How do you get your little one to nap when out?

[Bumperlicious]

Say you are going to a friend's house or a baby group and your baby dc is due a nap what do you do?

Please try and refrain from posting if you just pop them down and they drop of else I might cry! I'm looking for more creative solutions. Sling is ok but not ideal as I need to be on the move for it to be effective.

My cranky baby is ruining my social life! Am either stuck at home so she can sleep or spend whatever occasion I go to in the morning jiggling her to distract her, fighting to get her to feed or having her fall asleep at the breast and not able to reach the biscuits move.

I had this problem and used to stay in loads so DS could nap at home, but I did get him to kip in the buggy under one of these - worth a try?

I tend to time things knowing when she is due a nap. So if she sleeps 9 - 10 ish in the morning usually, I'll either set off walking in the pram at 9 and after a half hour walk to wherever we're going she'll be asleep, or I'll just wait til she wakes and go out afterwards.
It really helps to just follow her routine and then when it settles stick to that pattern. If you can predict when she'll fall asleep you can work around it.
How old is your dc?

I remember quit a lot of standing up, rocking my blanket swaddled DD at friend's houses when she was younger or pushing her backwards and forwards in her pram or pushchair in the kitchen .
If she was asleep on me after feeding or something people were kind and passed the biscuits!

DD1 - would not ever ever EVER nap when out after about 8 weeks, and even then would only nap when the pram was moving. Whenever the pram was stationary she would scream her head off (not colic, just pique) and I would have to walk her around in circles until she stopped.

Eventually I just stopped going out at naptime because it was a fucking misery.

(this is why I HATE people who moan about how precious people who insist their kids have to sleep at home are, and give lectures about how babies just sleep wherever you put them and won't wake up even if a volcano erupts up their arse)

DD2 - if I went out when she was tired she'd drop off to sleep and stay asleep until she was ready to wake up, then sit happily and quietly until I'd finished lunch and then sit like an angel on my knee.

My first time mother self is still jealous of the me I am now. God it's a wonderful luxury to have a baby who'll nap on the go.

Sorry, no help.

My suggestion - work with the baby you have and don't try to make them into a baby they're not. If she needs quiet and dark to sleep, give her quiet and dark and arrange your social life around that until she doesn't need naps every day.

She is 4.5 mo. The things that I want to go to are all 10-12, prime napping time chez Bumper. At home she will go down 9-10is depending on what time she wakes up before then, and left to her own devices in her own bed will sleep for two hours and then have a couple of short naps usually im the sling in the afternoon. If like today we try and go out she will fall asleep in the car on the way but not long enough to get into a deep sleep & wake up as soon as we stop. She will then fall asleep on the way home & wake as soon as we get in, then I will spend the rest of the day fighting to get her to sleep which she may succumb to at about 6ish for about half an hour, but only after screaming for rather a long time.

Everything I want to do is morning time - breastfeeding group, knitting group, toddler group, nct meet up. And all have to be driven to. I tried engineering going early to nct once and walking her around for half an hour but it didn't work (she could smell my desperation) and it's not always practical.

I know - stupid 10-12, that was the bane of my life with DD1. Every bloody thing was on at that time of the morning.

Then in the afternoon when she was a bright-eyed bush baby - nothing!

My DS is now 6months and 2 months ago I was tearing my hair out 'cos he wasn't really getting any naps but I couldn't stay home all day 'cos I also have 2 yr old DD. However, he's a lot more settled now and doesn't get as cranky if he misses naps. He never naps more than 30 mins and if I'm in the throws of a toddler group I just jiggle and bf and apologise for the screaming.

I have a preschooler too so it's all such hard work. Twice as I was trying to get her off today dd1 pooed and needed wiping!

I am afraid I have to time EVERYTHING around her naps. I suppose I really should be thankful that she actually naps somewhere other than a moving pram now, which was how it was for the first 3 months. She takes a nap in the morning (8.30ish - 10) and another from 1 to 3 and we pretty much have to be home for those. I ensure that I finish any activity by just shy of 2 hours from when she got up so she can have a wee 15 mins catnap in the pram home - she cannot go more than 2 hour.

She just will not carry on sleeping when the pram stops moving and it is hugely restrictive, but I have learnt I just have to deal with it as the repercussions of an overtired DD are not worth it for me and it is really unfair on her. As a first time mum it is hard as I have such a short window to do things and meet people ('Sorry I can't come for coffee after yoga, as I have to get my DD home to sleep'). People who don't have a baby like this must think I am a total anal mum, but it is just the way my baby is built!

no idea.
dd2 has just started having one longer nap - about 10.30-12, but only at home. if we are out, she will drop off in the buggy for 20-30mins only. and then be a grumpy toad overtired for the rest of the day. so we only go out in the afternoons .

I'd love to know myself! Although now DS is 16 months and only naps twice a day. He can skip the morning one but lunch one is at home.

When he was younger, we used a sling with a muslin over his head so he couldn't see out. He'd fall asleep if we stood and swayed or went for a walk. We also timed naps for car journeys. Pushchair - no chance!!!

The groups are fun and all, but if she needs to sleep then and it's not possible to walk there or keep her asleep between the car and where you want to be, maybe you can just wait a month or so 'til her pattern changes?
Imagine, 2 hours with no dc1 and dc2 fast asleep? Bliss! Or you could use that time to prepare dinner for the evening so you could have more time for the DCs later.
Invite friends to yours at that time if you need the company, or go to something - even just the park, or maybe local museum, cafe in the afternoon.

Oops, maybe dc1 is at home with you too? To me, sleep is so important, that if it means missing things or working around the naps it's definitely worth it

My NCT group had a thing at one of the girls' houses on Friday and some of the mums and babies hung out there nearly all day. Most of them have the kind of babies that will go to sleep right in the middle of the action if you pop them in a carseat or bouncy chair with a dummy. My DS will sleep in the sling, (occasionally) in a moving buggy, and swaddled in his cot in a darkened room with his white noise on. No other circumstances. So I walked over there with him in the sling to coincide with one naptime, stayed for an hour and 45 mins until he started to get tired and grizzly, and walked back. After much soul-searching, I've had to accept that's just what he's like and so this is what life will be like for a while (he's 20 weeks - I think? ).

It really makes me laugh when these friends put updates on our Facebook group saying "Ooh - DS took a nap in his cot today! Am so excited!". I wish my DS would nap somewhere other than the cot, because he only really catnaps in the sling or buggy and gets overtired after a whole day of it. I took him into central London to DH's office and had to keep popping him in the sling and walking him up and down Regent Street (though the traffic noise was very effective at sending him off). We were both exhausted by the end of the day!

Agree with Count. Sometimes you just have to accept it, yes it can be a pain, but it is the way things are! At least it means you can have well rested lovely babies. People do comment on how content my DD is and this has only started happening since she napped properly. Before then she was a horror.

I wish I could get DS (4 mo) to nap at home, he has to be out on the move. I've just spent 20 minutes feeding him to sleep, plus 15 minutes sitting with him asleep on me, put him in his cot and he slept for a further.... 5 minutes. I guess they are all different and one day we will look back and laugh. Perhaps.

No idea either - DD is 9 months and we can't figure it out, never have been able to!

Either boob, or I would swing him in his carseat. I was lucky-ish in that if he fell asleep in the car he would stay asleep even once we stopped for 20 minutes certainly.

No idea how it's going to work with DC2 due in 6 weeks, although I have a feeling I'm going to be taking DS to things with DC2 permanently latched on!

Oh I know what you mean! I look at other little ones happily falling asleep on their parents lap and wish my LO would do that! Luckily pram rocking does the trick most of the time but people always forget she is sleeping and wake her up...cue grumpy LO for the day!