Hellobee

So, we have two kids and have failed at nap training both of them. Not a good track record. Our first child, Lion, has never been a particularly good sleeper during the day or night, though that might have been our fault (more on that in a separate post). Panda has been so different than Lion, sleeping long stretches of six hours or more at night almost immediately, sleeping twelve hours at a time at around four months, so I thought surely he would be a champion napper too. Panda has no sleep crutches when going down to bed in the evening (except, maybe, his lovey), so he wouldn’t need a pacifier or need to be rocked to sleep for naps either, right? Wrong. Both of our kids need one of us with them, preferably on our bed (not their cribs) to sleep during the day. I do not understand what the difference is between night and day or how we failed so terribly at nap training, but . . . here we are.

For the first few months of Lion’s life, he had to fall asleep in our arms, on our chest, or in his stroller. He refused to fall asleep in his crib or laying down on a flat surface. I remember walking with him for hours to get him to nap. Oh, and those stories of babies falling asleep in the car? Not Lion . . . he would scream in the car, but was somehow fine being in the carseat when we used the click connect system in the stroller.

Mr. Dolphin walked to the polling place while on paternity leave when Lion was three months old instead of driving, just to get Lion to fall asleep.

Lion consolidated his naps very early and was down to one nap by about nine months. He would wake up absurdly early (think: 4:30 a.m. on average) at that age no matter what time we put him down to sleep (usually around 6:30 p.m. because putting him to bed any later than that just resulted in him getting even fewer hours of sleep). Then, he would want to nap at 9 a.m. and then would be awake until we put him to bed again for the evening. Predictably, he became very fussy in the afternoons, but refused to nap.

At daycare, the providers would rock him to sleep and then put him down in his crib. I don’t know how they did it because whenever we tried the same tactic at home on weekends, he would immediately wake up the second his head hit the mattress and scream. Often, he would not fall back asleep either, and then would be super cranky the entire day. Even if we did get him to fall asleep in his crib for naps, he would wake up after thirty minutes and refuse to go back to sleep. One thirty minute nap during the day plus ten hours of sleep at night just didn’t seem like enough for a nine month old. Somehow, along our nap journey, I would lay down with Lion on our bed until he fell asleep. Then, I would stay next to him during his entire nap and rub his back if he started to stir, to ensure that he stayed asleep for an hour or two. Unfortunately, with this system, Mr. Dolphin and I never got to enjoy the nap together to watch TV, talk, or do things together.

After Lion moved into the toddler room, the daycare managed to slowly coax him into a later nap, probably because he wanted to stay up to play with his friends and nap when everyone else napped. I asked his primary provider how she managed to keep him asleep for two hours because at home, he took much shorter naps. She confirmed that they would sit with the kids next to their cots and rub their backs if they stirred. Basically, they were doing the exact same thing we were to ensure a decent nap.

About a month or so ago, Lion has been taking an hour or longer to fall asleep for his nap. Laying down with him on our bed became extremely frustrating because he was so hyper. He would babble, lay down on top of me, jump off of me, poke me in the face and just generally try to get attention. I finally had enough and started putting him down in his crib and have had mixed success. He insists that I stay in the room with him while he naps. At least having him in the crib, I can sit on the other side of the room and do work on my laptop while he babbles, sings and plays. When he’s finally ready to fall asleep, he insists that he needs me to hold his hand. Somehow, within minutes of me grabbing his hand, he falls asleep. Then, I have to stay in the room with him to help him get back to sleep if he starts stirring. After an hour or so, I can leave the room because I don’t mind as much if he wakes up if he’s had at least an hour. Putting him in his crib for his nap now is an improvement over the previous system. However, I still don’t understand why he relies on these sleep crutches for naps.

As a newborn, Panda also refused to sleep in his bassinet during the day. I spent many days trying to acclimate him to his bassinet, but his naps were always cut short if I put him there, despite the fact that he would sleep for hours at a time there at night. But if I put him on the couch, on our bed, or in the snuggabunny, he would be dead to the world. He slept through hammering when Mr. Dolphin was doing some home improvement, slept through conference calls I put on speaker while working from home, and we ended up having to wake him up to eat for the first several months of his life.

Panda at one month old, knocked out when sleeping anywhere but his bassinet.

Today, Panda is an overall better sleeper than Lion was at the same age and is still taking between two and three naps a day. When he takes two naps, the naps are long . . . usually between one and two hours each. He doesn’t require one of us to sit with him to keep him asleep and has finally learned to sleep through some of the noise and activity at the daycare (though sometimes he still gets a seven minute nap according to his daily sheet), but still requires extra attention to fall asleep. For naps he requires, at a minimum, his pacifier. Often, he also depends on one of us to lay down with him on the bed and rock him to sleep, cuddle with him, rub his back, or stroke the bridge of his nose until he falls asleep. For some reason, he gets overtired in a second during the day and screams when he has trouble falling asleep for his nap (pretty much the only time he screams). And forget about putting him down in his crib. He only wants to sleep on our bed or in the stroller. Once Panda’s asleep, though, he’s usually down for an hour or two and doesn’t rely on us hovering over him.

Somehow, the daycare providers get him to sleep in his crib. Why can’t we replicate this magic at home? 

I have no answers for why we can’t get our kids to fall asleep and stay asleep in their cribs for naptime, when they do so for bedtime. I also don’t know why our bed is so different than the mattresses in their cribs. Somehow, we’ve failed at nap training with both kids.

Do your little ones have a significantly harder time with naps than bedtime?