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Tuesday
Dec162008

What are your nap challenges?

I'm excited to have been asked to review Elizabeth Pantley's most recent book, the No Cry Nap Solution. I have two children and each of them had their own nap habits and challenges. But I know that other people have had different experiences and different challenges.

To help me assess the book and also make my review of the book more relevant to my readers' nap challenges, I'd love it if you could drop a comment below and tell me about the nap challenges that you are facing or have faced with your baby.

Talk to me!!
« Mirena follows in Motrin's footsteps | Main | Patient parenting »

Reader Comments (14)

ahhh... Napping. My daughter (15.5 mo) goes down willingly everyday. She nurses to sleep within about ten minutes. However, she wakes up 45 minutes later, still tired, but unable to fall back asleep without nursing and, most days, staying latched for the next 45 minutes. This was all fine and good until I started doing home day care. Now it is a challenge on some days. I am not sure if it can be "fixed" because I know that sleep duration and abilty are developmental milestones that we cannot force. I am interested to hear what you think though! If I can help her get back to sleep independently, it would be wonderful!

December 16, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterEarthbaby

Oh! Help me! I was thinking about this book myself, but to be honest all the Sleep solution book did for us is make me not think we are freaks in this community full of CIO kids. He still wakes up at least once a night, nurses and then sleeps with us for the rest of the night. For NAPS. HE HATES THEM. If he skips a nap he is a holy terror by 5pm, if he gets a nap he is just as sweet as can be, so I know he still needs one. He is almost 28 months old. For naps, we always get in comfy clothes, fresh diaper, read a low key story in my bed, and I let him nurse. He always nurses a really long time, and sometimes will fall asleep on the breast...sometimes not. If not...that is it, no nap unless I put him in the car for errands and then he falls asleep in car seat. He naps about 4 days a week, I have to be next to him, and he has to be able to nurse/sleep. These naps are usually at least 2 hours long, and then bedtime usually gets pushed back until nine. Sorry for the novel, but please help!.

December 16, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterHey You

We've just hit a new era of nap times. Margaret is now very mobile. We cosleep, so I used to just nurse her down on our bed. Now when her head hits the bed, she pops right up and crawls over to the headboard to play- she tries to climb onto our nightstands from the bed. No matter how tired she is, she'd rather climb on nightstands. Our current solution is to nurse her to sleep (or almost to sleep) on the couch or chair and then when she's out, I transfer her to the bed. Sometimes the move requires more breast time, but usually not much. Nap times are a little more involved because of this, but it's working for us.

December 16, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterHeather

My son is almost 6 months old and takes 4 or 5 naps a day between 7:00am and 6:00pm (give or take a little) We have no set time for naps,I just know when he is tired and we either nurse to sleep or rock depending on if he is hungry or not. I'm not consistent at all with naps,but I want him to flexible for days when we are not at home. If I have stuff to do around the house I will lay him in the crib after he falls asleep. Sometimes I will just hold him and nap myself or sometimes I will just lay him on the couch if I am not going to leave the room. His naps range anywhere from 20-90 minutes,sometimes he wakes up happy and other times he wakes up crying and wants to nurse back to sleep.
For the most part this totally works for us,but I am somewhat worried about the near future when he becomes mobile. I don't want nap time to become a problem when he can get up and move around..Also,he is going to get to a point where I cannot hold him or walk with him to sleep,how do I put him down for a nap when that day comes? Just some of my concerns...

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterCierra

Son1 seemed like the ideal baby, sleeping well at night and taking long naps twice a day, in his own cot. He still benefits greatly from a nap at age 5.

With a false sense of security we welcomed Son2 into our lives. He seemed to cry a lot at bed time (NOTHING would comfort him!) When we look back we still don't know why, but we're at least satisfied that we did our best for him. He napped quite well, but not like Son1.

Our experience as parents (and in particular with Son2) changed our parenting style. We now consider night-time to be Son3's time for exclusive access to his parents... For a long time, both for naps and at night he wouldn't sleep without physical contact with us. Now, car journeys are the only real way for him to get a good nap in the daytime (he's got a big carbon footprint already!)

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterRob A

Funny, this was just on my mind... LO was a fantastic sleeper until we hit *exactly* 4 months. He would literally wake only to feed and have his diaper changed until then; he started sleeping through the night when he was 3 weeks old. At four months, it just plummeted downhill. It hasn't been crazy lately, but it hasn't been great either. He sleeps approximately from 7pm until 7am (give or take 30 mins) but it's anyone's guess as to how many times he wakes during the night. Last night he was up at midnight, 1:30am, 5:30am, and then up for the day at 6:45am. He hates napping, and went through a 2-month stretch where he didn't nap AT ALL. He was just up for 12 hours a day. (yikes) Now he'll take 20-30 min naps once or twice a day, but it takes coaxing - getting the room dark, feeding him in the dark quietly, etc. Every once in awhile he'll sleep more than 30 mins but it's rare. So I guess my challenges are riding the line between letting him set his own schedule, what works for him, and maintaining our sanity (DH is with him during the day and I handle the night-time wakings), and also making sure that he does get enough sleep. Given his extreme crankiness when he doesn't nap or doesn't nap long enough, I feel that he needs more sleep than he "lets himself" get...

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJuli

Oh right. I should probably mention that my LO is just about 8 months old now.

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJuli

Well, I have three issues.
1. My son wants to skip his first nap. I don't mind that at all, but he becomes a little unbearable around 11 a.m. (which is when all our activities are going on) I'm not sure if that means he's not in fact ready to skip his nap or if that means it takes a little time to grow into being able to be awake longer.
2. We're learning how to fall asleep in our crib at night. During the day, he no longer really wants to rock to sleep but there's too much light to be able to concentrate on sleeping in the crib. So we spend a good amount of time going from crib to rocker, crib to rocker, etc. until he falls asleep. But the window of time in which he can fall asleep is kind of short so this back and forthing can't go on long (and it's getting increasingly longer)
3.Basically, we haven't found a sleeping thing at naptime that works for him and what's happening is as he gets more into sleeping in his crib, he's less likely to nap anywhere else when we're out of the house. So I'm not sure what to do on weekends when he won't nap in the car or in any new environment.

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterSAHMsoni

At first I thought he was transitioning out of the morning nap-but no! Then, he puts up a huge fuss for maybe 5 minutes then crashes on me! I can "see" when he needs to sleep-I don't really know what I am seeing but I am right every time. The longest he puts up a fuss is 10 minutes-I do also see that the longer the fuss, the more tired he is! BTW, he is 14 months and SUPER mobile and chatty! We are having a great time, but the sleep thing is tough. EVERYONE disagrees with me about CIO. Its tough on me and my husband. My husband supports me and yet doesn't want to get into with his Mom-ugh. I do love my MIL, but sometimes....LOL! Anyway, I am going to buy this book right away-and thanks for such a great blog about raising kids!
:-)

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterKaren

Ah naps. Well, my husband is home with my 21 month old daughter during the day 4 days a week and I co-sleep and nurse her every night.

Before I returned to work I would also nurse her for naps. Once I went back to work when she was 3 mos old, hubbie (who doesn't have the same equipment and can't nurse) let her sleep on his chest. Fast forward 18 months later and she still naps on his chest.

On the 3 days a week that I'm home, she will nap next to me on the bed if I nurse her but will only sleep on his chest not next to him. He's tried many times to change this, but naps are so important and she ends up staying awake...so we give in.

She still sleeps next to me all night and generally likes to be close to us at all times. We've tried to tread gently in getting her to nap alone and we'd love to have naptime to spend with each other.

Oh, and she still does the 45 minute wake up thing and needs to be nursed/walked back to sleep. Ugh! Sorry for the novel, thanks for any help.

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAmy

We made our son nap, but when he was about 18 months it began to be a fight. By two, I gave up and he napped only if he wanted, which was never. With my daughters I never forced them to nap. If they did, great. If not, then we just dealt with it or went for a drive :) Now my three year old has given them up completely and the 17 month old usually takes one in the middle of the day, but not always. It's so much nicer when we just let them decide.

Anyway, I do have a question that I've never been able to find an answer for. My first daughter would nap and wake up in a horrible mood every time. She'd have these high pitched awful screams and she was completely inconsolable for about 15-20 minutes after a nap. Nothing I offered or did for her ever worked. I'm really glad she doesn't nap anymore but I always wondered what on earth was the problem. It didn't really happen in the mornings, although occasionally it did. I wondered about nightmares but she would or could never explain the problem.

December 17, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterSarah

OMG --- Napping is my issue. MY BIGGEST PARENTING ISSUE. My "OMG WHAT WILL I DO?!" issue. My moments of "i can't cope!!" are always at nap time!!!

I have her no cry sleep solution for toddlers - and just read the napping bits which were very short - and haven't had a a chance to read the rest of the book -- but maybe what i really need is THIS book you mention instead....

I just thought I'd add that MY biggest issue that I find isn't addressed that well in the books I do have is how to get them TO sleep at nap time.... How to get them to go down.... We lie with our children (they're 2 and a bit) at bedtime until they fall asleep -- and it's never an issue..... but naptime, I CANNOT do it... they just wont go down that way - even though they're tired..... and i'm TOTALLY comited to getting them to nap - I would lie with them for the whole nap if that's what it took -- it's just NOT what it takes apparently!

and they're not exactly fighting sleep -- and i'm tired of people telling me "kids who aren't tired wont sleep..." they ARE tired!!! they just don't know how to "let themselves go"...

I think my problem might be helped by total darkness - but because of how our house is - it hasn't been possible.... and I've tried it elsewhere in total or near total darkness and it hasn't worked either, so i'm not sure....

I could write a book on this subject "how kids don't nap" :(

December 18, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterimaginationinparenting

My 16 month old daughter has been having terrible nap issues for over a month now. She is waking after 30 - 45 min. no matter what I do. I've tried to take her down to one nap at about 11:30am and she only sleeps for 45 min. I've tried to give her 2 naps, one at about 9:30am & one at about 1:30pm and she wakes up after 30 min. I know she is short napping because she's tired, but can't get her caught up. She used to go to bed at 7:30pm and wake 6 - 6:30am, but now I'm trying to put her to bed early to make up for short naps sometimes as early as 6pm and she still won't get caught up. She usually sleeps until 5:30 - 6am now whether I put her to bed at 6pm or 7:30pm so I know she needs that extra sleep. Can't figure her out! I've read sleep issue books, message boards, etc. and nothing that I've read is helping. Please Help!!!! I am so frustrated! She is very clingy and whiny during the day and I can't get anything done. I'm home by myself and I also have a 3 1/2 son so I can't sit by her crib for very long to help her get back to sleep and even when I have she never does. I would appreciate any advice.

November 10, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterKaryn K

@Karyn K:

You might want to check out the No Cry Nap Solution: http://www.phdinparenting.com/2008/12/28/book-review-the-no-cry-nap-solution-by-elizabeth-pantley/

Personally, both my kids went through a horrible napping stage as toddlers. I would either:
- Lie down with them and get them to sleep and then get up to do my stuff if I could escape
- Go for a car ride and take a book with me. I would park my car someone once he fell asleep and read.

Hope that helps.

November 10, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterphdinparenting
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