Thwarted nap routine?

[newmamalizzy]

I decided it was finally time to get control over my 4.5 month old's naps, so I'm starting with Elizabeth Pantley's advice to set up a consistent napping routine. We change diaper, take off the drool bib, draw the shades in the bedroom, and turn on her music. In theory, we'll alternately play on quietly on the bed or dance to the music until Bea's ready to go to sleep. In practice, I must be mis-reading some of her sleepy cues or timing things wrong because many times the nap is "a miss" and we come back out. My concern is that I'm thwarting the power of the nap routine by allowing the routine to be associated with so many non-naps. (My REALLY paranoid side fears she'll lose the meaning of light/dark cues, too!) Those of you who use a nap routine successfully, I have a million questions:

How did you start implementing it?
How quickly did you give up if it seemed like sleep wasn't going to happen? Is it better, at least at first, to save the routine for when I'm already positive she's headed for sleep?
Am I, perhaps, confusing pre-nap downtime with actual nap-time?

(To put this in context, Bea is staunchly nap resistant and VERY prone to over-stimulation leading to many missed or inadequate naps. Because of this, she exhibits signs of sleepiness a LOT, even after she's just woken up from a nap, so I'm easily confused as to when is the appropriate time to try putting her down. We're trying to work on lengthening naps and night-time sleep, too, but with no luck so far.)

Thanks in advance for any insight!

[octobermom]

my LO is 5 months we've been on a routinue for a long time..
I'd love to say I did something fantastic and ultra AP to create it but truth is it was HER. We jsut begain noticing a constant pattern.. and then I leaned little ways of how she transations best..
So for example my LO falls into a 2-3-4-5-6 pattern meaning

2 hours after waking she is ready for her AM nap cues to this include wanting to nurse more, slight fussiness begining not as wanting to kick and roll if put down (protests beign but down)
3 hours after waking from first nap ready for PM nap
4 hours after waking from PM nap ready for bedtime
5 hours latter wakes for feeding
6 hours sleep and wake and repeat...

If I catch her cues and gently follow the 2-3-4 as my guide we have quite tear free happy baby days.. I nurse mine down but not to her beign asleep though at times it happens and I deffiently don't mind but more till she pops off wont latch back pops her eyes open and looks around.. I actually find THIS is the best time to lay her down with this she just drifts off peacefully.. Putting her down asleep often startles her or she wakes suddenly wondering why.. Even slung to me...

Deanna

[SeattleRain]

I think the mistake might be with the dancing to the music in the "nap atmosphere." It seems like the atmosphere right before nap should be of soothing and quiet. So maybe I would go into the bedroom, leave the lights on, turn on the music and play and dance and then switch the music to something quiet and soothing and turn off the lights. That would help her associate play time with lights on, and naptime with lights off. She might be getting a second wind with all the activity and stimulation around naptime. Maybe switch from playing to reading some books?

[aramat]

This sounds like too much stimulation to me, unless you are intending to start the routine before she is tired. I think I'd play and/or dance first in another room, then as baby gets sleepy (a little less happy, less pleasant...), move into the darkened bedroom.

My own babies either nurse to sleep, or sleep swaddled and rocked, or fall asleep on walks in the sling.

[KSDoulaMama]

Definitely the space she uses for sleeping should not be used for dancing and playing right before nap. Nap time routines should involve things like diaper change, nursing, rocking, reading a book, singing a quiet song to her, or laying down together. (Obviously not ALL of those things, but whatever suits you and your baby.) It is about winding down.

[Tway]

DD is 10 months, and it took me a long while to let go of what I was reading about naps (put down when tired, let her soothe herself to sleep, etc.) and just go with the flow. That meant I guiltily held her for naps until she was about 4/5 months, then tried in vain to nurse and transfer her to her crib when drowsy for awhile, and now I just lay down and nurse her to sleep on my bed. Usually always works!

DD starts to rub her eyes and whine about 3 hours after wakeup, and then again 2 1/2 to 3 hours later (today it was 5, though--YiKES!). She also sometimes falls asleep in the stroller or car if the timing is right.

Look for tired signs then go with what works. And if it makes you feel better, it took till DD was about 7 months before I figured out what usually worked.

[newmamalizzy]

Maybe I should clarify: When I say we "dance" and "play," what I really mean is we go into the darkened bedroom and I turn on her bedtime music. I cradle her in my arms and bounce/sway. This has always been the easiest way to put her to sleep, but what she sees as "soothing" music is kind of strange. It has to have a good bounce. Fat-Bottomed Girls by Queen almost ALWAYS puts her right to sleep. Strange, but true. Her current choice is Harvest by Neil Young. So, that is what I meant by "dance." If I've got her in the right mood, she falls asleep by track 2. If not, she starts trying to sit up in my arms and then we "play" on the bed. By this I mean, I lay her down on the bed and we stare into each others eyes and "talk" while I stroke her legs and belly. Sometimes I'll sit her up and give her a stuffed toy for a little while, which she plays with while I stroke her back and hair, music playing softly, in the dark all the while. When she starts to fuss, we do the cradling/bouncing to music thing again and she'll generally fall asleep quickly, but loudly (she cries and wriggles).

She's an odd baby in that things most babies find soothing don't soothe her at all. Books make her very upset, she hates to lie down when tired, hates swinging, hates the car, hates being swaddled, hates it when I sit down in the rocking chair with her when she's tired...

My concern is that even though (especially because) out naptime routine IS dark, calm, quiet, that, because the routine still fails a lot of the time, she won't learn to associate the routine with sleep.

The failure, I think, is because I just can't seem to figure out the right time to put her down. It seems like she's ALWAYS acting tired (rubbing eyes and face, yawning), but that doesn't mean she's always able to sleep. I think if I could get her to sleep longer (40 minutes despite all the interventions I've tried so far), things would make more sense, but as it is she can only go about 1.75 hours between naps and starts acting tired less than a half hour afterward...

[Knitting Mama]

Does she nurse/drink to sleep ever? As far as swaddling goes, if I just swaddled Cecilia and left it at that, then she'd never sleep and she'd be really pissed at me. But combine the swaddle with the comfort of nursing and she relaxes in minutes, if not seconds. And with the swaddle she sleeps for 3-4 hours as opposed to 30 minutes without.

[CassnBeth]

Oy vey. Four months is a terrible sleep time no matter what. Try typing it into the search box on ask moxie and you'll see what I mean. I felt like I spent all day putting DD to sleep because she took such poor naps but needed so many of them.

Anyway, you know that thing where baby's have 45 minute sleep cycles? My little one was also awake in multiples of 45 up until...last week? At four months old she was genuinely ready for another nap exactly 45 minutes after the previous one ended. And it stayed that way until she was six months old when it suddenly switched to 90 minutes between naps.