Need napping help!

[featherbug]

My 8 month old son has only recently started to sleep much during the day.  I can get him to nap in the morning around 10 am, after lunch (1:30 pm) and again in the early evening (between 4:30 and 5).  My problem has a couple of angles.  He's never been able to get to sleep alone during the day, and if he falls asleep with me, the minute I transfer him to his crib, he awakes and gets upset quite quickly (he had no problem sleeping in his crib at night for the most part).  When he does nap, it's only for about 30 minutes or so, and then he's wide awake and ready to play again.  Finally, over the past week or so, the only way I can get him to sleep is by walking up and down our stairs.  While I'm looking forward to the buns of steel I'm going to get, it's getting exhausting and he's now waking up as soon as I sit down with him.  I would love some advice on how to get him to sleep in his crib without resorting to the Ferber method, and how to extend his nap times.  Thank you so much!

[lilac83]

Hi, welcome to BW! Have you read any of Tracy Hogg's books? She promoted a sleep training method that doesn't involve leaving your LO alone to CIO (cry it out) but that doesn't mean there won't be some tears. At 8 months old your LO is old enough to do PU/PD (pick up/put down). Here's a link with some info on that: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=69177.0 If you visit the PU/PD board, you will find tons more info there as well.

Usually at 8 months old, LO's are having 2 naps per day of 1.5/2hrs long. Their A time (awake time) is about 3/3.5 hours long. What does a typical day look like?

[featherbug]

Thank you for the link to the pu/pd, and I haven't read any of Tracy Hogg's books.  I'm currently reading 'the no-cry sleep solutions', and am finding it helps for night time sleeping, but not for naps.

Our day looks like this:

Awake @ 7 am
Eat @ 7:30 am
Play @ 8 am
Bath @ 9 am (followed by play)
Nurse @ 9:30 am
Nap @ 10 am for 30 min.

Awake @ 10:30 am
Eat @ 12:30 pm
Nurse @ 1 pm
Nap @ 1:30 pm for 30 min.
Awake @ 2 pm

Nurse @ 4 pm
Nap @ 4:30 pm for 30 min.
Awake @ 5 pm
Eat @ 6 pm
Bed @ 7:30 pm (including evening nursing)
Asleep @ 8 pm

I'm not 100% sure of all the abbreviations yet, so sorry for the long form.

[lilac83]

Hi

I would really suggest getting a copy of The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems by Tracy Hogg. This is a very good book and will probably answer a lot of your questions. I've never read the "no-cry" book, but I believe I've heard that this book is fairly compatible with Tracy's books.

Usually a 30min nap means OT (over tired). How is his mood throughout the day? Average A time for an 8 month old is usually 3hrs, but his A times may need to be shortened for a bit to allow him to catch up on some sleep. What do you think about bringing bath back by 30min so you can get him down for his first nap at 9:30am?

[featherbug]

I just wanted to say a huge thank you!  I bought the Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems, and Holden is already sleeping much better.  Tonight, he put himself to sleep (with only my hand on his back and a soft lullaby) in less than 15 minutes.  He's still napping for only 30-40 minutes, but in his crib (YEAH!!), and I'm going to keep working to see if we can get at least one nap a day up to an hour/hour and a half.  Thank you again for your help!

[lilac83]

That's wonderful news!