How old is your LO and how can you tell when they're ready for a nap? I used to go by the 1.5 hour awake rule and it worked beautifully! That, and if he was fussy over everything I tried to do, I'd just put him down and shortly afterward, he would fall asleep with little fussing. I occasionally supplemented that rule with cues such as yawning, eye-rubbing, a bleary look in his eyes, but now at 6 months old, the cues have been lessening and he seems to need to go longer between naps. Even if I wait longer for his nap and he seems fussy, I would put him down in his crib and he would just fuss or coo around for 20+ minutes before falling asleep! I miss when I was able to tell definitively! =/
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LO is 9 months, USually shelikes to nap right after eating, but she doesnt seem sleepy I let her play until she gives me the tired cues of eye rubbing
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LO is almost 5 months and she gets fussy and when I give her a paci, if she puts her hands up above her head she is tired
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We're at 5 months today. The cues tend to be eye rubbing, burrowing into my shoulder, fussing, and yawning. I'm scared to hear that the signs lessened. He's so good at letting us know when he's done playing. The 1.5 hour rule works well too for us.
Isn't 6 months when you can start going by the 2-3-4 routine for hours between naps? It seems like 6 months is a huge time of change for infants with a greater push for CIO, solids, and nap routines. We've got a month to go, so we're easing into all of that hoping that sleep gets better.
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LO is 18 months so we're at the point where we just have a nap time. 1:45 on the dot. Of course we can go earlier or later, but it's just easier to try to get her down at nap time.
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@cascadecherub: Not only did signs lessen for us, but also he stopped self-soothing! So, what was before fussing it out a bit before finding his hand now can turn into full-blown crying! Before, I could say we didn't have to do "cry-it-out", but more like a "fuss-it-out" type of thing, but yes, now we are doing CIO officially! He still has one feeding at night which I've grown accustomed to, but these past three weeks, he has had nights where he would eat twice! Anything that can't be explained, I just blame it on the teething, though no teeth to show for yet!
Also, the new 2-3-4 rule sounds intriguing and might be what is happening!
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@cranberryapple: at 6 months he can definitely go 2+ hours between naps and perhaps he's not 'self soothing' or taking forever to fall asleep because he's not tired enough when you put him down.
I've read that after 4 months sleepy cues are less reliable because either your LO is used to going to sleep at a certain time (but not really sleepy) or they're bored and need a change of scenery. After 4 months we started using wake times exclusively because my LO always showed sleep cues at random times (right after a 2-hour nap) or not at all. Since I use wake times he naps on a more parent-led schedule but he also falls asleep really easily whenever I put him down. He is almost 11 months now but at 6 months he would be awake 2-2.5 hours between wake up, naps (x3) and bedtime.
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he's almost 9 months and he rubs his eyes a lot when he gets tired and his eyebrows have always turned red when he's tired
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@cranberryapple: We're working on getting him to self soothe these days at 5 months. He's never been big on it. Lately, he's been doing the two night wakeups. At the moment, I'm fine with it because we transitioned him to the crib last week and got rid of the swaddle. It's a lot of change all at once. I figure he needs some comfort to get through it for now.
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My 6 mo olds still have 1.5-2 hr awake times most of the day and are just starting to skip their last nap to be awake 3 ish hours at the end of the day.
My son is still pretty typical - fussy, rubbing eyes, red eyes, and he pulls on his ears too. My daughter has started getting really vocal when she is tired, kind of grunting and groaning. Sometimes they go down super easy and other times they are agitated and fight it, so I just had to start a nap routine so at least if I had to let them cio, they knew what was coming!
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maybe he's hungry? I go by fussy cues too and now that he's older he also gets fussy if it is snack time, so I can see how the two could be confused
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I never made the connection between arms up and nap time, but today when she started putting her hands by her ears, I swaddled her and she went straight down.
THANKS! -
@MaisyMay: This is my number one clue when LO is tired, arms up, bedtime!
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@Bao: I knew about the other cues like yawning, glazed eyes, fussy, etc. This was a good one to learn though.
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