Nap Training Day 1

Nap training was not so awesome today. She does great going down for the nap. For her first nap, I did a shortened version of her bedtime routine and then put her down for her nap. She cried for 20 minutes and then fell asleep for about 20 minutes and woke up crying. We let her cry a little and went in to calm her and kiss her and everything, but we couldn't get her calmed down. So I picked her up and held her for a while and let her sleep on me for a minute. I ended up putting her back in the crib asleep and she slept for another 40 minutes total - including the time I held her. Normally this nap lasts 2 - 2.5 hours, so it only being 1 hour worried me.

With the second nap, she went down & cried only 10 minutes before falling asleep - I think that was thanks to the fact that the last nap was short. But after 40 minutes - one sleep cycle - she woke up crying again. This time I let her cry for about 5 minutes and then Lewis went in to calm her. She wasn't crying very hard before he went in, just kinda whimpering and crying a little. After he went in there, she started screaming! So I went in and picked her up and brought her downstairs.

For the last nap of the day, I just held her and let her sleep because Lewis' parents were coming over and I knew she needed to sleep. I figured I would just start again tomorrow. The nap training is definitely harder than the sleep training and it may seem too soon to do it, but she just won't sleep anywhere unless I'm holding her right now. So I really needed to get her sleeping in her crib for naps so that I don't have to hold her. She will nap from 5 1/2 to 6 hours during the day right now and she sleeps between 9 and 9 1/2 hours at night (waking for feedings). So if I was holding her for all her naps - which I was last week - I was literally just sitting on the couch for 6 hours total during the day! That is NOT fun. I love cuddling, but 6 hours sitting on the couch not being able to really move a lot is just not good for anybody.

Any suggestions for the nap stuff? Tomorrow my plan is to keep putting her down for her naps in her crib every time like I tried to do today. She doesn't seem to have trouble falling asleep in there. The problem is when she wakes early from her naps. I saw stuff about this in several of my books that I posted about before, but what if I can't calm her down? And what if she won't go back to sleep unless I hold her but I know for a fact that she's still tired because she's fussy and yawning? Help, please!

The only good news is that nothing from today seemed to affect her nighttime stuff. She did cry just a few minutes more today (10 minutes) before going to sleep, but that's it. She is still doing great at soothing herself to sleep at her 8:00pm bedtime!