When do you give up....nap?

[springmum]

When do you give up helping/trying, if your child is not going to sleep for their nap? ( I don't mean leave them to CIO, I mean give up & get on with the day b/c it's taking too long)

DS is 20.5 months. He has always nursed to sleep for a nap (if we're at home - he can fall asleep in the carseat, but doesn't transfer well b/c we live in a condo and park 5 min's away underground) He doesn't nurse to sleep for bedtime, so I'm hoping to gently transition him away from nursing to sleep for naps too.

Lately, nursing to sleep doesn't even always work anymore. There have been a couple of times in the last week that he just kept popping back up wide awake (very cute I might add...just frustrating), I'd wait, try again....same thing. I learned after the first time of trying for over 3+ hours (do more activity, try to get him to sleep again & again) and STILL not napping, to not try so hard and just go with the flow.

Problem is, those days that I give up, he doesn't nap & turns into MR. TIREDGROUCH in the late afternoon, early evening....not fun I can't let him have a nap after 3 - 4pm, b/c then he's up all night, and that's not good for anyone around here. I do move his bedtime up, but don't want him to feel overtired & grumpy... I hate to see him like that, when I know he would have been fine with a nap.

Not sure what is up, but if I'm going to transition him away from nursing to sleep, I need to have a better idea of how long I should spend helping him get to sleep..... 1 hour...2 hours?

What is the point when you say "okay napping is not happening, let's get on with the day"?

If you have any tips about transitioning from nursing to sleep for naps, please feel free to throw those in too

anyone going through something similar?

Thank you

[mokey4]

DD is 11 months and we still nurse down for all her sleep (except when she's with DH or a babysitter, they can sometimes pat her down). She totally does that thing where she'll fall asleep in my arms and then pop up as soon as she hits the sheets. Sometimes I'm able to nurse her right back down and then it will work, sometimes it takes several tries, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. I usually just give up when I'm tired & frustrated, which for a nap generally can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. Btw this is a very recent phenomenon for us- she used to wake up a little when I put her down but I could pat her back down to sleep, or sometimes she'd just fuss a little and then fall asleep. Now if she's up, she's up, if she's down, she's down. There's not much in between, though sometimes if I do it just right or she's not quite awake I can pat her down, if she hasn't actually started to pull herself up yet (this is more of an art than a science).

The real killer is when she wakes in the middle of the night, then keeps popping up and won't go back down and I give up and bring her to bed with me. I believe in bedsharing in theory, but in practice it has not worked for me and DD. Neither of us seem to get more sleep that way.

[jenfl]

DD gave up naps when she was about 20 months, which is early. And we had to deal with a few days of tired/grouchy in the evenings. But once we committed to no more naps, she shifted her schedule around so that she was going to sleep earlier and sleeping later, and things evened out. She started sleeping from 7pm to 7am, and has stuck with that for about a year now.

Not having to deal with naptime in the middle of the day is such a relief!

[EzzysMom]

Gotta say we're dealing with the same thing right now. I think it's her teeth not letting her fall asleep because nursing to sleep stopped working sometimes too. I know others at the same age with the same problem, or maybe its developmental since I keep hearing it from so many? I'm hoping it will end. I don't want to have no nap in the middle of the day. I've been trying to push nap later before I even start trying to keep my patience and make it more likely she'll sleep. Plus I am getting her very warm in blankets to help her drift off

[springmum]

Well, thank you for sharing your experiences ladies

These little people always keep us guessing that's for sure

I suspect molars are definitely a factor. I'm going to try to do lot's of physical stuff in the a.m. to try to get him more tired, then push the nap back.

I suspect he could drop his naps all together at this point too, since he does make it up at night (except then it's too long for him to hold his pee, and he wakes up soaked...usually he wakes up dry)

I'm going to just go with the flow - nap or not- for the next couple of weeks and see what direction seems to working.

Interesting that others are going through this around this age too - we're not alone!

[bluejaunte]

Mine nursed to sleep (naps and bedtime) for 23 months. Then I realized it was doing more harm than good -- if he had a stuffy nose, for instance, and couldn't nurse well without effort, it played hell with his sleep (and he's a fragile sleeper to begin with).

So I started a routine. I nurse him on the couch while reading lots of books to him. The last book we read is a sleep-related book ("The Curious George Goodnight Book"). Then I pick him up and rock him to sleep and transfer him into the bed.

The first week or two this was sort of touch-and-go as he's so used to connecting nursing with sleep and he's always been hard to transfer as he's such a light sleeper. But now (2 months later) it works WONDERFULLY and he sleeps longer at a stretch because he's not subconsciously bringing himself up out of deep sleep to look for milkies. AND he's night-weaned because of it, which is a good thing for him as we co-sleep and he'd keep waking himself up every hour or so during the night to re-latch. (He was ready to night-wean. I'd never force that on him.)

AND since he's not nursing-dependent for sleep, he can put himself BACK to sleep if he wakes up too early. It's SO AWESOME.

HIGHLY recommend.

[springmum]

Originally Posted by bluejaunte

Mine nursed to sleep (naps and bedtime) for 23 months. Then I realized it was doing more harm than good -- if he had a stuffy nose, for instance, and couldn't nurse well without effort, it played hell with his sleep (and he's a fragile sleeper to begin with).

So I started a routine. I nurse him on the couch while reading lots of books to him. The last book we read is a sleep-related book ("The Curious George Goodnight Book"). Then I pick him up and rock him to sleep and transfer him into the bed.

The first week or two this was sort of touch-and-go as he's so used to connecting nursing with sleep and he's always been hard to transfer as he's such a light sleeper. But now (2 months later) it works WONDERFULLY and he sleeps longer at a stretch because he's not subconsciously bringing himself up out of deep sleep to look for milkies. AND he's night-weaned because of it, which is a good thing for him as we co-sleep and he'd keep waking himself up every hour or so during the night to re-latch. (He was ready to night-wean. I'd never force that on him.)

AND since he's not nursing-dependent for sleep, he can put himself BACK to sleep if he wakes up too early. It's SO AWESOME.

HIGHLY recommend.

Yes, I agree. He is nightweaned and does not nurse to sleep for bedtime - we have a great routine there. I was able to follow his lead there too, he actually initiated the end of nursing to sleep for bedtime.

That's why I thought it would be a good idea to transition away from nursing to sleep for the nap....just a matter of finding our routine there, and working through the transition time. He seems to be letting me know he's ready, since the episodes of nursing, then not going to sleep for a nap are happening now. Seems like the time to help him learn to fall asleep for his nap on his own (while home)

I'm going to look for that Curious George book, great idea

[brooklynbabymama]

We always nursed to sleep, too. Noticing a theme here!

By the 2nd trimester of my last pregnancy, she was night-weaned and by the 3rd we only nursed 2x a day to nap and sleep. So when we weaned completely at about 22 months she did struggle to get to sleep without the nursing. We figured out bedtime but napping was hellacious.

Finally I gave up on nap, structured bedtime to about 8pm and now she goes to sleep 12.5 hours after she wakes up. I know she's tired and often loses her cool later in the afternoon, but we have to push through to bedtime. Basically I used to be house-bound mid-day for nap, now I can't put her in stroller/carseat/wrap after 2 or 3pm without her crashing and throwing us off.

[blizzard_babe]

Holy cow, DS is also 20.5mos, and we're experiencing the same thing (though he doesn't nurse down for naps because DH is home with him during the day). Doesn't want to nap, but then turns into evil demon monster from the depths of Hades at around 5pm. I'm going to talk to DH about starting up some kind of nap routine with him, though he's also become a bit of a beast at bedtime. Just wants to sit in bed and talk and kick and talk and kick and talk and sit up and talk and lie down and kick .

[bluejaunte]

Hey blizzard_babe, your signature kills me dead. Just sayin'.

[Everrgreen]

My DS only just turned 1, so maybe my advice won't apply, BUT, DS is often fighting sleep so nap time and bed time are hard. If he finishes nursing (usually nurses to sleep) and pops off smiling and ready to go, then he isn't going to sleep and we give up right away and go do something else, if he finishes nursing and still seems fussy or tired then I put him on his belly and hold him/rub his back, he may fight me for a couple of minutes but then settles and falls asleep, if he doesn't settle then I will give up because I'm probably too frustrated at that point! I usually put more effort in for the nap, because I know he is going to need a nap at some point and so I might as well just get him to sleep now. But for bedtime if I don't feel like fighting it I'll just keep him up with me for an extra hour or so until I consider it late enough to just go to bed with him (we cosleep).

[CageFreeFamily]

Originally Posted by blizzard_babe

Doesn't want to nap, but then turns into evil demon monster from the depths of Hades at around 5pm. .

My oldest two each gave up naps around 18 mo.
Nothing I did could convince them to nap outside of the car.

At almost three DD2 will still nap in the car if we happen to be there between 1 and 3pm.

She SO needs a nap though. I have considered just putting her in the car and driving around at 1pm everyday just to avoid the aforementioned demon monster from Hades fun.

[blizzard_babe]

Originally Posted by CageFreeFamily

My oldest two each gave up naps around 18 mo.
Nothing I did could convince them to nap outside of the car.

At almost three DD2 will still nap in the car if we happen to be there between 1 and 3pm.

She SO needs a nap though. I have considered just putting her in the car and driving around at 1pm everyday just to avoid the aforementioned demon monster from Hades fun.

That's DS now. He napped on his way home from daycare (he goes two mornings a week), for all of two minutes, then decided that was enough.

Hopefully he'll sleep well tonight.

[physmom]

I don't have any practical advice but I just wanted to say that we're going through the same thing right now. DD won't even let me rock her either and throws a tantrum if I try. Lately she's making it "extra fun" by only taking a 20-30 minute nap once i do get her down. Fortunately, she at least goes to bed earlier those days.

[RosemaryS-F]

Ironically, when DS is overtired he naps worse and sleeps worse at night. I recently read about sleep cycles and night terrors and found that this kind of night waking is most common in children that don't get enough sleep or whose sleep patterns are irregular--hi, that's us. So...I was having trouble with the naps too, and once I started putting P. down when he was tired (often 6.45pm!) he would sttn. Also, his naps got Way easier and happened earlier in the day. I nurse to sleep for naps because it is the way to get a nap out of him, so I don't see any point in stopping. I think it will get us through the 2s.