Vickie

we are trying to get Hannah to take one longish nap a day now (two seems to be to much). The reason I say longish is because lately she's gotten into this pattern of only sleeping for 30 minutes and than waking up extremely cranky because she's not slept enough

anyways she seems to naturally get tired in the morning around 11 so that's when we've put her down.

How can we encourage her to nap a bit longer? We've been going in and resettling her and she slept an extra 20 minutes this way yesterday and was happy enough when she woke up so we left her. Any tips?

JennTheMomma

You could try to lay with her, that always helps my son when he was younger. This is probably a phase. My son when he was a year old decided he wanted a very short nap, that lasted a month. Then when he was 2 years old he decided he didn't want to nap at all, which again lasted a month. Now he sleeps 2 hours a day.

DizzyMoo

With josh when i knew it was getting close to nap time i changed activities or introduced a diff toy, it kept him awake an extra half hour / full hour, Which in turn made him sleep half hour longer during day & didn't need the 2nd sleep so went bed at bedtime fab coz by then he was really ready for a proper sleep. So its about changing the routine which can be hard but providing you stick to it, it'll work. Maybe give her a bath when she would normally nap then let her sleep?. I tried the laying down with josh tactic & all this did for me was mean he wouldn't sleep unless i led next to him so was worse for me.
Soon as i manged to get his nap to start an hour later it solved alsorts x

mommyof3co

What time was she taking her 2 naps at? Was it 11 then later in the afternoon too?

Vickie

no she was sleeping around 9/10 in the morning and than 2:30/3 in the afternoon. But she's no longer tired at 9/10 but is tired at 11.

Vickie

thanks, we may end up moving it to after lunch and see if that helps We'll see how it goes for another week or so though.

she had the one nap yesterday and was pretty good the rest of the day. I did some quiet time in the afternoon when before she would have been napping and that seemed to work well for us

dali

may sound a little early but my lo has lunch at 11 am for just this reason, at about 11 he is really ready for bed again, but if he goes to bed without eating first he wont sleep for very long ( presumably because he is actually hungry) and if he does sleep for a decent length of time he sleeps through lunch and has it too close to dinner ( then he wont eat dinner). anyway he has lunch at 11, then goes straight to bed for his nap virtually, he will then sleep for 2-3 hours
and have a snack when he wakes up... works well for us

anyway..... my point was maybe if she ate before going to nap (or put her nap to after lunch which ever way works best for you) she might sleep longer

bethanylee

Ally has lunch at 11 too. If he doesn't he doesn't sleep for long at all but if he eats he sleeps for around 2.5 hrs. I always feel like it's early to give him lunch but it works well for us. Hope you can get Hannah to sleep for longer soon, it's so nice just to get a little rest lol.

Vickie

I might try that. I have been offering her a snack before I put her down but she's refused it the last two days so may just have to try putting her down closer to one and have quiet time from 11 until lunch?

Dacoda

We put an aquarium in our LO's bedroom. It improved EVERYTHING!