Another rountines question

[Assisi]

Does you baby/child have a routine for day time sleeps?

If so, what is it?

Why do you, or don't you, have a routine before day time sleeps?

I'm looking for ideas

My baby has a fantastic night time routine and we have very little crying at bedtime and none after night time feeds, but day time is a different story.

 

[~Mrs. A2J~]

My younger two take naps at roughly the same times each day but there's no routine. I can't have a daytime routine because the days vary so much but they are good generally at falling asleep wherever they are.

 

[Leanna]

Its all about habit really. When my baby is tired I lay him down in the crib and he goes to sleep. I never let him cry to get to this point, but it is what he knows as normal and he knows just what to do when he is laid in his crib--sleep.

 

[Leanna]

Oh, after reading Mrs.A2J I think I missed what the question was. My 6 month old takes 2.5 naps: One morning, one afternoon and sometimes a late afternoon but thats mostly dropped. My toddler takes one afternoon nap and we do have a regular daily routine around here...

 

[Assisi]

My days are often very different as well, because some days I am at the university all day, and other days I am at home or running errands (read: socialising lol). I'm glad you're kids will sleep where ever you are MrsA2J, how do you get them to do it? Funnily enough, the one place my baby hates to sleep is at home.

He loves his night time routine, bath, milk prayers etc. and it doesn't matter where we are, if we follow this routine he will sleep. I'm thinking perhaps a similar pattern before daytime sleeps will help him to nod off, but I don't want to do a bath

 

[Assisi]

To clarify: I'm not asking about how your days runs, I'm asking what you do around nap times which help your baby/child to know it's time to sleep.

 

[Leanna]

Hmm well are you having him 'suck to sleep'? If that is the pattern then yes as creatures of habit that would work very well for nap time too.

 

[llghoney]

We have a routine but I go on her routine really. If she is tired (rubbing eyes, fussy) I try to either rock her or walk around and when she is fussy she wants her pacy. Sometimes though she falls asleep on her own if she is in her crib or on her play mat.

 

[angelsgirl]

We have a sort of routine. When Maddie gets tired, I change her nappy (which she now associates with going to bed, so she doesn't like it!) I give her a bit of a hug and some kisses then I place her in her cot while I get her grobag ready, then she goes into that and dummy goes in her mouth. She will cry sometimes, others not. I don't let her cry for more than about a min before I go in to check on her. Most days she is asleep before I leave the room!

I started doing this but wrapping rather than a grobag once she was about 3.5-4 months old. She just knows when she is in her cot it's time for sleeps. It was quite hard in the beginning to get her to go to sleep during the day at all, this took alot of patience and doing the same thing most days for a couple of weeks.

 

[Assisi]

We always tried to get Matt to associate bed with sleep and we have always tried to put him down before he falls asleep so that he will learn that bed is for sleep. Though one of his day time sleeps was always in the pram, not the bed. But lately putting him in his cot does not help him to sleep, for some reason our old routine just stopped working. I think we need something more for him.

 

[Assisi]

Oh, and we've tried the controlled crying way angelsgirl - once Matt starts crying sleep goes out the window for the whole day.It makes him very insecure.

 

[angelsgirl]

Yeah... it doesn't work for everyone. I dont' see it as CIO or CC. Maddie does this when she goes to sleep in our arms too.

 

[Leanna]

Okay so he is 4 months old.... can you pretty well predict nap time? how many does he take? Maybe we can brainstorm some ideas about why he might be giving you troubles with naps...

 

[Assisi]

Okay so he is 4 months old.... can you pretty well predict nap time? how many does he take?

No

We have been focusing on sleep these three weeks or so and now that he is sleeping better I've noticed a pattern. One day with no sleep. One day with one two hour nap. One day with two to three 40-60 min sleeps. On a three day cycle.

I'm encouraging the two to three 40-60 minute sleep days on the recommendation of Tresillian House.

ETA - it makes sense because then we're working on it before he gets overtired.

Over night he generally does a six hour stint, then a feed, then a three hour stint, then we get up for breakfast.

Yeah... it doesn't work for everyone. I dont' see it as CIO or CC. Maddie does this when she goes to sleep in our arms too.

I tried what you do on the recommendation of Tresillian House, but it doesn't work for Matt. Lol, they said 'just go and sooth him with your hand and if that doesn't work pick him up, then try again when he settles' HA! He never settles when we do that. Crying seems to make him more alert, like you, it doesn't seem to matter if he's in my arms or in his cot.