Lesson in Napping #2,053

Parenting is a constant source of education - sometimes painful and mostly joyful. However, an education from day 1 of conception and on.

I wrote about a week ago of our struggles with this toddler who has inhabited my sweet baby's body and his boycotting of naps. So, I took my friend Anne's advice and it has worked like a charm since (continuing thanks, Anne!). But I wanted to do some of my own deeper research so I purchased the book "The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems" by Elizabeth Pantley. I am learning quite a bit about why my child needs to nap and how much he needs to sleep during the day.

So often when talking to other moms, I have heard them say that their children just aren't nappers and will go all day without napping on a regular basis. I can't help but pity them! I am learning that every baby and child to the age of 4 or 5 NEEDS that extra sleep so they sleep better at night and they don't reach the "volcanic" stage of overstimulation. Also, the majority of brain and hormonal development occurs while a child is napping during the day so that uninterrupted, consistent and daily down-time for a child is vital for their growing brains/bodies.

I also have been told that at age 1, all children need to start consolidating their 2 naps a day into 1 long one. How untrue that actually is... 50% of all children take 1 long one a day but that leaves the other 50% who need 2 shorter naps. I struggled for weeks to try to consolidate Noah's naps into one long one and finally am learning why my child wouldn't cooperate. It would get to the point that by 10 a.m. he would go put his head down on the floor or on the dog's bed and try to sleep there. So thankfully, that book has come to my rescue! (And to Noah's rescue as well).

So, as of now at 14 months old, Noah will go to bed at exactly 7 pm with no fight, will sleep straight through till 7 am or 7:30 am (sometimes a bit later) and then is begging to go back to bed by 9 am at the latest. He will then nap for 1-1.5 hours, be awake for 3 or so hours, then back down post-lunch at about 1:30 pm for another 1.5-2 hours. Once I started reading the book, I was relieved to know that that schedule is OKAY and actually is the preferred method of 50% of all toddlers Noah's age. This schedule means that he's getting the necessary 14-15 hours of sleep that babies his age require.

For all of those mommies who are struggling the majority of the time to get their babies or children to nap well, then this book is highly recommended. It is a great resource for understanding why children need to nap and for how long and it also provides several different sample nap and daytime schedules.

Another 2 thumbs up from this Mom.