Hi all, I'm getting ready to nap train my 4 month old soon. I'm planning to do either CIO with checks or extinction, with a time limit of one hour. For those of you who have trained similarly, what did you do if LO's sleep during the day was pretty much nonexistent? Did anyone's LO ever refuse to sleep the whole day???
Did you opt for a super early bedtime? (If so, does this cause LO to wake up super early too?) Did you at some point help your LO nap, just so LO could get at least some day sleep?
I'm really nervous that my LO will fight it so much that we'll only end up with 30 minutes or an hour or so of sleep for the day, which I know is not nearly enough..... Has anyone had this happen while nap training their LO?
Help!
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I would focus on getting your LO to sleep during the day for any amount of time--if nap training works, and he's able to sleep in the crib, great! Otherwise, I would definitely do what you need to do to get a cat nap of 30-45 minutes or so in the afternoon. I would then ALSO do an early bedtime (if my Lo didn't nap, I would do a 6-615 bedtime when he normally went to bed around 7). Generally, at that age, sleep begets sleep, so you may find that he sleeps later if you put him down earlier. If he doesn't sleep at all during the day, he might get over tired and have an awful night's sleep.
Good luck!
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I night trained around 4.5 months while my BFF (who watched LO 2 days/week) also started nap training around then as well. She would let him CIO until he would go to sleep. Checks for my LO just made him escalate. He was a bit more stubborn than most, but if he skipped a nap during the day, I would just continue with his normal night routine and tried to keep him up until his normal bedtime. That sometimes made for a long night for us, but we tried to stay consistent. When we didn't, he would revert back.
Lots of luck to you...it was definitely one of the hardest periods with LO.
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@hilsy85: this is kinda what I'm expecting to do...if he refuses to sleep for his earlier naps, then I plan to put him in a carrier for at least one catnap, then put him to bed a little earlier.... Some people advise putting LO down super super early, like 5-5:30 if he doesn't nap well, but that seems really early to me and I feel like he'd wake at 5am then....
@2PeasinaPod: how long did it take for your LO to be nap trained? At the most difficult time, how long would you say he slept for the day? 30min? 1hr? We just night trained LO and he's been doing really well at night. He's slightly better at naps, in that I used to hold him for all naps but now I can put him down sometimes..... I'm just wanting more consistency from him.... So stressful to even think about!
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@BabyTsMom: that is really early, but even if he does wake at 5 then that's still 11.5-12 hours of sleep, which is really good, and which should help him not be overtired the next day, which should make napping easier, and so on. Good luck!
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@BabyTsMom: There were times when he slept only 30-45 minutes, and other times a few hours. We would just keep trying to keep the schedule as consistent as we could.
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@2PeasinaPod: thanks... Last question: how long did it take to nap train your LO? Night training only took a few days for us but I keep reading how naps are so much harder...
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@BabyTsMom: Night training actually took longer for us for some reason. It was a full month of night training before he went down without a peep.
Nap training was probably about 2 weeks. We still have times today (he'll be 2 next week) where he will cry when we put him down for a nap, but it's short lived, and I can fully tell that it's his manipulative cry now. It usually stops in less than a few minutes.
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