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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
How can night sleep and naps be so different?
I don't understand my child. At night, he nurses and then I burp him and place him in his crib awake. He doesn't make a peep and falls asleep on his own. He'll either STTN or wake once to eat. If he wakes to eat, I feed him and once again put him in the crib awake for him to fall asleep on his own. No problem.
So WTF is up with his naps? He usually refuses to go in his crib. I have resorted to putting him in his RnP in the living room with me, but he cries for about 5 minutes before falling asleep. He doesn't take a paci and doesn't fall asleep if I rock or bounce him either. He also seems to have trouble moving into his next sleep cycle and will wake up after 45 minutes crabby. Should I just wait it out and see if it gets better? Should I do Ferber? I feel weird doing Ferber for naps when he doesn't need it at night. Would that be confusing?
Any advice would be great. DH told me to just give it time, but he's not the one at home dealing with a crabby kid who isn't getting the naps he needs....
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
This discussion has been closed.
Re: How can night sleep and naps be so different?
Babies process day and night sleep differently.
Ferber for naps and nap extensions is working great for us. DS took a 1.5 hour nap in the crib this morning without waking up after the 30 minute mark for the first time ever.
No advise here just wanted to say DS is the exact same way!!! Putting him down at night is a breeze but he outright refuses to nap during the day. The only way I can get him to sleep longer then 10min is by putting him in his swing or by letting him nap on me.
I am going to hold off on trying the Ferber method for at least another month. I haven't read much about it but I think I remember that you can start it at 4 months.
I will be stalking this thread because I need some advise too.
Connor - 12/15/10 Abby - EDD 11/29/13
Can you tell me the specific Ferber method you use? D will go into his hard cry almost right away when I put him in his crib sometimes for naps. How does just "checking" on him in intervals help this? He doesn't take a paci and will often not calm down if I just talk to him. I tried this a couple of times and it was a big fat fail.
If I put him in his RnP in the living room, he'll cry pretty hard while staring at me but then will calm down after about 5 minutes. It's like me being in the room helps?
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
It probably works for us because I go against Ferber's advice and put the paci back in during checks. For the first 2 naps of the day, I only have to go in once to put it back in and he's out. Nap #3 is more difficult, and I go in at 1 minute, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes is my max. Generally at the 3 minute check he goes to sleep. What I do is not true Ferber, but DS sucks to soothe and can stay asleep once he spits the paci out.
Have you tried pick up/put down at checks? Pick him up for as long as it takes him to stop the hard crying (basically you're consoling him until his needs are met and nothing more) and then put him back in the crib and walk out.
I don't think Ferber's book mentions this, but you can also do what's called attended waiting. Basically you stay in the room with him until he falls asleep, but only go to him for reassurance when his crying escalates. That's pretty much what's happening in the RnP, so in theory he should be able to do the same thing in the crib.
I think I might give him some more time to see if he works this out on his own, but if not, this is great advice. I like the attended waiting thing. That makes me more comfortable and I think it works better for him.
Thanks so much! I know you gave me advice a day or so ago. I appreciate it!
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
You can try introducing a lovey (I hate that term, but I don't know what else to call it). DS took every nap until very recently in the swing, and he always held onto a Taggie Blanket. I know you're not supposed to put them in the crib with loose blankets, but I give him the Taggie for naps (it's a small square of fabric, not a big blanket). He clutches it while he goes to sleep, so I think that me handing it to him is a signal that it's time for a nap. I definitely get the feeling that he knows what being put in the sleep sack and handed the Taggie means.
We were always very consistent with the night routine which is why I think we've never had any problems there, so I actually wrote out a nap routine so I do the same thing every time. I might be a little bit insane about sleep.
Haha! Well I'm trying to give him some time to work it out on his own before I do sleep training. But if he doesn't work it out soon, I might have to do something just so he's not a crankpot all day.
I do have a lovey for him - it's a little panda with a small square of fabric attached. I have tried to start using that, but I will be consistent about it. Thanks!
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
Do you ever look at him and think "I know you're tired. Why won't you just GO TO SLEEP?".
I have friends with babies who cycle in and out of sleep all day long. Until I had DS, I just assumed all babies did that. I was so sad to be wrong.
Yeah, I thought all babies just passed out when they were tired. LOL. I was so naive!!
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
I do this too...DS always just passed out on his own for naps for the longest time and now we have to actively soothe him and still it can take forEVER for him to fall into a nap some days. I HAVE said that to him!
I think I'm going to start doing the same modified Ferber that we do at night to see if that works to get at least one long nap out of him regularly. I'm OK with his catnaps a couple times a day, but the days where he just does 4-5 itty bitty naps all day kills us all. He sleeps awesome at night too, which is what baffles me.
He's growing up, but he'll always be my baby!
Nathan--11/4/10
...big brother to...???? Due March 2014!
We did Ferber for nights, but it has NEVER been successful for naps for us. He recommends doing the progressive waiting, and then just getting the baby up after an hour if they're not asleep. My LO just cannot skip a nap like that. Not good for anyone. And I don't think it's worth an hour of that if he doesn't get a nap out of it.
Honestly, when it comes to naps, we just do what works. For DS, it was the swing. More recently, we started putting him down in the crib at first for naps, then if he cried for more than a minute or two, we put him in the swing. Just in the last couple of weeks, he started getting SOME sleep in the crib. So now, we put him down in the crib. If he wakes up after less than an hour, he goes into the swing.
It's really over the last week that we've finally been able to put him down in the crib and he doesn't blink. He just watches his glo worm and then goes to sleep. I've also found him playing with his glo worm in the mornings when I check on him. So maybe it's just that he's finally old enough to enjoy his glo worm?
Anyway, my point is that for naps, I just say do whatever it takes to get him to sleep, or back to sleep. And if you can't get him to sleep more than 45 minutes, maybe he takes more naps. I think eventually, the naps will work themselves out. Especially if you have good night habits.