6mo day time naps in my bed- bad idea?

[oldyellowbricks]

Hi All,

New to mumsnet and ftm to DS who is 6 months in a few days :)

I’m after your views on his day time napping. We have the bedtime routine nailed (thankfully!) and he goes down no bother in his cot. Bathtime, story, nurse in my room and then into his cot drowsy.

But day times naps are a totally different story! I’ve tried introducing a mini routine (clean nappy whilst singing a lullaby, into his sleeping bag & nurse him in the rocking chair). He’s falls asleep in my arms no problem but the very second I put him down, he’s awake...ready for the next playtime. It’s as if he thinks he’s been asleep for ages! But obviously he quickly gets grouchy and we have to go again. It’s exhausting and makes for a sad baby & mum!

However, what I’ve discovered is that he’ll happily nap in my bed (feed to sleep basically, bad habit I know) but my concern is that it might interfere with his bedtime routine! Has anyone else had a similar issue? Am I creating a rod for my own back? Appreciate your views :) thank you!

If it works, go with it. Has it actually interfered with nighttime yet? If not, don't borrow trouble from the future by worrying about it!

I'm highly envious you can feed to sleep in the day and nap in your bed; I've got one for whom it's sling or bust. And as for nights... shudder.

@burritofan thanks- I hope things improve for you soon! It hasn’t always been this way so I can definitely sympathise!

I used to worry with my first that our lunchtime nap on the bed with me feeding him to sleep would confuse him about bed time but it never did. I used to keep the curtains open so it was still bright and we used to just go upstairs and have cuddles and he would feed and then nap for an hour ish with me next to him. Would then wake up happy and alert so I don't think he was ever confused by day or night. I think by that age their sense of day vs night is pretty well developed!
If you have found something that works then I would suggest you go for it! It's nice that he clearly loves cuddling you for naps :)

I do the same! 6 month old DS is currently fast asleep on my bed. Duvet has been removed and just lying on the sheet obviously.
He goes into his cot no bother at bedtime.

We always put DS to sleep in the bed (ours, then his own mattress on the floor). At 6 months though you really need to buy and fit side bars for sleepy rolling; we just got the safetots as they're tall but you can get all sorts including full bed surround pull up/down types. As soon as he was crawling we also taught him how to safely get off the bed feet first so he's never tempted to dive off head first. Even half asleep he still spins and wriggles down feet first now with the bonus that it was easy to teach him to do the same with stairs and he won't need to be trained into a cot-bed because he's already fine in it. Once he was walking there was a brief phase of running away at sleep time, just a few days.

Thanks everyone! I’ll just need to convince my DH to sleep in the spare room when he’s on nights now

Mine naps in a rocking baby chair we have. I'm trying to get him to nap in his cot but it's not working and he just gets worked up. He will nap in our bed occasionally of a morning.