Re: Converting Hannah to a reasonable nap schedule - HELP!?

Posted by Nicole on February 18, 2003 at 12:48:01:

In Reply to: Converting Hannah to a reasonable nap schedule - HELP!? posted by Steve (Hannah's Dad) on February 18, 2003 at 11:40:20:

: My wife and I think we have Hannah's "going to bed" problems just about licked and we're ready to move onto the nap problems. I'm hoping for some advice/tips.

: A bit of history -- for the longest time Hannah (nine months old) only went to sleep if she was nursed or put in the car. We decided to tackle bedtime first, and now she goes to bed relatively easily after being rocked and read to for a few minutes. We rarely get the screeching and screaming that we used to get. She still doesn't sleep as well as we'd like, but we're getting there.

: So, now that things are settling there, we're hoping to get her on more of a solid nap schedule. Currently she takes a mid-day nap with my mother-in-law, who provides daycare for 4 hours a day. She also sometimes takes a late afternoon nap, but not always. That mid-day nap is a good one, but the problem is that Hannah will only stay asleep that long if she's rocked the whole time. If we put her down she wakes up after a half hour.

: So, here are some questions that I'm trying to figure out:

: 1) Should a baby nap in the same place as she sleeps for the night? The reason I ask is that my mother-in-law has trouble putting her down in the crib but can do the pack-and-play.

: 2) Should we use the same "routine" that we use to put her down for the night? Does this matter?

: 3) How can you get a baby to nap longer? Usually by the time we get to Hannah when she wakes up from her half hour in-crib nap, she's AWAKE and has little chance of getting back to sleep.

: Any help would be appreciated. A lot of Hannah's problems are related to us not setting a schedule for her early on like we should have. We're now fixing the problems we caused.

I think it's a good idea if Hannah can take her naps the same place she sleeps at night(if possible). I would also try developing some sort of routine leading up to a nap (not exactly like her bedtime routine), but you could do something similar.
My 5 1/2 month old son has never, ever liked naps, but when he gets cranky and has been up for about 2 hrs., I lay him in his crib(he always cries for about 5 min.) and I get one of his favourtie teddy bears and I kiss the teddy bear and tell the teddy bear to go to sleep, then I do the same to my son(a kiss and tell him to go to sleep for a little while), then I will proceed to tell him what we're going to do when he wakes up, go for a walk etc. This always puts a smile on his face and he doesn't seem as upset.
I used to rock him ALL THE TIME for his naps and bedtime. But I decided he was getting too big and too heavy! We stopped rocking him at 3 1/2 months.
If Hannah is not cranky, and seems happy, maybe she does need less sleep than other babies. Every baby is so different. My son takes a nap about every two hours (45 min to an hour).

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