Advice on Morning Sleep
Hi,
My 11 month old is starting to put up a big fight to his first nap of the day, and will cry/scream for up to 45 minutes before finally going to sleep. I'm wondering if people have any suggestions for making daytime sleep less distressing for everyone.
Our family sleep situation is that our son falls asleep in our bed about 7:30pm (I nurse him to sleep). We then transfer him to a crib in our room sometime during the evening, and he usually sleeps there until about 4 in the morning, when I nurse him, and then he sleeps in the bed with us until about 6:30am.
Around 8/8:30am, he's starting to get tired, so my husband lies down with him in our bed and tries to rock/hold/pat him to sleep in his arms. For the past ~5 months, this has worked pretty well - our son used to fall asleep within 5-10 minutes, after a bit of a grizzle but no real crying, and then sleep for about an hour. But now our son is really unhappy about this routine, and often only sleeps for 20-30 minutes. He still seems very tired around 8am though, so I don't think it's because he wants to drop this nap.
For his other day time naps (around 1:30 and 4:30pm), he falls asleep in his pram while we're out and about (with no crying), or falls asleep when I nurse him around 1:30.
Does anyone have thoughts/suggestions about his morning sleep? The advice I get from friends and the local clinic is all along the lines of "he needs to learn to sleep alone all through the night" and "put him in his cot awake and leave the room" etc., but this seems to miss the point that our son is slowly starting to sleep through the night without any of these strategies (and we're happy with our night-times) and it's our son's apparent terror about day-time sleeping that is the issue.
TIA for *any* advice/suggestions!
Annie
My 11 month old is starting to put up a big fight to his first nap of the day, and will cry/scream for up to 45 minutes before finally going to sleep. I'm wondering if people have any suggestions for making daytime sleep less distressing for everyone.
Our family sleep situation is that our son falls asleep in our bed about 7:30pm (I nurse him to sleep). We then transfer him to a crib in our room sometime during the evening, and he usually sleeps there until about 4 in the morning, when I nurse him, and then he sleeps in the bed with us until about 6:30am.
Around 8/8:30am, he's starting to get tired, so my husband lies down with him in our bed and tries to rock/hold/pat him to sleep in his arms. For the past ~5 months, this has worked pretty well - our son used to fall asleep within 5-10 minutes, after a bit of a grizzle but no real crying, and then sleep for about an hour. But now our son is really unhappy about this routine, and often only sleeps for 20-30 minutes. He still seems very tired around 8am though, so I don't think it's because he wants to drop this nap.
For his other day time naps (around 1:30 and 4:30pm), he falls asleep in his pram while we're out and about (with no crying), or falls asleep when I nurse him around 1:30.
Does anyone have thoughts/suggestions about his morning sleep? The advice I get from friends and the local clinic is all along the lines of "he needs to learn to sleep alone all through the night" and "put him in his cot awake and leave the room" etc., but this seems to miss the point that our son is slowly starting to sleep through the night without any of these strategies (and we're happy with our night-times) and it's our son's apparent terror about day-time sleeping that is the issue.
TIA for *any* advice/suggestions!
Annie
Comment