https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:14:34 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-712549 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:23:15 +0000 NerdBee 712549@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@hilsy85: that's a tough one because some babies are more sleepy than others. I know that my LO was totally able to handle 2h wake time at 6 months but he rarely gave me tired cues even when he was really tired! Maybe your LO gives tired cues because he is used to sleeping at a certain time? If he is generally well rested, it probably wouldn't hurt to try extending his wake time by 10-15 minutes and see what happens. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-712523 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:03:03 +0000 hilsy85 712523@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>As someone also struggling with short naps, @Sammyfab: @NerdBee: if LO is showing tired cues at 1.5 hours, do you just push them to stay up around 2 hours? That's what I struggle with now...LO is almost 6 months, but I feel like he often shows tired cues around 90 minutes, or even 80 minutes. So I don't know if I should put him down then or push him to wait til 2 hours of awake time in the hopes that he'll be more tired? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-711696 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:38:58 +0000 immabeetoo 711696@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@NerdBee it's stupid how scared I get to mess with his sleep - especially since it isn't that awesome to begin with!! @Sammyfab THANK YOU for explaining it that way. Seriously, thank you. My husband is going to kill me because he kept suggesting longer wake times and I'd try, randomly, but he'd fight the nap like crazy and I think it was because I was trying after he was already in that undertired/overtired cycle you're talking about.</p> <p>The idea of that cycle makes SO MUCH sense and I think it's exactly what we've been doing. I've been aiming for closer to 2 hours, and putting him in his crib awake. He has responded well to pats &amp; pick ups - and I think I'm more comfortable discerning what is just "whining" that I ignore. He fell asleep 100% on his own within 15 minutes this last name, which is a huge WIN since I wasn't in there rocking him for 45 minutes.</p> <p>The interesting thing is that he's flipped himself on his tummy for the first time... he is not as adept at flipping back yet while in his crib so I am prepared for an angry "I'M STUCK" wake up but I'm hoping that eventually it will help him sleep longer!</p> <p>ETA- I also think it helps that I came to terms with the fact that he fusses over sleep regardless of if he's falling asleep in my arms, or the carseat, so why would he go quietly into the night on his own in the crib?? (At least not now, or yet). It also helps that I know he is capable of falling asleep on his own since he's been doing it at night. Wahoo! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-710685 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:00:46 +0000 Sammyfab 710685@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I second everything @NerdBee has said. Up until my LO was 4 months I would look for a yawn and whisk him upstairs right away to put him down for a nap. We used super short waketimes (45 mins to 1.5 hours) because I was so weary of overtiredness. He never had trouble falling asleep but he would only take short naps so we got into an undertired/overtired cycle (not tired enough to transfer to the next sleep cycle but overtired from the short nap). </p> <p>The day he turned 4 months we went straight to 2 hours between naps and 3 naps. One of the naps immediately lengthened and we got into a good routine.</p> <p>I also wanted to suggest that if he doesn't respond well to your checks, consider lengthening the time in between. Sometimes checks can be too stimulating and with only an hour to work with he may not because the frequent checks aren't giving him enough time to settle. Good luck! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-710631 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:49:21 +0000 NerdBee 710631@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@scg00387: good luck! I know that's its really scary to try something new with sleep. I was terrified of my LO being overtired and kept his wake times on the shorter side for the longest time because of his short naps. It was not until I figured out that he needed a longer wake time that his naps actually lengthened. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-710467 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:59:04 +0000 immabeetoo 710467@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@twoofeverything: I deserve no sympathy from you - I know you're doing it all with two!!<br /> @NerdBee: @NovBaby1112: I have played some with longer awake times and felt like it was even harder to get him down, but maybe it'll be different since I'm asking him to do more of the work now. It's frustrating because sometimes he shows zero sleepy signs until he is being rocked; I don't know if that means he is not sleepy enough and I 'forced' the issue early or if I got the timing right!<br /> @edelweiss: I'm glad you have had some success at least! I'm not to the point where I want to consider CIO yet; and most of the time he wakes up happy/doesn't cry anyways. But you're right on all the effort to get him to super drowsy, same for my LO.</p> <p>I'm terrified he is going to just not. nap. at all. But.. he is asleep for his first nap of the day! I'm committing to trying for 3 days to do his nap routine, and plop him in, going in if he full-on cries for shhing/patting or picking up and rocking if that doesn't work, and putting him right back in. Fingers crossed he takes at least one other nap today :) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-710356 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:12:52 +0000 edelweiss 710356@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@NerdBee: @NovBaby1112: thanks for the suggestion on extending awake time--i may try it and see if it helps extend LO's naps. you hear so much about throwing the baby in the crib when drowsy signs start, that i'm wondering if i haven't given him more of a chance to stay awake longer. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709506 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:34:15 +0000 NovBaby1112 709506@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@edelweiss: well it sort of happened on its own. Our sitter who watches her 2 days a week started putting her down around the 1 hour 45 min mark/ 2 hour mark after lo was fighting going down and she went down much easier and slept a lot longer. So then I started doing it and its been working great. If you want to start to transition to longer awake times, they say to only do 1 awake period at a time and increase by 5-10 mins each day. But we just did it all at once </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709418 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:18:58 +0000 edelweiss 709418@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@NovBaby1112: when you extended your LO's awake time, did you have to keep her awake even after she showed drowsy signs to help her transition to a longer awake period, or was she showing drowsy signs after a longer awake period on her own? thanks! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709381 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:03:52 +0000 NerdBee 709381@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>You could try a longer wake time. I think a 4.5 month old should be able to go for 1.75-2h wake time. </p> <p>According to Dr. Weissbluth in Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, when nap training you should leave LO in the crib for up to an hour. If LO doesn't fall asleep then take out of crib and do some quiet play and try putting down again within the hour. LO should go down easily the second time. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709346 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:54:33 +0000 edelweiss 709346@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>LO isn't a good napper at all. it has been the bane of my maternity leave (which is ending soon). i started CIO a couple of weeks ago because i wanted him to learn to self-soothe. as much as i would like to say it was a roaring success, there has been improvement but it didn't turn him into a magical sleeping baby.</p> <p>at the beginning of a nap, there is usually 10-15 minutes of crying/fussing. if i look at the monitor, i see that sometimes he is awake for much longer. but like others have said, if he's content, i treat it as quiet time because it's less stimulating than when i take him out of the crib.</p> <p>9 times out of 10,. he wakes up after a 45-minute sleep cycle. after CIO training, it still takes him 10-30 minutes to self-soothe back to sleep. if he still can't fall asleep (crying off and on while he tries to self-soothe) after 30 minutes, i pick him up (although sometimes i wait longer if i can see that he's trying to fall asleep). but that's happened only a couple of times.</p> <p>it's not easy though, by any means.</p> <p>oh, for putting him down, we learned early on that getting him to a super drowsy state could take an hour and was no guarantee that he would actually fall asleep in the crib--so when i see that he's drowsy, i start the routine, put him in the crib, and leave whether he's awake, crying, cooing, whatever. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709293 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:45:23 +0000 NovBaby1112 709293@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Hmmm I'm wondering if he is ready to increase his awake times since he is playing in his crib and not falling asleep. they say that with the right awake time, baby should go down easily. My LO had a 1.5 hr awake time from about 12 weeks to 18 or so, and she was getting harder and harder to put down and only sleeping 30-45 minutes.Not sure if you've tried this already or what, but I thought I'd let ya know what helped us. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709165 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:21:55 +0000 twoofeverything 709165@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I set the limit at 45 mins-1hr. If he's happy rolling around and not crying, I would just leave him! Then after 45 minutes, get him up, feed, and try again in 30-40 minutes (or whenever he starts showing tired signs).<br /> You may just be going through a nap strike. You're already doing everything I did, so I don't really know what else to say other than be consistent and hang in there :-S<br /> Nap training sucks so much. *Hugs* </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709153 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:19:48 +0000 immabeetoo 709153@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@prettylizy: @zippylef: that's a good point! I hadn't thought of it that way so thanks! He is often still happy if I give up on the nap all together already, I joke that he sleeps with his eyes open when he acts rested after not actually sleeping.</p> <p>I should Add he's 4.5 months, but this has been an issue since he was about 2.5 months. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709120 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:15:12 +0000 loveisstrange 709120@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I actually agree with @prettylizy: C hates naps and will fight with all she has (normally for the afternoon one, morning isnt so bad). I find that she's just as content with some afternoon siesta as she is a full-on nap. I have a time-frame I give her and I will go get her at the end of it, whether she has napped or not. She's normally happy to sit upstairs and talk to herself for a couple hours. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709111 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:12:42 +0000 prettylizy 709111@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I'm a big fan of quiet time if naps aren't happening. If he's not losing it and just hanging out alone, let him be. </p> <p>I also think you should go with all naps at once for consistency. I didn't nap train though so I might be wrong, that's just my gut. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/help-me-think-through-nap-training-please#post-709021 Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:53:39 +0000 immabeetoo 709021@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We've had good success with the no cry sleep solution for night time and I've been trying to apply the same principles to naps... and have hit a plateau. I don't feel like Pantly addresses my questions in her book.. so I'm curious what you all have done or had work.</p> <p>LO only sleeps 30-45 minutes almost all the time - no matter where he is (on me, carseat, in crib). I've come to terms with that after trying everything I could to lengthen and am just hoping he outgrows it.</p> <p>However.. lately I'm sometimes spending just as much time getting him to sleep in his crib as he spends actually asleep. Most of the nap training stuff I have read just says to let them cry... but he doesn't really cry. He might for a few seconds when I try to transfer him and he is drowsy, but if I don't pick him up again he just wakes all the way up and rolls around quietly. He will do this for up to 45 minutes without falling back asleep thus far.</p> <p>I feel like I ought to start putting him in the way awake and just toughing it out until he gets the picture - going in to soothe if he full-out cries.</p> <p>Here are my questions:</p> <p>-should I just go gung-ho for all naps? or try just one nap at a time?<br /> -how long should I leave him if he hasn't fallen asleep? until it's time to eat again? 45 minutes?</p> <p>I know that if he gets over tired, it's even harder so I'm just not sure how to navigate it to help him figure it out the fastest.</p> <p>We have/do:<br /> -a nap routine<br /> -white noise<br /> -black out curtains<br /> -try to follow 90 minutes awake time, winding down and starting routine at 1 hr 15 minutes (or sooner if showing sleepy signs)</p> <p>Any advice?? It is absurd how much of my time I'm spending fighting him to fall asleep in his crib lately. </p>