sleeping away from home

[AGS Mom]

My ds is 16 months old.  He takes naps at home fairly easily--he drinks a cup of milk while we read a couple of books, then I lay him in his crib where he puts himself to sleep.
I cannot get this child to take a nap at anyone elses house.  This includes my mother's house where he has spent lots of time since he was born.  Even if we do the same routine as we do at home-he will NOT go to sleep.  When it is naptime and we are at someone elses house --we have to go home (he usually falls asleep as soon as we get in the car.)  We also can't get him to sleep at night if we are not at home, so we have spent only 2 nights away from home in 16 months.  Now that it is summer we would like to get out and about more often--but the sleep dilemma keeps us home!!  Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Deb_in_oz]

I'll admit we have only had a handful of days/nights sleeping elsewhere with dd2 but for both girls during the baby and toddler stage what I did was recreate home as much as possible.  So - if i knew we were going away or would be planning for a sleep at someone's house I would take the current bedsheet straight off their mattress (as it smells familiar)  to put on the port-a-cot / pack -n - play;  bring along their white noise machine; and for dd1 who always had stories before bed we would bring her usual stories and do her full sleep routine. We have had mixed success with out of house sleeping but i do think these things contributed to some success.

when things failed badly for a nap we would try one more time with the stroller and see if a walk would get dd1 asleep and then bring her in the person's house.

night time never has been a problem in the sense that when all else fails we have had success reverting to shh/pat until lo falls asleep. an inconvenience, yes, but the end goal of a night's sleep is achieved.  HTH

[twoboys]

Hi AGS Mom.....
You didn't mention what your DS sleeps in when you go to your mothers house or when you are away from home.  I have a portable crib/play pen that I take with me when I go on trips or stay at other people's homes.  Both of my boys have spent "awake" time in it so they are familiar with it.  So, when I put them down for a nap they have their own blankets and they are used to it - and I haven't had any problems or sleep issues when using it.

Not sure if this helps or not.  Let me know.....

[Florencia]

I was going to suggest the same as Debinoz, so just to add some advice to it, I make a big deal about how exciting is going to be to have a nap at grandma's, auntie's etc... the very same morning i make ds "help" me pack his teddy, aquarium, bottle because "we all are gonna have a nap at x's house"... when getting there, the first thing we do is a "tour" to the room he'll get his nap and i make him help me set his bed/crib etc. When it's nap time/bed time I try to start it 15 mins early to avoid "rushing" him to sleep and if he needs an extra cuddle or me being extra time in the room, i let him have it. The first few occassions we tried it I also pretended to be asleep next to the packnplay because i understood it was a new environment and he might need extra reassurance of the new place and i made sure he understood i was right there and wasn't going anywhere. As soon as he was sound asleep, i'd leave and he was ok with it. Also, i was prepared for an earlier bedtime because he took shorter naps when we were out.

HTH and good luck on your vacation!

[Deb_in_oz]

The first few occassions we tried it I also pretended to be asleep next to the packnplay because i understood it was a new environment and he might need extra reassurance of the new place and i made sure he understood i was right there and wasn't going anywhere. As soon as he was sound asleep, i'd leave and he was ok with it.

i did this when we had a 2 day stopover in bangkok when dd1 was 12 mo old. she went to bed ok but woke and would not go back down (it was late so i was genuinely tired) so instead of fighting it i laid on the floor right next to the port-a-cot and actually fell asleep first, but when i woke a little later she was down too. i do think this can be reassuring in strange places.