any one sleep train for naps?

coffeeandbooks

We had been co-sleeping at night and swinging it for naps and our now transitioning to the crib for both.  We seem to be managing the crib transition at night well but the naps have gone to pieces and he used to be a good napper.  I think we have to sleep train the poor guy during the day.  I have read it is good to ferberize up to an hour and then if they don't sleep within the hour to call it quits.  Is this a good rule?

Have any of you done this? 

What was your technique?  Thanks for the tips.

di1010

Yes. I only really did sleep training for naps. My LO would only nap in her crib for 20 minutes at a time in her crib before. Now she takes 2 good naps a day and falls to sleep pretty quickly. What it helped most with was her night time sleep. Once she was well rested during the day she started sleeping 12 hrs at night. Honestly I didn't do any sleep training when my son was a baby, but when I decided to with my daughter....it was so freeing!!! I think the idea of it was worse than actually doing it.

c-elizabethf

We started with naps first and now she goes down for naps no problem. It's nighttime we have issues with, but last night she only woke once so that was an improvement. We are going to sleep train once we move, she will have her own bedroom so it will be easier.

kelseyhh

We did naps at the same time as bedtime. Everything that I read said that naps take a lot longer to get down than nighttime sleep. However, Emmett did really well with going down for naps after the first day or 2. The sleep sense program I used also said to call a nap quits after an hour, and try again an hour later. If baby still won't go down, take him on a stroller walk/car ride and they will fall asleep. This will prevent complete over-tiredness.

flyliceandcoffee

so we tried to sleep train for naps, it didn't work for us. I think that's because at school they rock her to sleep so she refused to sleep on her own for naps at home. I wish we could have though. Now, we have to snuggle with her until she's pretty sleepy and even then she'll only go to sleep if she's actually really really tired.

coffeeandbooks

@crazycoffeegirl...yes, I think my babysitter rocks LO too.  I am really torn about whether to tell her to stop doing this because he has some separation anxiety and overall I want him to be comforted and happy when I am not there and she is good at comforting him this way, but yeah I think it could be messing with his sleep too.

@SpankingShankdi1010 
cgiles120812
curious to know how long it took and how it all went down.

di1010

Honestly it was much smoother than I thought it would be. The first day she fussed of course but did nap a little better. Slowly her naps got longer.
The major reason I decided to sleep train is she was waking up at night and after a diaper change and eating she would be up for hours. So I would rock her...put her down and she'd wake up. I couldn't function anymore. After a month of being rested from naps she started to sleep through the night. Every now and then she will wake up...I change her feed her a little and she goes right back down.

I tell you all this as someone who rocked my son forever!!!! Forever....he was 2 and I still rocked him for naps. I think for my daughter it was actually keeping her awake though.

flyliceandcoffee

@coffeeandbooks - yah i don't try to mess with that because they really can't just let her cry at school. there's too many kids and they all have to nap, so however it works for them is what I've gotta do.

Schell2013

I did the one hour rule. Most of the time she fell asleep but there was times she wouldn't. I would alway wait until she quit crying before I picked her up though so she didn't think she was getting to leave from crying so it wouldn't mess her up at night when I would leave her. I figured even if she didn't sleep she still had "quiet time" as we put it in our house to decompress and relax. I used to make her nap time routine kinda like bedtime except the shower and we are now up to 2 hour naps. I used to be lucky to get 20 minutes.

coffeeandbooks

Ugh...the nap thing is really sucking for us now. I am going through the one hour thing now-t&ps it works.