How did you teach your baby to go to sleep in their own cot for naps?

[weeblueberry]

I started a thread about how to encourage sleeping in cots rather than in the room with us and a couple of people suggested putting her down for her nap in the cot she'll be sleeping on. The problem with that is she's hardly ever gone to sleep on either her bassinet or crib by herself in the middle of the day. At night she falls asleep in her bassinet and then we transfer her to the crib in our room. But for most of her daytime naps she falls asleep on me and occasionally gets transferred to her bassinet (but mostly I still hold her).

I know we've made a rod for our own back with this but having tried her in the cot, just putting her down awake and hoping she'll drift off we are finding she just thinks it's playtime and doesn't know to go to sleep.

Any ideas?

I would like to know this too

dd is 11 and I'm still trying to figure out how to get her to go to sleep.

DS1 will be 2 in a couple of weeks and has never slept in his for naps. We found he would eventually sleep in it at bedtime, but if we tried to put him in it during the day he just got cross and upset. It started to affect his bedtime (negative associations I think) so we stopped. He always slept in his chair during the day as a baby, now he just curls up on the sofa or in his den. Try not to get too hung up on 'napping in cot = night sleeps in cot' as it doesn't always follow. Definitely worth a try though!

Does your cot have drop sides? A friend of mine used to pull their futon next to the cot and lie on it until her DS fell asleep. She was in a similar situation to you and baby seemed to find her presence reassuring...

All 3 of mine had daytime naps in the sling/pushchair/bouncy chair when they were tiny (ie up to about 6 months). As they got older, I would try putting them down awake after lunch and with varying degrees of success, they gradually started to nap regularly in the cot.

One of them used to fall asleep as long as I was sitting in the room, another one fell asleep better with quiet background noise (radio 4 worked well).

Thanks all. She's eventually fallen asleep in the cot so I breathed a big sigh of relief. She's a very very good sleeper but I still genuinely thought I'd be through there for hours.

I think I'm being selfish though. I do love having a cuddle when she's napping but appreciate I can't do it every time.

It doesn't work with all children and there are a few techniques like controlled crying. It's also an age thing to some extent.

The way I have done it in the past and its one of those things that when they're young they will unlearn/ relearn etc.

Firstly start and put the down when they nap and if you need to sit by them, stroke face etc. Once they are relatively ok with that practice putting them down when they are just about to drop off and stay with them, touching, sssshhhhing and erasure until they drop off. This stage is the hardest as it depends in how comfortable baby is, what stage or phase they're going through etc.

Be consistent, don't leave baby to get scared of being on their own.

Then you can put baby in cot and stay in room, lights off, no interaction and pray .

Teach them that sleep and nap is nothing to be scared of and not playtime.

I apologise for the ridiculous number of auto corrects in my post. I'm working on 2 hours sleep last night and am basically broken

My little boy is 8 months , i have never put him in his cot for naps ... he only goes in his cot at bedtime so he knows its bedtime .

My little boy is 8 months , i have never put him in his cot for naps ... he only goes in his cot at bedtime so he knows its bedtime .

I think dd was about 8/9 months before she would sleep in her cot for naps and I used to get very hung up on it! It was actually her grandmother who sorted it for me with a very 'no nonsense' approach while she was minding her. Basically it involved a lot of protesting from dd but gran stayed with her until she calmed down and finally went to sleep and then praised her loads when she woke up. I incorporated a bit of a routine and timing is also important.

My dd gave up midday naps (when she did bother to take them) before she was 2. My ds never had to be coaxed to take a nap and still does them at 12.

I never got the hang of lowering a sleeping bay into a cot so I would sit and feed my ds then roll him off me and onto the bed. I think at about 20 weeks he started liking being rocked and sung to sleep, in my arms.

He's never self settled.

I have had to do cot naps with dd2 otherwise 2.8yo dd1 wakes her. I started by putting her down asleep bf to sleep. Then I noticed when she started fussing on the breast and I would place her down on our bed, very dark room, and she started drifting off so I would transferr to cot. Now I just put her in the cot and she drifts of within 15 mins usually, which is all a bit alien to me as dd1 was always terrible at going to sleep. I am lucky dps shift work allowed me to concerntrate on her naps without worrying about dd a few days a week.