Want to be less nap obsessed!

[MsBranwen]

I have an 11 month old baby and I feel like I'm not really enjoying my time with him because I'm always planning everything around his naps! We were following the Little Ones sleep programme and now he does self settle for naps and bedtime (i still feed to sleep during night)...He won't nap in his pram anymore, only in his bed so we're stuck at home everyday as there's not time to get out to groups between his bed sleeps.

I really want just to relax about it and start enjoying things more but I'm really anxious that if I let up on the naps his night sleep will deteriorate (we've gone from hourly waking to maybe 2-3 wakes a night). Everything I've read about baby sleep (And I've pretty much read everything...) goes on and on about the importance of naps for night sleep...

I'm starting to wonder if the isolation is worse for my mental health than the sleep deprivation was?

Has anyone else been in this crazy nap obsessed place... and have you been able to get out?

Yes I was nap crazy. And it worked for us, he is a great napper. When he had multiple naps a day I decided that at least one of those had to be in his cot to ensure he got a good quality nap. Now we are down to one nap, and I would say during a typical week 5 out of 7 naps are in his cot. If I have to go out for the day, then so be it, but would time car journeys to coincide with nap times as he's a crap pushchair napper.

I guess I just work around him, which isn't always possible, but I do believe in good quality sleep and sleep begets sleep.

Hi I was exactly the same! My lo is also 11 months

But then the regression hit him at 9.5 months and his naps went bannnas!

Despite having much less day sleep / me giving him 3 naps a day / me giving him a long am nap as he wouldn’t do the afternoon/ pushing his wake times a little too much his night sleep reminded fine!!!!? I was astonished. I’m still working hard to try get the good naps back (with no luck) but it’s made me realise that as long as he’s napping and roughly not toooo far off schedule it’s ok (obv some babies are more sensitive than others and your baby might need the exact same timings but it’s been a revelation to me!)

It might be worth having a day when you have help maybe inscase the night is bad but changing things around to see how he does!

The things which seem to affect the night for my baby is if last nap ending and bedtime being over 4 Hours. But apart from that the odd funny nap day doesn’t seem to cause an issue. And I also realised he will sleep in the pram if he’s mega mega tired which I never thought he could. Because I’ve been out and he’s dropped off before I could rush home for nap time this last few weeks

when naps were good I used to Let him do 1.5 in am (rather than a cat nap) and then in afternoon 1 hour so I had some more flexibility but I stilll rush back for naps. I wouldn’t have ever done it before but I now know if I give him 3 shortish naps his night seems ok too! And I don’t need to live by every second!

Every baby is different but mine seems to be less sensitive that I thought
(Ps we had hourly wakings too and now sleep through so I was majorly stressing when he stopped napping right!)

Alternatively it’s one nap time soon and will be more flexible then!!!