My Baby Sleep Guide | Your sleep problems, solved!: naps

Showing posts with label naps. Show all posts

Why is my baby taking short naps?

Ahhhh, short naps. Every parent's dream. They visit many and they visit often. And they are as obnoxious as anything....especially if you have just spend the last hour trying to get baby to go to sleep! UGH!

Short naps, sometimes called the 45 minute intruder due to their length, are especially difficult if you are trying to establish a

What is PU/PD?
P.U./P.D. (pick up/put down) is a strategy used by The Baby Whisperer that she states is the "cornerstone of her middle-of-the-road philosophy" because "your child is neither dependent on you or some kind of prop for going to sleep, nor is he abandoned." This strategy is used after implementing a good routine, "Four S" ritual, shush-pat and possibly wake to sleep. It is only to be used in children 3-4 months or

Nap Index (General Information and Problem Solving)

Naps - General info and problem solving

Related Indexes:

Night Sleep
Sleep by Age

Sleep Environment

Sleep - General Information

Sleep Safety
Sleep Training

Understanding Sleep

Should I sleep train for NAPS or at NIGHT first?

Joshua, a few weeks old

The all too familiar question. Maybe you have been wondering this exact thing. It's about time I addressed it in a post instead of in multiple comments where you have to wait days to find out my answer. Not very fun when you are trying t

Short Naps - When to normally expect them

Ahhh, another post on short naps. What can I say, there's just so much to say about this subject. Too bad most of it is frustrating if you are dealing with this. No worries. This post talks about times that short naps are common or

Why Won't My Toddler or Preschooler Fall Asleep?!

Many toddlers and preschoolers go through a phase where they won't fall asleep for naps or before bed. Often it is a short phase that passes by itself or with a few changes in the daily routine, but sometimes, it is

What is 'Wake to Sleep'?
Wake to sleep is a strategy used by The Baby Whisperer (and others, but she was the first I learned this from so she gets to be mentioned here) to help reset a child's pattern of habitual sleep awakenings. Just like any other sleeping method, it requires

Keeping a Sleep Log

Keeping a sleep log is a great way to make sleep problem solving much easier and faster. It allows you to look over the patterns of the last several days to determine what needs to be changed and what should be kept the same. Why the last several days and not just a day or two? Short term success may be a fluke and not an actual

Nap Lengths - What's Average?

Unfortunately, a good, long nap does not come easily to all babies. So don't despair if your baby doesn't take naps as long as the ones listed below. Believe me, he is not the only one, I promise! If this is the case, you may want to check out the

The Four S Wind Down Ritual - setting the stage, swaddling, sitting, shush-pat

Once baby is ready for bed (see sleep cues) the Baby Whisperer suggests her Four S wind down ritual. This consists of setting the stage, swaddling, sitting and if necessary the shush-pat.

Setting the stage:
Remove baby to a calm setting which will most likely be his or your room. Get the room ready for sleep by closing the blinds, turning on music or doing

When To 'Shush-Pat':

To help break baby of an unwanted sleep prop/association or fix a form of accidental parenting.

Done in babies under 6 months of age and before P.U./P.D. in babies over 3 months of age. *** Traci Hogg suggested you do it in babies under 6 months because she felt it was disruptive and stimulating for many babies over

Set nap times

With newborns, you are going to have a much happier baby (and mom) that naps better if you go by sleep cues and waketime instead of set nap times. As your baby gets older and seems to be sleeping around the same time each day, set nap times are often the

Waketime Length - How long should baby stay awake?

**See average waketime lengths at end of post**

What is Waketime?
Waketime length is how long your child can stay awake between sleep periods before he's ready for another nap or bedtime. It includes any time baby is awake, including feeding time and wind-down time before naps/bed.

How does Waketime Length Change?
Waketime is continually changing so you need to be on the look out for your baby's Sleep Cues and monitor how well your child's naps and night time sleep are going since

The fourth nap is usually dropped between 3-5 months, usually closer to 5 months. Often this nap is dropped when baby transitions to a 4 hour eat/activity/sleep routine although baby may be ready to drop this nap before he

Dropping your Baby's Nap - When and How to do it

Before dropping a nap be sure to take a look at Dropping A Nap - The Facts. You can click on each nap title below to learn more info about that particular nap.

Average Age Naps are Dropped

Nap	Average Age Dropped
From 4 to 3 naps	3-5 months
From 3 to 2 naps	6-9 months
From 2 to 1 naps	14-18 months
From 1 to 0 naps	3-4 years (is often dropped at 2 years of age, but is usually still needed for optimum development and a happy mood)

The last nap of the day is often a catnap (super short) before it is dropped for good. These nap times are averages—your child may drop slightly

Dropping Baby's Nap - The Facts

When does baby need to drop a nap?
Generally you will know that a nap needs to be adjusted (weaned, dropped or moved later) when baby starts sleeping bad for a nap (i.e. takes a long time to fall asleep for that nap or the nap following and/or wakes up early from a nap), bedtime is moved too late, or there are other schedule issues. Obviously you should double check that nothing else, like illness, seems to be going on. Less commonly baby may start to wake up

Not So Obvious Naps With Very Obvious Consequences

Some naps parents may not consider naps at all. Like when their child wakes super early in the morning and stays up for a short time before going back to sleep (see Early Morning Awakenings) or when their child goes to bed at an early time each night but wakes up in the evening for quite a while and doesn't settle back to sleep easily again after eating or comforting. The thing is, these periods of sleep are somewhat separate from

The "Too Long in Bed Problem"

Ferber believes that many children spend much of their time in bed not sleeping but instead playing, looking around, or thinking. He says this often happens because parents don't realize their children are actually awake, they have higher than normal expectations for their children's sleep or they assume that all their children should be

A sleep association is something that a child associates with falling asleep. It can be anything from a bedroom, crib, darkness, special blanket/toy, nursing, warm arms or body, rubbing of the back, rocking, pacifier etc. From that long list, you get that it can be pretty much anything! Notice that I said falling to sleep. Something you do right before sleep but not to fall asleep is different and considered part of

Daytime Sleep - What's Average?

Listed below are lists of the average amount of daytime sleep in hours and number of naps for age**. Remember, if nothing is broken, don't try to fix it! If things are going smoothly, there is likely no need to change them! These are just here to guide you along the

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