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16mo cot naps - help please!

4 replies

lemonjuicer · 04/01/2024 13:16

My 16mo has napped in his cotbed a handful of times, he's usually in his pram and can nap for 1.5-2.5 hours. I would be happy to keep doing this tbh as it works but we are having another baby soon and it's not really sustainable long term for this reason. He sleeps through the night fine in his cotbed.

Any time I have tried to get him to nap in his bed he screams when he realises what is happening unless you stay with him. If you do stay with him, he just messes about and this can be for over an hour before we give up. We do a lite version of the bedtime routine and have even tried transferring him asleep but it makes no difference. We've tried following wake windows for his age to the minute, as well as waiting until he's absolutely exhausted.

Also - we are moving him into a different bedroom in a month or 2 with a new bed, should we wait until after this to try again or does it not really matter (anticipating a few teething problems at night after the change too)? I've engaged with a couple of sleep consultants and they've both said to keep doing what I'm doing but this means he is just not sleeping at all during the day and exhausted by bedtime, so I don't want to spend any more money on someone telling me the same thing if I can help it.

Should we just keep going but leaving him to tire himself out? I've not had the balls to leave him for longer than 10 minute periods before and all that did was stress us both out.

Any advice and wisdom very very welcome! Thank you :)

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Pantheon · 06/01/2024 07:58

Do you rock him for his nap in his pram? Might be worth getting a rocking chair to do the same for nap times and then slowly reduce rocking?

GinnyBee · 06/01/2024 18:03

I would see if moving to a toddler bed would help. And if you toddler proof the room then you can leave him to it and if he wants to just play then he can get off the bed himself.

lemonjuicer · 06/02/2024 15:01

Sorry for the delay both great points, thank you! He's actually moving into a toddler bed soon once we've done his new room and I do have a rocking chair, so fingers crossed!

OP posts:
happyinahoodie · 06/02/2024 15:03

maybe he doesn't need a nap every day

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