I wonder if anyone has any advice regarding helping my 13 month old to nap?
He has been sleeping through the night for the last few months, goes to bed at 7pm and is good as gold for that. Lays in his crib happily, white noise on, little bottle and then settles himself no problem. He will just lay there quietly until he drifts off to sleep and doesn't wake until 7-8am the next morning.
Nap time is a totally different story!! He shows signs of tiredness between 11am/12pm, so ill take him up to sleep and he cries/screams and just takes forever to settle.
Usually he will cry and fuss for about 30 mins, but it can go on for over an hour and i'm not sure what to do! I hate leaving him in there for a long time because it feels so cruel and I worry that so much of his time is spent in the crib without any stimulation, especially if he point blank refuses to sleep at all. But equally, if we take him out, you can tell just from looking at his face that he is so tired and he is so emotionally fragile for the rest of the day because he hasn't slept.
When he does eventually fall asleep, its for a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours, sometimes creeping towards 3 (he dropped to 1 nap a day quite a while ago due to always being a rubbish napper), so he does obviously need the sleep.
Any tips to help him settle? His nap routine (crib, bottle, white noise etc) is all the same, it just works fine at nighttime and not during the day!
Should I be leaving him that long to settle? The whole thing is so stressful. When we plan things like seeing family or going out somewhere, they usually get made for the afternoon, but then we are always on edge about wondering how long he will take to sleep/how late to make the plans/running late for the plans we have made/him just being a stroppy monster when we have the plans because he refused to sleep.
It feels like we are being held totally hostage by his nap routine!
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13 month old nap struggle
7 replies
Bingbangbingbangbong · 17/11/2020 11:57
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