Refusing to nap in the cot!

[MermaidTail7]

Hi All, we have recently started to put out 7mo DD in her own room in the cot for night sleeps. After a bit of a rough start which I think was more down to her first tooth coming through she has taken to it really well and now sleeps much better than she was doing in the next to me in our room. Our current routine is that we do the bed-time story and feed in our bedroom as we always did then once she is asleep/nearly asleep settle her in her cot in her room. She wakes once or twice in the night for a feed and will happily be fed in her room and go back down in her cot asleep within 15-20 mins of waking.

The issue is that whereas before we moved her into her cot She was great at going down for daytime naps in the next to me, but even if I follow the same routine for daytime naps she always wakes up as soon as she is in the cot and wants to play, despite being tired. We have blackout blinds and curtains so the room is dark, even in the middle of the day.

I don't want to have her napping in one room and dpinf overnight sleeps in another as I think it might undo to good work getting her used to her own room, and she is getting too big/mobile to be safe in the next to me. I am currently having to either take her out for a walk in the pram or a drive to get her to nap, which isn't really sensible long term given she will be going to nursery when I go back to work in a few weeks time.

Has anyone experienced similar and managed to crack it? If so, please tell me how!!!

Bumping for you shamelessly as have same issue!

I think she is naturally dropping from three naps to two, and is struggling with it... I got her to nap in the cot for half an hour yesterday but that was when she was dead on her feet after swimming and having been awake for five hours bless her.... Today neither me, nor her father could get her to nap in the cot...

I think it's fine to do naps and bedtime sleep differently - they are after all very different sleeps.

Could you get her down to sleep in her pushchair for naps? Lay her down in it, give it a little rock in a darkened room and leave her?

Does she have any sort of sleep comforter/fave teddy etc?

I went through this, I use to do day time naps in the pram until he was able to self settle to sleep in his cot at night, otherwise he'd create the whole time.
My only suggestion would be instead of putting your baby down almost asleep / asleep, could you continue your routine but attempt to get them in the habit of self settling. I found once my son did that the day time naps in the cot just fell into place.

Hi op. I struggled to get my ds to nap in his cot around the 6 month mark so gave up and just let him nap on me or in buggy. Now he's 10 months old we tried again and he's taken to cot naps really well. Not trying to sound smug and also aware that you're returning to work in a few weeks, but still thought my story might be helpful as it offers hope that babies can take to the cot when they are ready. Hopefully you're baby will be ready one day too. No real advice as I'm personally pretty anti sleep training and just breastfeed him to sleep and place in cot but just wanted to offer some words of support.

Thanks all.. firstimemamma I feed to sleep too, and while I know it isn't advised by many, it works for us..

She will self settle when DP puts her to bed, or her morning nap which is invariably in bed with me and then I will either put her in the next to me while she is asleep, or have a sneaky morning nap too.. I'm hopeful it's 7 month sleep regression and she will sort herself out eventually... In the meantime I guess i just have to wave goodbye to having time to myself to clean the kitchen and put a wash on in the afternoon!

Thanks for the reply op I've been told off by many a health visitor for feeding to sleep but I don't care anymore! Sounds like you're doing a brilliant job with your little baby. Being a ftm is so hard sometimes!

Do what works best for you, as an experienced practitioner babies settle into a nursery routine pretty quickly so don't worry about how little one will nap there.

Thank you putapeonyinmypocket that's good to know..

Ideally at this point I'd just be happy if I could get her to go down for a nap in the house, but hopefully this is just a temporary phase!

Neither of mine have ever napped in their cots, personal choice of course if you do want her to but by 7m I took them to the playground/ soft play/ swimming or whatever we were doing and they could nap on the way or on the way back depending how far we were going and for how long. Both of mine only had one nap from about 6m onwards unless they'd had a very busy day and both went down well at 7 and slept for a good stretch before the first waking by about 8mths. They only needed one longish one though, 1.5-2h at say 11.

So currently, DD is semi-reliable in that she will have a 1.5 hour nap at about 9-9.30 depending on when she wakes up in the morning... She definately still needs at least one more nap though, by 1pm she is showing all of her tired signs and has massive bags under her eyes, and while I can usually coax 30-40 mins out of her in the pram, by 5pm she is looking shattered again. I think if I Cound get her afternoon nap to an hour, that might be enough.

Oh, changing up napping in the pram could be my specialist subject in Mastermind by now! If mine needed longer I'd change the routine, what are you doing with her during the nap? I've gone with a mixture of:
Walk for 10-15 mins until asleep, return home and park in garden/ entrance so no further movement.
Walk for 30 mins or so, sit on bench in park with drink and MN until baby starts stirring, then quickly start moving again to get another 20-30 mins.
Put baby in pram, just rock until falls asleep at home then wrap up and leave be (some of ds's longest naps were this way, I found out by chance but it worked for him for a good while and he'd easily do 2h! Would never have worked for dd)
Walk for 1h or until their usual wake up time, take them out at the first sign of stirrings and put them on your chest sitting up on the sofa and hold tight.
Obviously all babies are different and their wants/ needs change all the time but this is just what I did with mine and their ever changing sleep needs.

morticiaismystyleicon as a general rule if she is in the pram it needs to be kept moving otherwise DD will wake up.. I bought a Rockit recently which attaches to the pram and jiggles it while stationary to simulate being walked or rocked.. It has an automatic switch off after 30 mins so I will try to walk until she has been asleep for 15-20 mins, head back to the house and put the pram in the lounge or garden (depending on the weather) and sit with the pram with the Rockit on, which will usually allow her to sleep for a total of 45-60 mins.. Not ideal when it is wet and windy though, like it has been with us for the last couple of days...