1 year old screaming when put down for nap

[Haz1516]

Hi,

My baby just turned 1 in the last week, and literally since then has started screaming hysterically when I try to put him down for nap time. He usually has 2 naps a day, but have tried keeping him up for just 1 nap but it makes no difference. He is clearly tired and sleepy, but the moment I go near his cot he is hysterical.

Before this, since around 7 months old, he was able to go down awake and would fall asleep (with a few ups and downs along the way). I have now reverted back to either feeding to sleep, which I really don't want to be doing as I was previously down to one feed a day and don't want to breastfeed any longer, or rocking in pram. For either of these things though he will only nap half an hour anyway, whereas previously he would do 1.5 hours.

Please any advice is greatly appreciated.

Also to add, for whatever reason at night time he is fine, and goes down without fuss at the moment.

Possibly a sleep regression and he will settle back down into a routine again in a few weeks. We definitely found that was the situation here and she dropped the two naps down to one nap but we just had to work out the right timing.

Separation anxiety - kicks in massively at this age.

Thanks for the replies. I think it's probably a mixture of the two. Just hoping night time doesn't all go downhill as well.

Any suggestions on the separation anxiety for things that might help?

I had this with both my 2 at 1 around 1 year old. They'd been such good nappers before! With my DC1 I was very strict about it because she was a absolute nightmare if she didn't nap. I put her down crying and came in every 2mins. In the end she got the message did start napping again. With Dc2 it happened later (between 18 months and 2 years) and I was a bit more relaxed. Sometimes I'd lie down with him and if he was exhausted he'd sleep but sometimes just wanted to play. Other times I'd take him out in the push chair or for a drive and he'd sleep. Not ideal though as he only slept 45 mins and would wake up grumpy. I made up for it by getting him to bed extra early.

@Haz1516

We introduced a soft toy bunny for the little one to sleep with as the cuddles are what they are often seeking so she cuddles the bunny to death at nap time and this really helped.