Cot sleeping in the day

[gemsie23]

Hi! Has anyone got any tips on how to get my 10wo dd to nap in her cot in the day when we are at home? We are out quite a bit so it isn't regularly everyday but I would like it if she could when we are home.

She fell asleep on me just now so I put her in with her noise she has on in the night but she woke nearly straight away. She stayed there for 20minutes or so before getting grumpy but wasn't sleeping. She is now trying to go to sleep on me again so I know she is tired.

[Noodledoodledoo]

I started to try and get a routine of a daytime nap in her cot during the day about this age and decided that in order for her to 'get it' it had to be a consistent thing so picked a week when I was home at about the same time as I wanted the nap to be every day every day and got her into the habit.

It did mean I engineered social stuff that week - rather than lunches I met people for tea and cake in the afternoon - but it really helped my little one get the idea and is now able to nap either at home or out and about.

[gemsie23]

Thank you for that. So for that week you made sure you were home, but after that you were able to go back to your normal things and your lo would nap in the cot at any time when you were at home?

[FATEdestiny]

I find the key to this is best done in two stages, not one.

1. Teach baby to sleep without being held or fed, ie hands-off sleep
2. Once this is established, then teach baby to sleep in cot

I do this with the interim use of a bouncy chair for daytime naps. This allows for hands-free foot bouncing to sleep. But it teaches baby to sleep separated from being fed and not while being held or carried.

In not many months our children would then go to sleep easily when being strapped into the bouncy chair and given the dummy (both only used for daytime sleep, not playing or when awake) and didn't need bouncing at all.

This then allows for easy transition of dummy in being the sleep trigger and no adult being needed to trigger sleep. At this point baby is ready for all naps upstairs in the cot.

Our DD is 6 1/2 months now and has been cot napping from 5 months. Bouncy chair and dummy napping from birth. Sleeps 4-5 ish hours per day and 11-12 ish hours per night.

[gemsie23]

FATEdestiny do you think the use of a swinging chair would work the same as a bouncy chair or do you think that is something that could turn in to too much of a habit. My dd does have a dummy although she hasn't been wanting it as much lately and tends to not need it to go to sleep at night now but she does feed before sleep at night.
They don't get used to the motion of the chair then? They learn to just go off with it still? Do you have music or anything on the bouncy chair?

[FATEdestiny]

I've never had a swing chair so not sure how it works. The bouncy chair doesn't bounce unless you bounce it. So it is just a comfy static reclining lying down position. But in the early days (and when fractious) you can bounce baby to sleep. Also bounce baby through sleep cycles if she stirs. But it is easy to bounce less and less over time until ready for static sleeping in the cot (about 5 to 6 months old I'd say)

[gemsie23]

Ok thank you someone has leant me a swinging chair so it's on a stand and battery operated swinging but I'm just worried about that becoming a habit that she will associate with sleep so maybe I should stick with my bouncy chair which is like yours, you have to bounce it yourself.
She used to wake up when noise stopped too but tonight her white noise cd has gone off for the first time and so far so good!

[FATEdestiny]

This Fisher Price Bouncer is the sort of things I use (minus the detachable play arch)

[FATEdestiny]

I wouldn't recommend something that has continual movement for sleeping in.

Our bouncy chair has a vibrate option but I have removed the batteries and never use it, in order to stop any possibility of dependency on continual vibration.

[gemsie23]

Yes I have a bouncer like that so I will give it a go. Just bounce her until she is asleep and then leave her but bounce if she starts to wake in a cycle. Thank you!

[gemsie23]

Iv tried the bouncer 3times so far today and she starts to drop off then the dummy falls out and after about 45minutes she finally dropped off on one occasion but only stayed asleep for about 20minutes. The first time we had to go out so she has barely had any sleep today, is this what might happen at first?

[FATEdestiny]

20-45 minutes for one nap is perfectly normal and right for a 10 week old. You don't need to be expecting naps any longer than 45 minutes as a general rule.

If your baby has not yet learnt to go to sleep, it may take some time for her to simply just learn to sleep well. This is not something that comes naturally to children, they have to learn.

The EASY Routine (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) works well at this age and is worth trying, to help develop good sleep habits. Over tiredness may be causing some issues. Here is an example 90 minute routine:

• E for Eat - Give a full feed. Takes around 15 minutes
• A for Awake Activity. Play or go somewhere, this is awake/happy time. 30 minutes or shorter if tired signs shown.
• S for sleep. Into bouncy chair 45 minutes after starting the feed. Bounce/dummy back to sleep for any wake ups until it is 90 minutes since you last started the feed. Then leave baby until she naturally next wakes and start the routine again.
• Y for You Time (but really it is just to make a nice acronym!)

My DD was on the 90 minute cycle from 6-12 weeks, then a 2 hourly routine from 3 to 5 months, with the added half hour as awake time mostly, sometimes sleep. Your baby is just at the transition between the two so could fit into either, whatever timing suits your baby. The joy of EASY is how flexible it is, whilst still allowing for predictability and structure through the daytime.

Establishing good quality, frequent sleep and good quality, frequent feeding is all that matters at this age. These are the only thing you need to focus on, don't worry about the hows and whys just yet.

[gemsie23]

Yes I had read about that but as EWS the only thing that worries me about following that is it seems quite strict and we r out and about lots and in the car so it may not work exactly but I try and stick to that. She has regular feeds rather than on demand so that I cld get her bedtime the same each night. Yesterday she slept for 3 hours in the day though at once and this is what she does sometimes, one long nap and barely others! It just seemed like she didn't get a good sleep today on 2 of the occasions as she was starting to drift then dummy out then just wasn't bothered or we had to go out and she got 10mins in car on way to a class. I will keep trying to follow this kind of routine as best we can. Night time routine is what I consider a must for routine.

[FATEdestiny]

EASY structure is absolutely not strict, that's part of it's universal appeal.

It's just about repeating events through the day in a predictable order. It also separates feeding and sleeping which is important for future sleep habits.

If you are out and about - your baby still needs feeding. Your baby still needs to sleep. You just do these whilst out. I have four children, I know all about babies having to fit in with life. So, for example, I would feed just before leaving home and note the time. Then go out and maybe go shopping or on the school run or whatever. Then after about half an hour give DD the dummy (in the car seat or pram) and let her sleep while I get on.

Or maybe I do the feed at home and the awake playing at home, but I put DD to sleep in the carseat because I know I have the school run in half an hour and so DD will be asleep. I might then feed again on waking whilst out.

What is making you think you can't be out and about getting on with life with a baby who has regular sleep and feeds through the day?

Good daytime routine will promote good night time routine. One will sort the other and I think sorting a daytime routine when you are awake and not knackered and wanting to sleep is the easiest time to focus.

[gemsie23]

I do go out and about in the day, I feel that's really important to us and it's the days we stay home that I find the hardest. her feeds are at regular intervals throughout the day it's just her sleep that changes. She tends to always fall asleep as soon as she is in the car and she may go for long periods so it's just that which makes it not regular awake and asleep time between feeds. The dummy thing is hard too as she is a baby that constantly wants to suck which is why we gave her the dummy in the first place. She used to eat and eat until I decided to limit it and she has the dummy after feeding instead so it's not just related to sleep at the moment but she is tending on her own accord to not want the dummy so much.

[gemsie23]

And also do you do the same pattern before bed? So they don't feed to sleep? They would settle themselves when tired?

[FATEdestiny]

At 10 weeks old she didn't have a bedtime, just daytime naps merging into nighttime sleep as I go to bed. Once we started a bedtime routine, when DD developed a bedtime naturally, ten her feed comes at the beginning of the bedtime routine, rather than at the end.

So for example now (6 1/2 months) at bedtime she has her milk downstairs, then bath (if she's having a bath that night), then sleepsuit on, into sleeping bag, dummy in, into cot (fully awake), light off and we leave. I rarely hear a murmur from her. If I do, I go back in and re-insert dummy.

Bedtime was established at around 4 or 5 months old. Daytime cot sleeps started as DD naturally transitioned from 45 min short frequent naps on the EASY routine into 2 or 3 longer daytime naps. This transition happened from about 5 months. She now sleeps 2 hours at 9.30am, 2 hours at 1pm (both in cot) and then a 30 minute bouncy chair powernap at 5.30 to help her get through to her 7.30pm bedtime.

[FATEdestiny]

Correction: ten then her feed comes at the beginning of the bedtime routine, rather than at the end.