Outings, visits, activities

[anna*]

There are a few activities I'd like to do with my little one - baby massage class, mums and baby yoga, weekly NCT meet-ups - not to mention visits to family and friends. But I can't obviously schedule all these around our 3-hour EASY (Stanley is 11 weeks old). We inevitably find that if we expect/want him to sleep in his carseat or pushchair he will be wide awake and vice versa.

How do you manage outings/activities/visits?

[RyansMum]

When I used to meet up with friends and family and Ryan was that young I used to let him sleep on me! That way I didn't have to cut short my visits.  As for groups, again I let him fall asleep on me if he needed it!  It was only occassionally and I didn't see the harm at that age (which it didn't do).  I also used to pick groups that fitted around naps.

[anna*]

Thanks Sharon - He's not very good at napping on me at the moment - too much to look at. If he naps even a little bit while we're out and about do you think I should try making up the time at the next nap?

anna
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[RyansMum]

You could try that. I didn't have that problem, Ryan would fall asleep for 30 mins and that would be it (never had him sleeping any longer except for rare occassions). He managed fine with this routine, however, if your little one appears overtired then yes I would try to extend the naps as outlined on the site and in the book.

Sorry I feel that I have let you down a bit as I didn't have the same problem!

When Ryan was older however I did have to schedule activities around his naps as he slept much better in his cot and by the time he was older I thought sleeping on me was not such a good idea anymore. 

At family houses though I had a travel cot so that I could put Ryan down for a nap without cutting short the visit.

[amywiz24]

I really tried to schedule around naps. Occasioanlly we would be out (shopping, etc) during a nap and if that was an exception rather than the norm, things went fine.
If we were visiting friends/family; he would sleep in his infant carrier.
I will say at 4 mos, when they are on 4 hour EASY, it gets easier to schedule outings.

[anna*]

Thanks Ryans Mum and Amywiz

We went out TWICE today, first time Stan was sleeping beautifully in his carseat but woke up WIDE AWAKE as soon as we got home. It took me half an hour to settle him back to sleep but he did then go another 45 mins. This afternoon we went to tea at his Granny's and to meet some cousins for the first time. He was a bit overtired, and screamed for about 2 minutes and then went to sleep on my chest. It was at catnap time anyway so he spent 45 mins there and then we came home for bathtime. Good as gold.

He's getting so much better at napping when we give him all the cues, I think as long as outings are the exception rather than the rule we should be able to work around them. Of course, activities that coincide with awake times are even better! Four months is going to come around all too soon.

anna
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