Napping

Just wondering what everyones experience has been with naps. Are your LOs good at napping? How many times a day and for how long? Do you have a routine? What has worked for you?

My DD is a terrible napper ! She only catnaps, sleeping 15-20 min, and only about 3 times a day. The only way she will sleep longer is if we are out in the pushchair or in the car, or on me ! At home she just refuses to sleep in her cot. She's not a bad night sleeper for her age (4 months), and we have a pretty consistent bedtime routine, but during the day she's terrible.

Any ideas or suggestions welcome!

Charlotte has never been good at going for naps but like you has always been a fairly good night sleeper. She is a bit up and down with naps these days - quite difficult to get her to go for a nap (without a walk or car ride) but when tired she can nap for 3 hours! Annoyingly at nursery they tell me that she is great and at about 12.30 they all lie down on mats and go to sleep for 1-1.5 hours no problem, guess that is all about peer pressure!

My ds was not a great day sleeper at that age. I used to rock him to sleep and then gently put him down in his cot and hope like mad he'd not wake up while i was doing that!

Not much I can suggest, really. There is quite a wide range of how much babies sleep at that age, and it's great that she's sleeping well at night. Does she get really miserable when she doesn't have a nap during the day, or with those short naps? I've heard of some babies who seem to get by on little power naps during the day.

Sorry I can't help more!
Judy

Bella was very much like that - all small naps (30 mins max) and usually 3 - 4 times a day. When it came to bed time, we were both shattered.

Just recently (within last 3 weeks) she has started to go down for a 2-4 hour nap at some point in the day - it's a different time most days, but we're not too worried about that. Quite a few times it's been over lunchtime.

She did this all by herself. I used to despair that she would never sleep.

One thing I did find, is that if she woke after half an hour and started squeaking, to ignore it to begin with and she'd go back to sleep. If sh didn't go back to sleep after 5 mons or so, I'd get her up.

My ds was always very good and had two really solid naps each day (about 2 hours each).
My dd on the other hand has'nt been so sleepy During the day she cat naped for 15 mins a time until very recenly, she now seems to be getting a propper pattern during the day and sleeps for 1 hour in the morning and has two 1 hour naps in the afternnon/evening. She does sleep soundly through the night though and i imagine that her naps will continue to improve as she gets older.

Just to reassure you - Isabelle was a HORRIBLE napper, it was often 30mins top with her for a long long time... However now she will have much longer naps - but then again the reason her naps were so short was because she'd wake up screaming in pain from reflux! (which I didn't realise at the time...) She's still not mad keen on naps but now usually has at least an hour, sometimes two and rarely (tho' occasionally) more...

Ben has always been quite a good napper, but some of these are being held and then getting put down in a deep sleep. Thankfully since leaving hospital he has always had day naps in his carrycot, so that is always in the living room or wherever we happen to be out and about.

However we found a worked wonders, and there are times he gets super tired, quick suck and then falls asleep, before spitting it out. (I HATE the thing and my kids were never going to have one )

But if you have night times sorted, that is much better than days IMO!

I replied to this on Friday - where did it go??

Williams 4 months old as well and we (loosely) follow the sleep feed play routine. Its really lead by him though when he wants to feed he does and when he wants to sleep etc etc. In other words we have no set times for naps, feeds and things and I've done that with all 3 of mine and found that that works for us.

When William naps during the day he sleeps anywhere from 20mins to 1.5hrs.

Can't really remember but it varied, with dd4 she napped while held or worn or in bed with me. The best ones are the 'nursing naps,' they get a lot of milk without really thinking about it and it's fab for supply and for getting other people to do things because you're stuck under a baby