What do naps look like?

LowTalker23 · March 2012

My DS takes around an hour to an hour and a half nap in the AM, no problem. In the afternoon, he'll sleep around 2 hours. However, I'm finding myself still going in and patting his butt when he wakes up too early. It seems that once he hits that 1 hour mark, he pops up and I have to go in, make him lay back down, and pat his butt until he's asleep again. Then it's in and out for the next half hour to an hour. Annoying!

We ferbered for nighttime wake ups and we hardly ever have to do any checks anymore at night, and I haven't done any ferber for naps. He doesn't cry when he wakes up, he just plays in the crib and I know he needs to sleep longer, so this is what I do.

Anybody else in the same boat? My mom keeps telling me to just keep doing it and eventually one day he'll sleep all the way through, but I'm just not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel right now.

M&M227 · March 2012

I don't do anything. If she wakes up super early from a nap (like 30 - 45) minutes and is happy in her crib I leave her for a while. Otherwise I get her up. Although patting doesn't work for her. Occasionally if it's a really weird day and she wakes up early from a nap she'll fall back asleep on me. Depending on what's going on I'll let her.

JSanFran · March 2012

Just curious... Why do you think lo needs to nap longer if he wakes up happy playing in his crib? I'm usually the opposite, if he wakes up crying I assume he needs more of a nap... But we've never really been successful at going back to sleep for naps unless I nurse him back to sleep.

We're at 2 naps, the first usually 1.5 hours the second 1.5-2.5 hours. I he naps longer than 35 minutes he is usually happy when he wakes up.

Just curious as to why you think lo needs longer than an hour of sleep after waking up happy? May e that's why it's hard to get him to go back to sleep?? Or maybe I missed something....

rainstar752 · March 2012

Honestly, the naps you're getting seem long to me (a good nap for DD is an hour)- do you think maybe your LO is just growing out of such long naps?

LowTalker23 · March 2012

Is he only gets 2 hours worth of naps all day he's a total grump from the second nap to bedtime. While he may wake up happy, it's very short lived. We are usually out and about in the evenings and I'd much rather have a happy baby than a sleepy grump. He will not fall asleep anywhere but home, not in the stroller, not in the car, no where. To be happy from the second nap to bedtime, he needs around 3 hours total of naps.