Babies: 6 - 9 Months

Sleep training for naps

Anyone do this and if so at what age??  Reading Sleepeasy Solution at night but want to try naps also.  Just wondering if anyone nap trained.  Right now DD is almost 5 months and takes 4 30minute naps.  It takes about 10 minutes to get her to sleep and 50% of the time I have to put her in her swing.  Even if she is in the crib she doesn't last any longer which is fine but on the tough days I hate spending 30 minutes for a 30 minute nap!
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Re: Sleep training for naps

  • We did Ferber with naps (after we had night time down) at a little over 6 months old. Increasing interval checks. The first naps it took about 1/2 hour for him to fall asleep. Now, a week later, it takes about 5 min. He used to take 45 minute naps. Now that he's learned to fall asleep on his own, his average nap is an hour and a half. I think he couldn't bridge his sleep cycles. Ferber definitely helped with that. Good luck!
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  • thanks for posting this. It's very relevant to us right now. Today we started nap training (we did the night time training 3 weeks ago). I was prepared for the worse today as usually I have to hold and shoosh her a long time and up until today she has been napping on me or DH. So I spend the majority of the day holding her so she'd nap.
    Today she went down easily for all the naps. we were careful to not miss the critical sleep cues and put her down right at the WT period.
    However, she woke up after 30-45 minutes from all her naps and didn't go back to sleep. She took four 30-45 min naps. At night she transitions from one sleep cycle to another but today she couldn't do it for naps.
    Is this typical?
    How long does it take for their naps to get longer? On me she napped anywhere from half hour to 2 hours.
    If she wakes up after 30-45 min, I let her cry for 10 minutes to see if she'll go back, if not, I go get her. I'm wondering if I should be waiting longer.
  • I think naps are harder than night time sleep. I also read the Sleepeasy Solution but haven't been able to get naps under control so far. Once my baby is awake from a nap she will not go back to sleep until hours later.
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  • I started sleep training naps after reading The Baby Whisperer... I have to pick my battles though. He either gets a 20-30 min nap in the crib if I'm lucky, or 1-1.5 hr nap on my lap or boppy beside me. So it becomes a matter of which is more important that day, sleep training or getting anything at all done.

    My cousin-in-law's kid is nearly 2 and still won't sleep in his crib, so I definitely try and sleep train at least some of Rowan's naps.


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  • I started sleep/ nap training when my son was 6 1/2 months old. He's 7 1/2 months right now. I decided to do both at the same time so that we had a good routine down and consistency. I used the sleep sense program which I loved. He was only taking 3 naps a day, 30 min each. I couldn't get anything done and it would take at least 10-15minutes of him fighting his sleep until he finally fell asleep. He did really well with the night time training but it did take him a little longer to lengthen his naps. About 2 weeks. Stay consistent and it will come. In the sleep sense program it discusses that naps are harder at establishing. Now my son takes 2 naps a day each 1 1/2 hours. I didn't even know what to do with all the extra time at first. It really pays off to be consistent and establish a good naptime routine. Plus, now my son is so much happier during his awake hours. Good luck
  • So glad to hear everyones experience with this! I was feeling guilty that LO is 6 1/2 months old and still taking naps on me when I can't get him to sleep. He has been pretty much STTN like a champ but the naps for me are battles. I think the hard thing too is I work 3 days a week so I feel like when I have a good stretch off and I get in a routine, he goes to day care and then we have to start at square one again. He does, however, take good naps for her. Stinker! 
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  • We did Ferber with naps (after we had night time down) at a little over 6 months old. Increasing interval checks. The first naps it took about 1/2 hour for him to fall asleep. Now, a week later, it takes about 5 min. He used to take 45 minute naps. Now that he's learned to fall asleep on his own, his average nap is an hour and a half. I think he couldn't bridge his sleep cycles. Ferber definitely helped with that. Good luck!

    I totally agree with this! We also did Ferber and it worked wonders with our LO.  The only difference was we nap trained right away the following day after the first night of night training.  It took about 30 minutes for the first nap and since then I have never rocked her to sleep anymore.  Sometimes it takes a half hour of her just playing and rolling around and sometimes she's out in 5 minutes.  We did it at 4.5 months, she's now 6 months. Her naps also extended from little 20-30 minute cat nap to sometimes an hour and a half.  I don't even do awake but drowsy, I just bring her in at nap time, read her a story change her and put her down, it's great!
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  • We nap trained a week or two after bed-time training for which we used CIO with no checks.  CIO isn't for everyone but I wanted to share that the most important thing we did for naps was to recognize that we were putting DS down too late.  So, I established a nap-routine and started it about 45min before I was normally putting him down for a nap.  For about a week I could put him down in his crib awake, leave the room, and he'd be asleep almost immediately with no crying.  It all went to crap last week, though, mainly because I think his nap schedule is changing due to getting more night sleep.  
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  • I started putting DD down for crib naps when she was about 3 months old, but I'd wait til she fell asleep first. We've gradually gone from her NTS, to just nursing but not TS, and now the last few days I've been able to just plop her in her crib when it's time and she'll figure it out for herself. But in the process we've used projectors with various slides, sound machines, white noise apps on the iPad, and dead silence with the occasional woooshing of the AC. We generally have to switch it up every couple of days because she gets bored with one. 

    She doesn't always go down quietly, but it's been a matter of figuring out when she really needs something and when she's just annoyed. And even if she is just making her annoyed noises, if she keeps it up for an extended period of time, I'll go in, check her diaper, maybe feed her, and put her back down. I give each nap 3 shots, and if on the third try she doesn't get to sleep, I bring her back downstairs and we try again later. Sometimes when that's the case I'll take her out on a quick errand to Target or something, then by the time we get back she's reset enough to try again.
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