Moring nap is a disaster. Please help.

[Mom to Molly]

Hi,

My 7.5 month old has been having a terrible time going down for her first nap for the last week.  I watch for her tired signs, do the nap routine, put her in the crib when her eyes are about to close and then she starts to scream and cry.  I try to soothe her in the crib because she just gets more upset when I pick her up.  Sometimes she goes to sleep after 20-30 minutes of crying hard, but this morning she was actually quiet and seemed to sleep for about 5 minutes before starting to scream.  She screamed and cried hard for 45 minutes before I gave up.  She was really tired, she just wouldn't sleep.  She goes down for her other naps and for nighttime just fine, so I can't figure out what is going on.  She is definitely tired when I put her down, she isn't teething, we had the doctor check her ears, and I would think if it was separation anxiety she would be upset at the other times she goes down.

I've tried keeping her up longer before her first nap, but that didn't work.  I try putting her down after only 1.5 hours (when she is yawning), but she got really upset then too.

I have a feeling her nap problem may be related to her early wake up.  She has been getting up for the day about 5:45am and I try to get her to go back to sleep by nursing her in a dark room or inserting the pacifier, but I've been unsuccessful.  She often still seems tired and she is exhausted by about a little after 7am, which seems early for a morning nap.

I would appreciate any advice anyone has.  I don't know what else to do.

[Sylvia.]

my dd did a similar thing for a while (at the time it seemed like forever) i would have tried to resettle for a few day maybe a week and then if that didn't work i would have started the day at that time, eventally she extended herself

[LeslieG]

Wow- are our daughters related? My DD has been doing the exact same thing.  She gets so mad when I try to put her down for her morning nap. I can't tell if she is overtired or not tired enough.  I have just tried to be as patient as possible and she will usually end up napping.  This morning she through an absolute fit but once she was down, she slept for almost 2 hours....

I have decided to ride out the storm and see what happens.  Her afternoon nap and at bedtime she still is fine. (like your DD)

You should visit the EASY Forum and check out the June/July 05 Baby forum.  We all seem to be going through nap problems like this and we would love to have another mom to chat with.

Leslie

[j9lovesbella]

My Isabella used to have an early wake time but I changed that with what works for us.  I'm not sure what the BW recommends but what I do is when she wakes too early like between 5-6 she is usually smiling and happy after a long nights sleep (usually a night without a feed).  I change her and take her straight to my bed where we lay together and smile at each other and she talks to me (well goos at me).  When her activity level drops (usually within 45 minutes to and hour after her wake) I'll feed her until she's done and then I'll roll over and let her sooth herself to sleep in bed with me.  This of course may not work if your baby is older and moving alot and you may not agree to sleeping in your bed together.  Isabella knows that she takes naps in our bed because we had construction and remodeling done in our house and that has become her sleeping place during the day.  This may not work for your family but it has made early morning naps a breeze for ours.  She'll go 2-3 more hours.

[Mom to Molly]

Thanks for the replies!

Today Molly slept in until 6:30am.  Woo-hoo!  I put her down for her nap at 8:20 and she didn't cry.  I was thrilled.   Just to keep me humble she only slept for 30 minutes.  It was strange because she often does 45 minute naps, not 30.  I tried for 30 minutes to get her back to sleep, but wasn't successful.  I wonder if I've exchanged one problem for another.

This morning really makes me think that the early wake up (5:40am) and the morning nap crying fit are related.  I'm not sure why she slept later today.  I put her down about 10 minutes earlier last night, so I'll definitely do that again and maybe move bedtime even a bit earlier. 

Another possible reason she went down ok for her first nap is that we were a bit more active than usual this morning.  We put on some Ray Charles and danced around for a while.  Who knows if that had anything to do with it though.

leslieg- I'm sorry you're struggling with the morning nap too.  It was really nice to hear that Molly & I aren't the only ones struggling with this.  I hope we can figure this out.  Have you tried making bedtime a few minutes earlier or amping up A time?  I don't know if those things were what prevented the fit today, but they may have played a role.  I'll check out the june/july 05 board.
 
j9lovesbella- Thanks for the suggestion.  I would love it if I could bring her to bed with me and have her go back to sleep.  I've tried before, but I've never waited 45minutes- hour.  Maybe I should just be more patient.  I would also have to figure out how to keep her from rolling off the bed.  She is a bit of a compulsive roller these days.

[LeslieG]

Today Abbi woke up earlier than normal (6am) and went down for her morning nap with no fuss....however...she had an afternoon nap in the car and only slept 40 minutes and then was up from 2pm until almost 7pm.  I tried to get her to cat nap but she wanted nothing to do with it....Does Molly do this? What time is her bedtime? How many naps does she get?

Just curious.
Leslie

[Mom to Molly]

Glad to hear that you avoided the morning nap fuss today!  Sounds like the afternoon was rough though.  Molly doesn't usually fall asleep in the car, but when she does it throws her naps off too.

Molly's bedtime is 7:20, but tonight she didn't end up going to sleep until 7:50, so who knows what that will do to her wake-up time...  She takes three naps a day and the lengths vary.   The third is usually the shortest (30-40 minutes), but some days her first two naps are short so the third is a bit longer.  Once I get her wake up time consistently after 6am and she stops fighting the first nap (she went down ok again today, then had a fit for the second nap), I may work on extending her first two naps so that they are more predictable.   

Is Abbi's schedule pretty predictable?  How does she sleep at night?  Molly is usually up twice, but last night only once.  It was a beautiful thing.

allison

[solnme]

Hi!  My little guy had some nap issues at around the 7 1/2 mark.   I found mine just had alot of energy and wanted to explore more.  He  got the signs, yawning and rubbing the eyes but still had a good 30 minutes of 'go' time left. 

I don't know how many naps your lo has but switching from 3 naps to 2 might help as well, especially if the third nap is between 30 -45 mins long.  We never had early morning wakings (untill now) but moved from 3 naps to 2 at about 4 months.  (So not worth the battle)

I'd suggested picking one concern at a time to work on.  Early wakings or morning nap.   Didn't really matter what time my lo woke up he'd be ready to crash after about 2- 2 1/2 hours of activity.  I found a little dancing to Ray Charles knocked him out as well.