Nap-time Solutions

My girls are getting to the point where they don't always go to sleep at nap-time. They take a good, long nap about 75% of the time, but they were getting frustrated with staying in their beds for two hours the other 25% of the time. I grew tired of fussing at them to be quiet and wanted them to do something productive with their time if they were awake. I also did not want to lose my time to rest or get things accomplished uninterrupted each afternoon! So we came up with a new plan that is working well for us and I thought I'd share. I'd also love to hear how you handle disappearing naps in your home!

My girls undoubtedly need to have "quiet time" in order to happily make it to their 7pm bedtime. So they are required to stay in their beds, resting, with the lights off for 45-60 minutes. I do allow them to talk and sing quietly with each other during that time. Most of the time they drift off to sleep, but if not, I go in and put on a book on CD for them to listen to for about 30-45 minutes. They have been so excited about this! They are currently listening to the Adventures of Peter Rabbit and plan to do Winnie the Pooh next and then Charlotte's Web. All of these are available for free at our local library. After listening to a book on CD, I then turn on the lights and let them look at books together in their room for another 30-45 minutes. I love to hear them in there talking about what they are looking at and singing together. Now, I must admit that my girls are not perfect and there have been a few days when I have had to go in and break up an argument about who gets a particular book. But overall, this has been a great plan for us.

Something else that has greatly helped us with nap-time and morning wake-up time is our little friend,Momo. This cute monkey cost about $35 but was worth every penny! We had a hard time finding a kid's clock that wouldn't wake the girls up if they were actually sleeping past the time it was set for, but Momo is perfect! His eyes simply open at the appropriate time. He glows for a couple of seconds, but not brightly enough to wake them up. He does play a little tune, but we turned the volume all the way down and the girls can't hear it. The girls know that if they wake up before Momo wakes up, they should just talk quietly in their room until his eyes open. Then they are free to come out of their room. My girls LOVE their little monkey and are always reminding us to "close his eyes" (set the alarm) when putting them down for bed. We've had "Momo" for 3 months now and they still excitedly chant, "Momo's eyes are open," Momo's eyes are open" every morning as they come out of their room.

So what about you? What have you done when your little ones start to outgrow naptime? And do you have any good recommendations for books on CD for a 2.5 and a 4 year old?

Concerning babies and naps...

A sweet POH reader asked the following question about babies and naps... I wrote her back but thought I'd give my response here in case anyone else wanted to know how I approach naps. It can be very frustrating for Moms because babies rarely follow the perfect "Baby Wise" schedule that you read about in all the parenting books. (Spoiler alert: I don't have all the answers! :)

Her Question:

"...I feel like I never got naps down for my oldest until he was maybe 18 months old. He was a catnapper and it drove me crazy! Now with my daughter, I can see the same problems, and I'm hoping for some advice. Does anyone have experience with lengthening naps in babies? I don't want to create a monster by letting her sleep everywhere but her crib (except at night - she does fine then), and having to reverse everything in a few months. I'm a big fan of babywearing, but I also want to create healthy sleep habits - it seems contradictory at times! Just curious if anyone had some tips or reassurance!"

My response:

I totally understand your frustration with naps! My babies all had a hard time taking a full nap (I consider at least 90 minutes a full nap; my girls generally woke up at 45 minutes). I probably don't have any great advice for you concerning naps. I will say that well-rested babies are much happier babies and I generally do whatever is necessary to give them a good nap! With my first, I would rock her back to sleep so she could finish her nap. (Oh, how I wish I could have the time to enjoy such bliss with each baby!) Once I had two children, that obviously wasn't possible, so I would wear Karlie in a sling/ baby carrier to finish her nap. And now with Abbi, I move her to the couch when she wakes up early from a nap because she will go right back to sleep. I also swaddle my babies tightly for the first 9 months or so and let them have a paci for about the first 13 months, which definitely helps them sleep better. I did have to do a form of cry-it-out with each of my older girls when I took away those sleep props (which I utterly hate doing!), but it usually only lasts a few days, teaches them how to sleep on their own, and I figure it is worth it to keep them from crying much in the first nine months. I also don't give my little babies a very long "awake" time -- at the first sign of a yawn I wrap them up and put them down for a nap. At 3 months, Abbi still hardly ever stays awake for more than an hour and is usually ready for a nap after only 45 minutes. As long as I don't let her stay up too long and get overtired, she never puts up any fight to go to sleep.

Sorry that I don't have any other great ideas, but please know that naps are something all Moms struggle with. My babies are all very different from each other, but I've never had a perfect napper :)

A More Gentle Transition

(Warning: long post! :) I have been dreading this day for a long time -- the day when I have to transition Karlie from the swaddle. Mark and I love swaddling our babies. On our first night home from the hospital with Karis, we tried to just lay her down in her crib and she screamed and screamed. The minute we swaddled her, she was a happy, asleep baby! We kept it up and believe it or not, Karis slept in her swaddle for almost 7 months! I know that it helped her sleep through the night at an early age. I also rock my babies to sleep, which is controversial, but I love it and don't care. I just can't let my babies cry it out at an early age. I tried it with Karis at 6 1/2 months, and it didn't work and we both were emotional wrecks til I gave it up and did my own gradual thing. (You can read about it HERE if you are interested.) I know CIO works for some people, but NOT ME! I just can't handle hearing my baby hysterical. It makes ME hysterical :) After Karis was used to going to sleep on her own, however, I did let her CIO if she woke up at night because I knew she was ok. But learning to sleep in a totally new way all by herself was just too traumatic for both of us! Anyways, Karlie has been a fabulous sleeper so I delayed this transition way to long once again... but we managed ok and once again I learned a lot and thought I would share :) As I found out with Karis, transitioning from the swaddle to back sleep is no fun because their arms are still flailing, waking themselves up. Karlie has been rolling back and forth from back to belly for some time now, so I knew it was safe to put her on her belly to sleep. I've also been reading The No Cry Sleep Solution, which I highly recommend. I don't agree with a lot of what she said, especially because she's a big fan of co-sleeping and that has always scared me to death, but the book really made me think and gave me a lot of ideas for how to do this transition in a gentle way. So here's what we did and although it was difficult, I am glad we did it the way we did : Day 1: Karlie has no concept of sleeping on her belly so I decided to bounce her to sleep in the sling and then put her down on her belly asleep. This way she would get used to the idea of sleeping on her belly without fighting it with screams and tears. It worked easily and she took all her naps on her belly without any fuss. We gave up on night sleep, however, because she had not learned to go to sleep on her belly and kept waking up every hour and we were too tired to keep it up. So we just swaddled her and decided to wait to do it at night until she was doing well with naps :) Day 2: This was the day I feared the most -- putting her on her belly awake and trying to get her to go to sleep. I rubbed her back and sang to her til she finally put her head down. I picked her up and snuggled her whenever she got really upset and put her down as soon as she was comforted, starting the process again. But I was amazed that it only took about 30 minutes the first time!! It took 15 minutes the second nap and only seconds the third nap! (Note to self -- this is waaaaayyy easier at 4 1/2 months than 6 1/2 months!! :) Day 3: Karis came down with a horrible fever and wanted to be held all day long and was just pitiful. Needless to say I gave up the transition temporarily because I just didn't have the time to do it... A month later: yes, feel free to laugh at me for procrastinating again; I deserve it :) Anyways, this time I did pretty much the same thing with very similar results. But we had a major poblem: She kept waking herself up by knocking her paci out of her mouth! We didn't have this problem with Karis (I guess because she was older) but I quickly realized that we were going to have to break her of the paci. I actually love the fact that my girls took a paci and Karis had no trouble whatsoever giving it up when I took it away at 15 months. (Read THIS POST to see my thoughts on pacis and how Karis gave it up.) So I wasn't excited about the idea, but Karlie obviously wasn't going to learn to sleep as long as she was addicted to her paci. I put up with her frequent wakings for 3 days to make sure she was used to sleeping on her belly. I know it would probably have been faster to do it all at once, but I felt better about taking it a step at a time for a more gentle transition. The first day that I took away all her pacis, I stayed in there with her and rubbed her back while she screamed. It was pretty miserable -- she was trying to suck on anything she could, biting at the sheet, her little lovey, etc. I felt so bad for her. We had decided that I would not go in to help her at night, though, because she really needed to learn to put herself back to sleep. She did scream for about 20 minutes, but did fall back asleep on her own. I helped her fall asleep without the paci again the next day, and after that I let her cry it out. Yes, I did. I felt like I had helped her as much as I could and she had to learn to go to sleep on her own. It took three 1/2 days before she was going down easily and she still fusses a little, but my little girl is now paci-less and swaddle-less! I'm both relieved and a lttle sad -- I will definitely miss all those hours rocking her to sleep. Next time around: I still plan to swaddle and rock every baby the Lord gives me. It just makes them feel so secure and loved and I love it every minute of it! And I will always do a gradual transition. But I will probably transition earlier so that it is not such a big ordeal. It was definitely a lot easier at 4 1/2 months than later when I did it at 6 months!

The Great De-swaddling Adventure

I don't want to make this seem more dramatic than it was because I'm sure millions of babies have to learn how to get used to sleeping without the swaddle. But this was really hard on my little sweetie. She probably would win the award for the oldest baby to still be swaddled, but it just worked so well! She just LOVED being so nice and tight and warm. She was a fabulous sleeper from the beginning and I really think our swaddle had a lot to do with it. And she probably would still be in it if she hadn't totally outgrown the thing! So we knew we had to get her out of it.

Another factor in this adventure was that I have always rocked my baby to sleep. I didn't really mean to get in the habit, it just sort of somehow happened :) And we both loved it! I will never regret the hours spent rocking my little angel. (And yes, I will rock any other babies we have!) Unfortunately, when we tried to get rid of the swaddle, she would wake up when I lay her down. So kicking the swaddle ALSO meant kicking the rocking to sleep habit which did not result in a fun couple of days for anyone in my house!

I was told it would take 3 days to break the habit and then she would go to sleep fine on her own. I've got to admit, those first 2 days were probably the most emotional either of us has been since she was born! It was utterly heart-breaking to hear her scream! The first nap took 25 minutes and I didn't think I was going to make it. I prayed and called my Mama til she went to sleep :) But the next two only took 10 minutes. But then it was a roller coaster. Some times it would take 5 minutes; sometimes it would be an hour. And I just couldn't do that to my baby. There had to be a better way. I had heard from many people that babies sleep better on their stomachs. My sweet girl can roll back and forth on her belly but never tried it for sleep. So I decided to go back to my old routine of rocking her, singing to her, and then I would put her down BEFORE she fell completely asleep. On her belly instead of back. And I rubbed her back til she calmed down. And then I just sat down on her floor so she could see that I was there to take care of her. And lo and behold, she went to sleep calmly! And she's done it ever since!

So I guess I gave in. I just couldn't handle her screaming. But I like this new routine. She's figured out how to put herself to sleep. She just needed to know I was there. I don't rub her back til she sleeps; I just do it a couple of times to calm her down. And no, I'm not going to sit on her floor every nap til she goes to sleep. I just needed to do it the first couple of times so she got used to the idea of putting herself to sleep. I have the sweetest baby in the world; why should I make her scream if she can quietly put herself to sleep another way?

Sorry this post was so long; I just wanted to share my struggles because I needed to vent and because I thought other moms might like the encouragement. Every baby needs at some point to learn how to put herself to sleep. But depending on personality, completely crying it out is not always necessary. You just have to figure out what works for your own baby!