Days out and naps

[Hopitihop]

Hi All,

My toddler is one of them that won't sleep anywhere else apart from her bed.

She has never slept at her buggy and really fights her sleep at the car seat.

Is my DC weird? I see other mums go out for Sunday roast, meet with friends etc. without really worrying about naps.

Any other mums on the same page as I am out there?

It's getting really hard to only go out and meet with people between 9-11am and 3-5pm... and it has been 2 years now :(

Also, DC2 on its way, meaning all of that will start again soon.

For special days I just skip the nap and put him to bed earlier, although saying that I did that yesterday and he was a nightmare all avo 😱

I'm the same as are a lot of my friends. My son has his naps at home. I quite like having a couple of hours to 'chill' ... I mean do the washing and cook meals .... is the only time I can get things done.
He will fall asleep in the buggy if I'm pushing it the whole time,or car, but won't sleep for as long as he does at home.
How on earth people get their babies to fall asleep in the pushchair while they have lunch is beyond me!

What time do they nap? DS definitely naps better/longer at home. Normally 1-3pm ish but can drag it out to 1:30/2 if we are out but he can get cranky.

I do tend to plan days out to start reasonably early to pack it in before nap time

DS will nap in the car, but not the buggy. Hasn’t done since he was a newborn. So we are mostly the same. Home between the hours of 12:30 and 15:00 for a nap 13:00-14:30. I don’t mind to be honest. On the rare occasion we have to be somewhere, we’ll drive round and give him a short nap in the car. Day to day though, I like having a set break in the middle of that day where we don’t make any plans.

Same. I hate going out. I do it because everyone (very politely and indirectly) tells me that I'm overreacting and it'll work itself out if I muck about with DSs naps. It doesn't. He cries all sodding night for the next 3 days. I don't think you can understand unless you've lived it.

We do most naps at home but on the occasion that we are out for the day or something we will try and do a car nap. It’s never as good a nap or for as long but we will then compensate with an earlier bedtime (fingers crossed) and we just figure a shorter nap is better than nothing.

My DDs never napped well away from their bed but we could always get 30 minutes out of them in the car. I’m sure you probably could too, the car lulls 99% of kids to sleep eventually! We’d plan day trips around a probable nap time & keep driving until they nodded off (& then circle back to our actual destination). We typically plan ‘day’ trips to be from midday onwards so we get the 30 min car nap in! Or do an extended morning, starting early & finishing about 2pm. At that point, they’d be out like a light in the car.

Yeh, it’s a grumpier day usually but typically more towards 4pm onwards & we do early bedtime.

I’m pretty chill with naps. I was militant with DD1 & it ruined our plans for 2 years until I realised I needed to go with the flow. As such DD2 has just gone with it. As I say, we do plan with the fact she needs a nap in mind but if it’s at 2pm instead of midday or 30 mins instead of 2 hours, oh well. It’s one day & they’ll cope.

How old are they? As you say the nap times are 2 two hour slots a day for two years?? That's the only bit I find surprising.

My DD was a terrible napper and only usually contact napped or slept on the go at random, sporadic times til she was about 12. By then I managed to gradually get her into a consistent 2 nap a day routine in the travel cot in her bedroom (as she still slept in our bedroom overnight). It was amazing and a godsend. Yes, it was a bit restrictive - she actually would still sleep on the go in the pram (we didn't have a car then), so I would also still do things where I could do a pramwalk to induce a nap at a similar time, so had more flexibility in that regard. She did have a dummy too which she would have for those pram naps top if she wanted it, til she was about 20 months old I think? So that probably helped too. I didn't mind the rigidity as a general rule though - it was overall a short time in our lives and was definitely worth it for her mood ( to be well rested) and therefore for my sanity! I did housework or rested whilst she napped at home. She was down to 1 nap a day by 18 months so this was less restrictive in some ways but more restrictive in others as I really had to have that nap at home from then as otherwise she wouldn't nap as long and she really needed a solid 2 hrs at least, for it to cope with the rest of the day. The nap gradually reduced in length over time, partly herself sleeping shorter and partly me reducing it so as to keep her bedtime at a convenient time. By 2.5 she was down to a 1hr nap. By 3 she still would oftem have 30-45 mins or so but could be any time really and often on the go. Sometimes she'd skip it entirely and we'd put her to bed 30 mins earlier. We got rid of the home naps at 3.5ish, when DC2 was born, because she couldnt nap longer than 30 mins and not after 3pm or it interfered with bedtime and having to wake her was awful as she'd always throw a tantrum (understandably tbh!). She always asked for nap if we were at home so we spent DH's 4 week of pat leave intentionally having her out the house at her old nap time or having people over so she didn't nap and forgot about it after that haha. She is 3.5ish still and still occasionally has 10-30 mins here or there in the car on busy days but we always wake her pretty much immediately upon arrival at places now as otherwise it affects her bedtime.