wind down activity for naps

[clare076]

What are your wind down activities for naps and how long should wind down last? I ahve been having huge troubles with short naps and am wondering if it is because or bad wind down. Usually we play on the floor, change diaper then into bed.

However today we played on the floor, then changed diaper, layed in cot while we read a story, some white noise, then I left the room. It lasted for around 30mins. However she did protest for the last 10 mins which stopped with PU/PD.

Have I done this OK. What do others do for wind down before naps

I tried W2S also today, but I have just heard her mumbling over the monitor at the 45min mark.

Clare

[RachelC]

How old is your lo?  Are all her naps 30 min?

We head upstairs, change diaper, white noise, music, light out, sit in chair and rock and sing 2-3 songs, I lay her down, rub her back and leave.  My lo has no interest in sitting and reading before naps... she gets too wound up.

~Rachel

[Brandonsmom]

My sister in law used to read to her daughter before putting her to bed so naturally I thought about trying that with Brandon. It did not work like I had hoped! He got real fussy and cranky at me. So I just put him to bed. In a matter of minutes he would be out! What I usually do is go into his room, turn on his sound machine, give him his paci, put a blanket over him, kiss and I'll see you soon. And most of the time the paci falls out before I leave the room and he'll talk for a few minutes but that's what he's gotten used too. It's the routine that tells him it's sleepytime, not necessarily what I do because he's already tired. I'm basically setting the mood, I guess. Some babies I think don't want a lot of "fuss" when they are put down. My son was different in the way he prefers to fall asleep from my neice. I don't think it should take you 30 min. for a wind down activity. I think you should take no more than 10 min. to wind down and then it's time for bed. It's just my opinion and some people may extend theirs longer, but you could try to shorten it and see if that works. Good luck to you!

[Erin M]

Nap winddown here has always been less than 5 minutes - into room, close blinds, white noise on, sing 1 song, in bed, asleep.  If I do anything more, she used to get too wound up -- now she's old enough that it doesn't seem to matter as much, but when she was smaller, I needed to keep things simple and brief.

[becky1969]

my wind down is also about 5-10 minutes : go up to room, turn on white noise, say "night-night" to favorite objects around room (sort of tells him it's time for nap), put paci in mouth, sit in rocker and sing 2 verses of song, swaddle, then into bed. He usually fusses a little at the swaddle, but by the time it's finished he's half asleep, and by the time he's tucked in fully asleep.

Even though our wind down is pretty short, I've found that in the last 10 minutes before we go up for our nap, I try to have quiet activity rather than light-music toys going on. So, we'll play with soft toys, sing a song, do hand play, read a book etc. But he won't play in his exercauser, gym, etc. He needs some transition time between play and wind down. The more transition he has, the less "jolting" I see at the 45 minute mark, and the less jolting he does, the more likely he is to put himself back to sleep rather than wake up with a full-on cry. He'll almost always still wake up at the 45 minute mark - I think that's a natural time for him to come out of REM sleep - but sometimes all I hear is a light murmer and then he goes right back to sleep.

I also want to say that now that he's 5 months, he gets REALLY mad if the wind down isn't exactly the same every time! And if "A" time wasn't long enough, he'll get super agitated when I start wind down, because he's not ready for sleep! So he knows what wind down means!