Naps- help. Pleeeeeaassee!

[gemmeg]

Hello everyone,

I hope you can give me some advice as i'm getting in a pickle! Until now I have always let my DS nap on me. He is 4 and a bit months old. The problem is that the day's pretty unstructured and he wakes when I try to put him in his moses basket. I'd like to get a bit of a routine going where he sleeps in his basket in the bedroom and I can do some things round the house. The morning nap works well. He sleeps for about 50 mins from about 8.30/9am in his basket in the bedroom with the curtains closed. Then I get stuck. I have always put him to bed at 7pm and he goes to sleep no problem but since I stopped him napping on me he's not getting enough sleep during the day then he wants to crash out any time from 5pm which is too late. He did this today so I woke him after half an hour and created a nightmare for myself! I don't want this to become a habit so ideally I need to get him to sleep better during the day (and not on me!!!) Is it just a question of time and being consistent? When is the best time to put him down? Any tips? Anyone? Please?!!

Thanks in advance

At that age he'll probably want another sleep a couple of hours after waking from the morning nap so try noon or a little earlier. Neither of my DC were keen on cot naps until around 8 months so I rocked them off in a pushchair and popped them in a corner while I got on with things.

HTH

My DD is 15wo and up until about 3 or 4 weeks ago she could only manage being up for about 2 hours at a time. Then day time naps started all going wrong and now they're kind of starting to get back on track (hope I haven't just shot myself in the foot for saying that!). She now seems to manage about 2.5-3hrs awake before she needs a nap. She will either start rubbing her eyes or yawning and if she doesn't then she certainly tells me she is tired as she shouts the house down. Watch your DS closely after he has been up for about an hour and a half and just see how he behaves. I also find that DD starts to make little groaning noises if she doesn't do the yawning. All babies have their own little signs so watch your DS to figure out what his are. If you're not sure then try putting him down for a nap/rocking/whatever you have to do to get him to sleep - say about 2 hours after he first got up. If you can't get him to sleep then he probably isn't tired, so try again a little bit later. If you wait too long he will become overtired and impossible to put down. All good fun being a mind reader hey!

Thanks for your tips! I've just put him down for his morning nap (I live in Austria so it's an hour later here than in the UK!). I swear he was asleep on me 2 mins ago but now I can hear him talking to himself quite chirpily.......I'm trying to ignore it for a while ;-) I'll try putting him down again around midday. I thought I'd mention that I found another possibly useful tip online...I have a baby wrap which my DS loves. He falls asleep in it easily and can stay asleep in there for a long while. The suggestion is that you put the baby in the wrap at the same times everyday when it's nap time to encourage a routine. Then hopefully they'll feel sleepy at the same times everyday and after a week or two you can try to transfer them to their crib. If I have trouble getting him to sleep today then I might try it....gotta be better than having a crabby baby!