Any way to get DS to NAP?

[nstewart]

I returned to work 2 weeks ago and am lucky enough to have a nanny staying at home with DS (who is 13mos old).  She seems really great with him.  Very patient, engaging and caring. 

Before returning to work, DS always nursed before going down for his naps.  He didn't fall asleep nursing, but did nurse immedietly before I put him in his crib and patted his back for a couple of minutes before he fell asleep.  He will not take a bottle or sippy cup with milk at all during the day (I've tried EBM and also cows milk and a variety of different cups/bottles/nipples with no luck).  He also barely naps all day.  Immedietly before I went back to work he was napping about 3 hours a day (2 hours in the am, one hour in the afternoon).  Now, it's lucky if he passes out from exhaustion from 11am to 12pm.  By the time I get home from work he is over-tired and grumpy and has to go almost immedietly to bed, so it's like I don't get to see him at all except to put him to bed and nurse him at night.

I am relatively confident that our nanny is doing what she can to help him nap (she tries singing, rocking in the rocker, walking with him around the house, vacuuming with him in the Ergo) but the only time he seems to pass out is in the stroller on a walk. If she takes him to his room to rock him to sleep he often resists, screaming and squirming.  Or, he gets there and starts making the sign for "milk" (meaning that he wants to nurse) and then cries because, of course, our nanny can't nurse him!  The nap in the stroller is fine, except that fall is upon us here in Calgary and it is going to get cold pretty soon, so this can't last forever.  Also, an hour is just not enough sleep for his little brain to grow and develop and process!  This worries me!

Am I missing something that can help him nap during the day (short of me driving home and nursing him!)?  Anyone else have a similar experience?  How long has the adjustment period been for you all?

Oh, and I do let him nurse as much as he wants to when I'm home.  He bedshares with us part of the night also so I'm trying to make sure he gets in the cuddles he needs.  I hate that I am now feeling guilty for having not gotten him on a bottle sooner (he started refusing at 3 mos and I never pushed it because he was EBF anyway).  I feel badly because if he took a bottle at least he'd have that comfort, but all he wants is his nursie!

I recognize that all that may help is time, but if you have any advice it's appreciated!

[caenach]

I just wanted to reply, as the mother of a DD who also refused any kind of breast-alternative during the day, and who would not nap without me (and nursing)!

The only option I felt I had was to go and nurse DD at noon every day. She'd fall asleep and I'd attempt to put her down and tiptoe off before she woke up. Obviously, that won't work for everyone. And it made a mess of my work-day. And 60% of the time, she woke up as I was leaving, so didn't actually nap. We just adapted to an instant nursing/napping marathon the instant we got home in the evening. Even now, at 3, DD still needs this sometimes.

Eventually, she did start napping, though she would never take a bottle or pacifier. It took heroic measures on the part of her caregiver for whom all the rocking, swinging, patting, and carrying in the world did not do the trick. But put DD on a cot in a room full of other sleeping toddlers, and she was out like a light.

I think that probably your DS' caregivers will eventually find the magic dust that helps him nap. It helped a lot when my DD became more physically mobile. A few hours of running around in the park helped with the napping! Hang in there!

[Quinalla]

My DD actually always fell asleep nursing for a long time. It took my daycare providers awhile to find what worked well for them to get her to sleep besides the passing out from exhaustion, but they did get it eventually. I would encourage your nanny (if she isn't already) to set up her own routine for naps, probably with some similarities to yours for naps/nighttime, with room for adjustment of course, but she'll probably need to find her own way. I would give it some more time, maybe another week or so, and then make a reassessment to decide if going home to nurse might be worthwhile. For me, that would have been a hard thing to do, but I would have done it if I thought it was necessary, but it may be different for you.

Does your nanny think she will find her own way to get him to sleep consistently soon or is she not confident? If she is confident, that would go a long way for me. And honestly, just the transition to you going back to work by itself is probably contributing to the sleep issues. I know it too my daughter about a month to really get in a good rhythm of being in daycare. She wasn't screaming/miserable/etc. for a month or anything, but to fully adjust it took awhile.

[Quinalla]

Oh, and I forgot to say one thing that did really help DD was a lovey. She has a small blanket with a duck head on it that she uses as her comfort object and that really helped her to have something to go to for comfort and naps. I encouraged her to like it and it worked for me (doesn't always work for everyone for sure). If she had liked pacifiers, I would have been fine with that myself, but she didn't. But yeah, some kind of object that is a special for them can really help.

[nstewart]

Thanks for replying!  Just wanted to say that my DS has been doing better so far this week, napping well and eating well during the day.  I think he is getting used to the new reality!  Quinalla, I think the comfort object is helping.  Now when I put him to bed at night after nursing he usuall cuddles up with his stuffie "Bilbert" and I imagine he's doing this during the day also.