Help! My almost 1-year old has gone on a serious nap strike. For the last week or two, every time I go to put her down for a nap (she still gets rocked to bed for her naps), she screams like I'm trying to murder her. She will be clearly tired, but flat out refuse to go to sleep. I tried putting her down in her crib, since she goes to sleep there on her own at night, but that just led to more screaming when I tried to leave the room. I tried sitting next to her at the crib, but then she just wanted to play with me. Am I missing some parenting secret here? Anyone else have a similar situation with a child this age who refused naps?
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Have you actually left the room? My lo does this when we aren't at home, like at a hotel or someones house. But once we leave she's out in two seconds. I would leave for a couple of minutes at least to see what happens.
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@skibobrown: I am so feeling your pain right now!!!!
Miss A is almost six months old and has previously been a pretty good napper but for the last ten days she's been doing exactly.the.same.thing. I am so over the yelling and tears that has accompanied just about every nap this last week and it's starting to depress me. Miss A is now getting to the desperately overtired stage which makes her whiney and clingy and I feel sorry for the wee poppet.
For us I think it's developmentally related, Baby Girl has just started to sit and is desperate to crawl, do you maybe think your LO is about to walk or do something similar?
Today I lay her down in the cot and rubbed her belly until she yelled herself to sleep, took about five minutes but at least I didn't have to hold her till she crashed out this time.
Apologies for the ramble, Mum brain is upon me!
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@Kemma: Yes! I think she's totally about to walk soon. She's definitely in a new developmental stage where she's starting to act a lot more like a toddler. I have to fly with her alone in a few days, and I'm really worried that she's going to flip out on the flight when I need to get her down for a nap in my arms.
@artbee: I guess I should try leaving the room. DD has never gone down for a nap on her own. She has always been a horrible napper, so I always rock her down for naps, so my guess is she's going to flip out when she realizes I'm trying to make her go down on a nap by herself. Still, I'll give it a try. Maybe it will work... -
I hesitated to post here because my LO is only 6 months and my "solution" is really basic, but just in case it helps...I read him a book while he's in the crib. I put him down and then pull up a chair next to his crib and read a long-ish (for a 6-month-old) book ("Guess How Much I Love You"), kiss him and leave the room. He falls asleep shortly after I leave. Since I started doing this a week ago, he hasn't cried for probably 75% of his naps. I'm kicking myself that it took 6 months to discover this, because before that it was nonstop screaming! I think it just takes him longer than I thought to transition from awake time to nap time.
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This sounds really similar to what we went through with DD, who is now 14 months old. I rocked her for pretty much every nap until she was a year old. I wanted her to get the rest she needed, but because she wasn't able to fall asleep on her own, I would walk and rock her until she was sleeping and then put her in the crib. This worked for awhile, but there were many days where she would either wake up as I was putting her down or would nap for a whopping 20 minutes and wake up.
I realized I was actually making the situation worse because she never learned how to self soothe and put herself to sleep. We had sleep trained her twice previously, but then she would be teething or going through another milestone and we would be back at square one. When I nap trained her at the 1 year mark, I told myself that this would be the last time and that I had to stick with it and be consistent no matter what. She cried hard the first few days, but everyday got easier and after a week, she was able to put herself to sleep. Hooray!
Do you have a nap time routine? I did the following things before each nap so she would know its sleep time:
- close blinds in room
- turn on sleep sheep and mobile (ours plays music)
- give her paci and her lovie
- sing 1 song (I did Hush Little Baby)
- kiss her, tell her it's time to sleep and put her in the cribIt's not easy hearing them whine/cry in there, but I'm so glad I chose to do this. It was getting hard to rock a 1 year old to sleep twice a day, but more importantly it taught DD how to self soothe and now she's able to put herself to sleep, even if she happens to wake up from her nap early. That week was difficult, but soo worth it in the long run. Hope I was able to help. Good luck!
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@skibobrown: doesn't hurt to try! My lo was such a bad napper too when she was a baby. She always needed movement for sleep. Then at 8 months dh put her in her crib and she went right to sleep. Nap time has been so much easier since!
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@artbee: Well you were right! After starting the screaming routine again this morning, I decided to just tuck her in in her crib. I shut the blinds, turned on sleep sheep, tucked her in under a soft blanket (we use blankets during naptime, while I can still keep an eye on her), sang her a song, said night night, and walked out of the room. She whined / cried for exactly one minute. Then she lay in her bed sucking on one of her binkies, and holding another one until she fell asleep, about 5 minutes later. Yay for self soothing!!
I guess she was trying to tell me that she was ready to do naps on her own. The only problem is that I don't think she will be able to fall asleep for naps on her own at daycare, so they will still have to sort out what to do with her naptime screaming. Also, I'm supposed to fly alone with DD this week to Boston, and I have no idea what I'm going to do about naps if she continues with her screaming routine in the plane!
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@skibobrown: yay, so glad to hear it! Naps are so important for lo.... And for us to get some rest!
sorry, I have no day care nap advice.... I'm a sahm.
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