Suggestions for Naptimes

I'm not a fan of scheduled naps and forcing baby to go down if they're not ready to. I always watched for the clues that baby is tired enough to go down. They usually take their nap with a lot less stress that way. And being a SAHM really helps in that area, you have a little more freedom to work WITH baby, rather than against, ya know?

We read Preparation for Parenting by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo and followed their advice regarding a sleep schedule with our kids. The hospital had them on a 3-hour feeding schedule, which is exactly what the Ezzos recommend, so we just continued with that. The 3-hour routine started with feeding, then awake time(except for at night), then sleep time(same as what Tina J. described). We did have to let them learn to cry it out at first, but that didn't last long and they are both great sleepers. At your son's age, you could work on a 4-hour routine during the day. Here is a link to a summary of this approach: http://www.gfi.org/java/jsp/article48.htm Obviously, I don't agree with those who say you can't establish a routine with babies until 6 months. I think babies need a routine to get the right amount of food and sleep, and to begin to have some consistency in their life so they know what to expect. They don't always get what they want when they want it, but they get what they need and they end up being happier, well-adjusted kids. Just my opinion based on my experience...

You have got to get the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Weissbluth.....it gave us back our sanity & our daughter is so HAPPY!!!!! Good luck & hope this helps!

So smart to look into healthy sleep habits when your guy is so little. Building healthy nighttime sleep and nap habits is so important for proper development. I would recommend the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". It's a wonderful resource about sleep. What I like most about it is that it is written by a doctor who conducts sleep research. So it is a research based book.

As with all books, however, I advise you to read it with a critical eye. Take only what you need and leave the rest. He takes a few hits at the Sears family/attachment parenting/ and La Leche League at the end of his book, which I don't appreciate. But that aside, it is a great resource.

I believe that he doesn't show in his research that it is a problem to nurse your baby to sleep. Maybe nursing him to sleep will help.

My son (22mos) has gone through several cat nap phases also. It can be such a challenge to get things done or get some rest yourself, when their naps are so brief. It helped for me to REALLY stimulate him during play time. We looked at books, went outside, or went to a busy store, or I sang songs to him...all of these things can really wear out a little one. Maybe he is in need of more activity during wake times and that will facilitate a longer nap.

Good luck and keep up all your wonderful mothering!

E.

While I'm sure you'll get some suggestions to let him "cry it out", I just wanted you to know that there are other ways of gently shaping your little baby's sleep (still so young at only 3.5 months!).

A few good resources that you might find helpful are:

Ask Moxie - this mom, in the trenches just like us, and really has her head screwed on straight, totally acknowledges that there's *NO* one-size fits all sleep method - she talks about typical sleep regressions (and your little guy is right around the perfect age for the regression that typically happens around 4 months old!)
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/sleep/index.html
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/06/babies_and_cio.html

Then there's Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution and Dr. Sear's The Sleep Book - linking to Amazon so you can read summary and reviews, but these are almost always available free at the local library or at a local LLL meeting:
http://www.amazon.com/No-Cry-Sleep-Solution-Gentle-Throug...
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Sleep-Book-Complete-Parenting/...

And I love this little collection of short articles on sleep at naturalchild.org:
http://www.naturalchild.org/articles/sleeping.html

Hope these help you decipher your baby's sleep needs and formulate your own approach to helping him (and you!) get more rest. :)

K., the sooner you start to implement a routine the easier it will be. We started all 4 of our kids on a routine when they were just 8 weeks old. It made all the difference in our lives. It wasn't a demanding routine but just a schedule for them. It made it easier when they would be fussy, because we would know why, and we were never guessing as to what the problem was. By 3 months they were all sleeping through the night and taking 2 naps a day (1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours each). Waiting long only makes it hard to try and schedule them. I can even put my 2 year old down for his afternoon nap and then just leave the room without spending 30 min trying to put him down. Bedtime is the same way. They know what to expect and it makes it easier on them. Also, I have had babysitters enjoy watching my kids in the evening because they know that when she tells them it's bedtime they she can just go and put them to bed without a struggle. In the end the sooner you try and work on a schedule the easier your life will be and the happier your child will be. It's all your decision and you have to do what is best for you and your baby. Since you are a SAHM it should make the scheduling a little easier for you. Good Luck.

I always went by a book called "On Becoming Baby Wise" ...the basic consept is this:
SLEEP - put him down awake…..if you have to wake him up before you lay him down…start a ritual like something you would say like "You’re my little sleepy boy…you go night night…." Etc….

EAT - the moment he wakes up…feed him. DO NOT LET HIM SNACK….try and get him to take FULL feedings at one sitting…once he starts to become a snacker it's hard to get him back to the full feedings……

PLAY - keep him awake as long as you can before you let him go back to sleep. This is VERY HARD when they are first born because all they want to do is sleep…try and tickle her feet…..undress her….etc……believe me all the work in the beginning will pay off.

Hope this helps.......it keeps them on a great schedule!

You can try putting him down a little later than you are so he will be a bit more tired and therefore sleep longer. You must realize however that at 14 weeks a schedule is not established yet. It isn't until at least 6 months some regularity can be expected and maybe not until a year that the 2 2 hour naps can be established. Patience on your part might be what he needs.

Another book that you could try is Dr. Marc Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". He is an actual pediatrician that practices in Chicago, and specializes in infant/child sleep as he has conducted over 30 years of research in this area. Yes, he does recommend CIO (both extinction and gradual), and goes into detail about this procedure. If CIO isn't something you want to do - no worries. Only you know your family best and the decision should be up to you!

I've read the book and started instituting the techniques at around 6 months. We, too, had great luck with night-time sleeping but had issues with the napping. And, just like you, our baby would do catnaps and we would see a difference in his temperament as well. My only wish is that I would have tried the techniques earlier. I was VERY consistent with it, and within THREE days our baby was on a great nap schedule (with flexibility of course), taking a 90 minute nap in the AM and at least a 2 hour nap in the PM. He goes to bed at 6:30 PM and wakes up between 6:00 - 7:00 AM each day. I expected hours and hours of crying. The longest span I got was 45 minutes. Everything after that was 10 or 5 minutes and had basically no crying after 1 week. It was easy because I learned how to pick up on his sleep cues and respect his internal sleep clock.

Now, at nearly 12 months, when it is nap time we just scoop up the baby and put him in his crib wide awake. He might play for 5 minutes or just sit there and zone, but he falls asleep on his own without fuss (I'm still in shock, after hearing everyone else's horror stories!).

Feel free to PM me with questions if you'd like, especially if you don't want to plow through the book. You could probably start sleep training around 4 months, so it would be right around the corner. We 'train' our babies to breastfeed (very few just latch on and go for it), we 'train' our babies to use a spoon, we 'train' our children to read and write, so it makes sense to help 'train' our babies to sleep too. You are the parent and you have seen what both effective and ineffective sleep does to your baby.

HI K.,

I can only say, good luck! :) My son is 11 months and he was not on any routine for napping until he was approx. 6 months old. He was a great night time sleeper, but he would take several 30-45 min naps during the day. Our ped. told us that when he was ready, he would set his own schedule and to not force it. It was really hard to do, though! The biggest help for me was that I created a sleep log where I tracked times when he was starting to look tired, tracked times asleep, etc. That helped me see the pattern when it emerged. Hope this helps at least a little!

First off babies this young usually take cat naps...this to me is very normal at this age.

Second...maybe you could put him to sleep in a quiet place...I don't know where he is napping now???

I hope I helped a little :)

K.,

I have a six month old who does not take naps. She has always taken cat naps and nothing more until now. She is starting to take one nap a day with a few cat ones also. She also sleeps about eleven hours a night and that has been wonderful.

I finally found that a cd player in her room with baby einstein music works the best and she will sleep for 1-2 hours. I try and put her down after a lunch time feed.

With my little one in the day time he slept in his swing and if he woke up I would turn the swing on and he would go right back to sleep. I used a litlle extra padding under him to make it real comfy.he loved his swing it put him right to sleep everytime! hope this works.

Hello K.,
I know I struggled with this same situation. My son was a GREAT sleeper. As a baby he would take 2 naps a day for 2 hours each PLUS sleep for 12 hours every night. He was sleeping through the night at 2 months...What a dream he was!!! Of course he was my first and I thought I followed all the suggestions, at the time I was a sahm and I NEVER woke him from a nap, or alter my routine based on his sleep. Then 2 years later his sister was born and she was TOTALLY opposite. I followed all the same techniques and it didn't work. She would nap 2 times a day, maybe 30 minutes for one and maybe an hour for the next. In her defense she was ALWAYs ready for bed by 8:00 and would sleep most of the way through the night. So basically we continued to try and get her to take longer naps, which never worked and was told by the doctor that some babies just don't nap, but as long as she was sleeping through the night, not to worry about it. Now she is 2 and naps once during the day for maybe an hour and sadly still gets up once during the night, but we are hoping to break through that this year. Some things you can try, when he is sleeping, is he in a separate room from everyone else or in the living room/community room as the rest of the house... when he wakes up, are you RIGHT there when he calls or do you give him some time to readjust and go back to sleep? Your son is still young and of course is not expected to do it all on his own, but sometimes they do wake up and cry out- especially if they see a lot of activity because they don't want to miss anything, or they are still tired, but because they cried out and you came in right away to get him, he couldn't put himself back to sleep. We always put our kids to bed with music (love the Baby Einstein Lullaby CD) or with my son he had the fisher price aquarium in his bed so if he woke up, he would play with that for a few minutes and roll over and go back to sleep. Both of my kids picked their schedules...I think that helped with them...I think they need schedules, but from babies they determined their schedule, I just followed it!
Anyway it will all fall into place, but take comfort in knowing that some kids are not nappers. Your son is still young enough that I don't think he would fit into that category, just keep working on the routine, make sure he has a full belly and dry diaper every time and soon he will hopefully adjust to a longer sleep cycle.

Have you tried babywearing, BW? BW is the practice of carrying your baby close to your body in a sling, pouch, wrap, or other baby carrier. Here is a local group that meets once a month: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toledoareababywearers/. By BW your DS can feel him he is back in the womb again.