naps at 8 months old

jlh123

My babies take a nap around 9:30am and then again around 2pm.  Problem is, my son is the perfect napper.  Will nap 1 1/2 hours in the AM and 1 hour in the PM.  Or vice versa.  My daughter 30-40 min both AM and PM at most.  I try to leave her in the crib and let her babble to put herself back to sleep, sometimes she does and other times she starts crying.  I wait a few minutes to see if she'll work it out but then my son wakes up in his crib.  So now I have two tired babies.  We don't CIO for various reasons.  Sleep at night isn't an issues.  They go down around 7:30pm and sleep 11-12 hrs, STTN since 3-4 months old.

Maybe I'm waiting for someone to tell me it's OK to let my daughter sleep only 30 min and let her be tired the rest of the day but not able to nap.  Or I'm waiting for someone to tell me I did the right thing and picked her up.  Then I invest another 30-60 min trying to get her to go to sleep.  It's insane especially since she sleep so well at night.

Suggestions?

janjag

since cio is not an option for you, you can try separating them at naps.  we did this, and i am sure that my good sleeper can get more rest this way, and my so-so sleeper isn't disturbed by vivienne's frequent sleep noises. 

another thing you can try is getting to baby the minute she wakes up, pick her up and rock/soothe and she might fall back to sleep.  but if you wait too long and let her really wake up, it's more difficult to get them to go back to sleep.  i did this with audrey before we ST and it is a bit of work... sometimes i would just hold her to continue the nap.

lastly, you could try a 3rd nap for your not so good napper.

macchiatto

Naps need to be at least an hour to be restorative. It's unusual at that age, but she *might* be ready to move to one nap. (I hope not, for your sake!)
I really recommend the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I have found it immensely helpful for sleep issues, and it goes all the way through adolescence! Great resource to have on hand.

jlh123

Thanks for the suggestions.  My husband and I were just discussing maybe taking the naps in different rooms but they are so used to either their crib or the car lol.  I can give it a try, nothing lost I"m sure.  I do wonder if she could go to 1 nap a day.  A few times she's done it she sleeps almost 3 hours but she's so exhausted before hand I feel awful (it's been done only due to us having outside obligations to attend).  I like also the suggestion of getting to her before she wakes up fully.  Thanks again ladies!