Hellobee Boards

@espion, LOL that's what I dealt with, too!

me: "baby, time to sleep"
E: "giggle, giggle, LET'S PLAAAAAAAY.....WAAAAAAAH"

honestly, she got much much happier once we nap trained. i also was able to figure out when she was getting tired before she got OVERtired, too.

Awww haha he is so cute! But so awake J is 11 weeks old and we don't have a nap schedule, more like a nap pattern/routine. His max awake time before getting cranky is 1:30-2 hours. So we loosely follow the EASY method. While we are doing whatever his activity is, once we are getting close to the end of what I now know to be his happy awake time, I look for sleepy cues--yawns, eye rubs, etc. Then (and this is only if we are home) we go into the nursery, check if a diaper change is needed, turn on white noise, read a story (if he isn't SUPER sleepy), get swaddled and pop paci in, and rock until eyes are heavy, into crib. I sometimes have to go back in to pop paci in, but this routine gets me 3-4 hour long naps throughout the day.

I agree with PP to get baby ready for nap BEFORE he is over tired, which means paying attention to those sleep cues. I honestly thought babies just slept when they wanted to and would kind of let you know it was time...they do, but some of them need some help along. I know some might think that we are setting up J for bad napping habits by rocking him mostly to sleep, but it is what works for us and what I feel comfortable with.

I think it was around 3 months. I was just so tired and knew LO needed a nap so one time I put her in her swing, gave her a soother and left the room. She cried and cried then slept and slept! I am pretty sure I was battling nursing and the odd time she did fall asleep at the boob, I went to go put her down and her eyes popped open and started screaming. That's when I knew it was time for us.

Well, at 7 weeks, swaddling seemed to be the magic puzzle piece. At first I would get in him very drowsy.... Then less drowsy and pretty soon I could jut swaddle him, put him down, and he would go straight to sleep. At 6.5 when the swaddle was no longer in the picture was a different story. We got him going to sleep at night on his own first, then did naps, which only took about 2 days with minimal fussing. We used "The Sleep Lady" as our guide for nights and naps. It does involve a little crying, but you are sitting next to the crib the whole time comforting him. It worked well for us. He still only takes 45 min naps sometimes, but lately it seems like he is doing about 1 hour 15 mins.