sleeper at night, but it took us a long time to get him into a decent daytime routine.

What worked for us was looking closely at what we do differently at night from the day. In our case, we were very, very consistent with a night time routine literally from the night we brought him home from the hospital, but we were super lax during the day. We started being very consistent with a daytime schedule and our naptime prep, and his napping slowly started to improve.

There were two other things we noticed - one is that he seemed to wake up if he got cold so we started using sleep sacks. The other was that he hadn't really found his security item yet. He gave up the pacifer on his own at about 12 weeks, and we weren't really successful at introducing the woobie. We noticed that when he was upset, he would like to hold something familiar. We ended up giving him a pacifier or two to hold when we laid him down, and now he seems them as his sleeptime security items. I know it sounds a little kooky, but it's working for him.

My daughter went through a phase like this, too. For a while, I followed a schedule where she took three naps a day (one at 9am, one at 12:30pm, one at 3:30pm). When she stopped sleeping for the third nap, I made a rule (mostly in my own head) that naps had to last 1 hour. If she woke up before the 1 hour mark, I'd leave her in there. I usually tried to find something to stay busy with so that I wouldn't be tempted to go in and ger her (cleaning the bathroom or shoveling the front steps). Sometimes she cried, sometimes she just talked to herself, then (after a few days) she started falling back to sleep. Eventually her nap lengthened to 1.5 to 2 hours. But I'm comfortable with the "cry it out" method for children over 5 months, so this plan wouldn't work for everyone.

I always say this, this too shall pass. If your daughter is sleeping all night sounds like you have a dream child. My children still don't sleep all night and they're past their teen years! Ha! Oh, take that back one is eighteen. Anyway, is this your sister telling you that? I see you work full time, so what kind of time do you actually have with your child in the morning? And if you get your child to take a longer nap in the afternoon do you really want her to be awake at ten or eleven at night? Sometimes things are blessings in disguise. Is the nap in the afternoon when you are home all the time? I think I would be able to open my big mouth if I had more of a handle on your schedule. You could let her cry a bit if that's what you want but I envy you that you have a child that sleeps all night. Things do change though, so if you can wait it out a bit. You are a wonderful mom-working and taking care of your baby, just enjoy her! She'll be napping soon enough and you'll be screaming at her to get up! Teehee

you could try to sneek a third nap in if the second one is so short. Or you could move her bedtime up to 7.30pm. You could also try letting her cry and see if she will go back to sleep.

My only thought is to ask if you're sure she's ready to be up. Sometimes they'll wake up and cry for a bit but go back to sleep if left alone. It could be just a couple minutes of crying. Is it possible you're picking her up too soon? Work a schedule out with your sister so you're both doing the same thing. Maybe try for two afternoon naps if she's going to take short ones or start the nap a little later. I think her body will eventually do what it needs to do, but just needs a little encouragement. Hang in there!

She needs more exercise. Bubdle her and walk her outdoors. Work her extremities on her back by hand. Reps, just like you would exercise yourself. Enjoy these wonderous days while you have them.

Maybe it isn't that she needs a longer nap but needs to go to bed earlier. My girls ( 6 and 4 ) still go to bed between 7pm and 8pm. My son (10 months) starts bedtime routine around 7pm. She will more than likely still sleep until 8am. I would just put her to bed earlier.

Depending on how physically active she might be transitioning now. I remember a "tough" time when my girls were close to a year when they gave up one nap and had a rest time. It was just hard to figure out the timing/figuring out what worked for them. The one nap was longer and then they had some TV time for a little rest period. Good luck.

Hi,
I have 2 kids and have done daycare for years. Usually most children need 2 naps until 10 months. But every child is diiferent. If you find that her am nap is short, try going to just the 1 nap in the afternoon. Some kids hear mom and want to just be with her, so that may be what is happeneing too. I had to let my younger son cry back to sleep at naptime. He did that for 2 days, then learned that I was not getting him and he would sleep for 2 more hours. He would stay up later at night, but I did not mind that:)
Good luck!
T.

We had similar problems with our 2nd daughter and realized she was such a light sleeper. We started turning on a floor fan/air purifier/humidifier for white noise and she sleeps an average of 1-2 hours for each of her 2 naps now. I would try using something to produce white noise that will drown out any outside noises that may be waking her. Good luck!

If she is waking up at 8 a.m. she should be going back down for a nap about 9:30. That should be a 2 hour nap, waking up about 11:30. Then she should go back down again about 1:30 and sleep till 3:30. But going 3:30 till 8 is REALLY long!! Can't imagine she really lasts that long without a cat nap.

When she wakes up and it hasn't been 2 hours yet, let her be for at least 10 minutes before you go get her. I bet she will go to sleep in that time on her own. Teach her to self soothe by giving her that time to learn the skill.

Hi M., don't be afraid to bump your daughter's bedtime up to 6:30 or 7:00pm. I know that may not sound ideal, because she will probably wake up earlier in the morning, but this is a very normal schedule for a 7 mo old. My daughter used to take her big nap in the morning and only a 45 min nap in the afternoon at that age. She was typically eating dinner at 6pm, in bed by 6:30, giving my husband and I plenty of time to enjoy a nice evening to ourselves. So look at the bright side! And let your child be your guide. There is probably nothing you can do to force a longer nap...and no reason to try. Good luck!