Today at 2 PM EST I am going to be participating in a Sleep Chat on Twitter courtesy of HuffPost Healthy Living and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. I’m hoping to answer questions about sleep in children. Please send your questions my way with the hashtag #sleepchat and I’ll do my best to answer them.
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Tired Mama says
Hi. Not sure if this is the right place to leave a question, but I am wondering about differences in sleep in naps vs night time sleep. My husband and I followed your advice and it REALLY helped at night – our 8 month baby girl now goes down awake at night, falls asleep, and stays aleep all night (one early morning nurse, but other than that down from 7:30 pm till 7am). Naps are a different story. She cries like crazy and I don’t have the stomach for CIO. We did a tiny bit of cry it out at night time but it was easy bc she was really ready for sleep. Naps are different- even though she is obviously ready for a nap, she gets herself really worked up if I try to leave and won’t settle. So, I end up patting or rocking her to sleep most of the time. Is this okay? Will it change on it’s own? Thanks so much! #sleepchat
Craig Canapari MD says
Naps can be challenging especially if your child is sleeping well at night. My older boy was a great night time sleeper but napping was not great until he started walking. Hang in there, and thanks for the positive feedback!
Kerry says
Tired Mama, I could have written the same words! Word for word. We sleep trained at 8 months. It did not make naps any better, and my son always has and always will fight naps like a tiger. However..when he switched to one nap (12:00 ish) things got a little better. He cries still, but only for 5 minutes. I don’t think sleep training harmed my son in any way. In fact, he became happier once he wasn’t waking every 2 hours. I do recommend sooner rather than later if you do decide. We did a gradual 10 day method where you progressively move farther away from the crib. It was slow but I felt better being there.
Craig Canapari MD says
Kerry thanks so much for providing your guidance here.
Tired Mama says
Thanks! I was thinking of waiting until she was down to one nap (and I guess she’ll be walking at this time too!) and then doing the sleep training thing for nap. I know it will be hard for me, so I have to prepare myself and come up with a game plan way in advance! I cried every night for three nights when we were preparing to do the CIO at bedtime — then when we actually did it my baby fussed for like 10 minutes – so, yeah, it was way harder on me than her 🙂
Fan says
I have a 2 year old son who refuses to go to sleep without my husband or I holding him for at least a half hour. If we do not do that, he will literally cry for over an hour sitting up and not give up. He is now, for the first time since he was born, sleeping through the night but we cannot seem to get him to fall asleep by himself. Every night whenthe process starts, my husband and I unfortunately dread bed time because of the nightly stress. Any help would be amazing!