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Joyfulnoise 01:03 PM 07-14-2020
My own ds is 11 mo old. He's never been a good sleeper, but napping has become especially stressful. I know I should have worked with him in the beginning, but I was a stay at home mom and he's my last baby so I just enjoyed snuggling him to sleep at nap times. My other kids were able to play calmly & independently during nap time when I rocked him to sleep so it worked for us. Then I'd lay him down once he was asleep.
Fast forward to now. I'm doing childcare and obviously can't leave the other children unattended to rock him for 20 minutes. He's barely napping at all & when he does fall asleep he wakes up after 20-40 minutes. I've been trying to teach him to fall asleep on his own, but cries for about 30 minutes before falling asleep and still wakes up after about 20 minutes. Then he won't go back to sleep. And he rarely ever takes an afternoon nap. Just the morning one.
I'm so confused as to what to even try. He'll be a year old next week so I'm honestly wondering if I should just forgo the morning nap at this point and put him down to sleep on his own after lunch time just trying for one nap a day. I just don't even have a clue what to do. I rock him to sleep at night as well, but he sleeps well once asleep. Usually nurses once or twice and right back to sleep. Yes I realize this is my fault. Any advice on how to fix it?
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Cat Herder 01:10 PM 07-14-2020
Almost all of my infants begin napping on the big kid's schedule of 1-3 around 10-12 months. At 12 months I move them to mats with the big kids, they rarely fight nap then because they love being down with the group instead of up in the emergency crib.
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284878 01:52 PM 07-14-2020
I let my ds sleep in and drop morning naps around a year, to make it easier on everyone. I started waking him after everyone was here and sitting at the table for breakfast. He wasn't very good at morning naps anyways, so it was fairly easy.
I also moved up afternoon naps by half hour to help him adjust.
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Ariana 11:48 AM 07-16-2020
Sleep training! Get the book The Sleep Easy Solution and do what they book says. Total life saver!

He has to stay in his bed no matter what. Let him cry for 30 minutes, then when he wakes up leave him until he falls back to sleep. If he doesn’t get him up ONLY when nap is over. Within a week he will be napping just fine. Stop rocking him at night too and cut out all the breastfeeding. I stopped the night feeds by going in with a sippy of water. After two night of water my kids stopped waking up.
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AmyKidsCo 01:15 PM 07-16-2020
Can you keep him up in the morning, or only let him have a short nap?
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knoxmomof2 09:19 PM 07-25-2020
I'm a breastfeeding mama who is license exempt in my state since I keep less than 5. I currently have 2 other children in care (3.5 and 1.5), plus my own 2.5 year old and 6 month old. I nurse and rock my babies to sleep. That's a huge benefit of doing this. Is there any reason you can't continue what you're doing?

I would drop the morning nap, for one. See how that goes and if he can make it to afternoon nap without a total meltdown. If not, maybe move afternoon nap up by a half hour? I wouldn't do more than that, but a smidge shouldn't hurt the group too much. Once you do that, he *should* nap longer. If he doesn't, can you rock him back to sleep? If not, just enjoy the one on one time with him and maybe put him to bed earlier?
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Joyfulnoise 11:24 AM 07-27-2020
Originally Posted by knoxmomof2:
I'm a breastfeeding mama who is license exempt in my state since I keep less than 5. I currently have 2 other children in care (3.5 and 1.5), plus my own 2.5 year old and 6 month old. I nurse and rock my babies to sleep. That's a huge benefit of doing this. Is there any reason you can't continue what you're doing?

I would drop the morning nap, for one. See how that goes and if he can make it to afternoon nap without a total meltdown. If not, maybe move afternoon nap up by a half hour? I wouldn't do more than that, but a smidge shouldn't hurt the group too much. Once you do that, he *should* nap longer. If he doesn't, can you rock him back to sleep? If not, just enjoy the one on one time with him and maybe put him to bed earlier?
I love rocking him, but he's too distracted to nurse or sleep in the same room with kids playing. I have to go to a quiet spot to get him to nurse & then once he falls asleep he wants to hang on me. I can't just lay him down & it turns into a half hour event. At which point the other kids have gotten into everything you can imagine. When I speak loyd enough to get their attention then it wakes him back up. And my group is mostly school agers who are fairly rowdy so I have to really stay on top of every activity. Or they frequently start fighting & the noise wakes him up before I even lay him down. I really have to model sharing, turn taking, kind talk, problem solving, etc...it's kinda pathetic with kids this old, but it is what it is. 🙄 This the reason I need to be able to lay him down quickly so I can manage everyone else.
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Joyfulnoise 11:29 AM 07-27-2020
He is currently my only napper as my other dcks are all school age. They do quiet time twice a day, once with a movie & with books. So I can schedule his naps whenever I need to, but I just can't figure out what he needs or how to get him to actually go to sleep w/o me.
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Tags:infant - nap schedule, nap, providers own child, won't sleep
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