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Our little lad is 19 months and generally easy to look after, but currently won't nap in the cot/house - it has to be the car/pram. He sleeps well at night, in his cot in his own room. He did manage a couple of months of cot naps around 6 months ago, but seems to have lost the knack. He's in nursery two days a week and kips there ok. Seems like the vast majority of toddlers his age have a single nap in their cot around lunch time at home, which gives mums and dads precious time to get stuff done or enjoy a moment of much-needed peace. Anyone got any useful tips or shed any light? Ta v much for any helpful replies.
Car seat inside. Put it on the tumble drier for added effect. 🙂
Either that or a quick lap around the block to send him off, then bring the car seat in.
Don't worry about it, so long as he's sleeping ok at night. Sometimes our bebe (2 1/2 now) sleeps in the day, sometimes he doesn't
Sleeps at night I'd not worry about it.
Cheers, folk. Appreciate these replies. Couple of things...we wouldn't worry about it except he looks absolutely done in. When we do put him in the car after he hasn't slept in the cot he drops off in a couple of minutes, so he's defo completely knackered. Also, I think 19 months is way early to be dropping his naps altogether, if I'm not mistaken? Car seat is Isofix so we can't get it out of the car without waking him (he sleeps annoyingly lightly during the day). He's buzzing at the mo, now he's getting language and walking, so it could indeed be that it's "just a phase".
stick him in the pram, walk around in circles until asleep, leave in pram in hallway, job done. I used to have the headphones on to listen to stuff which became a useful bit of headspace for me
Ours did that for a while. It stopped when I got fed up with the lounge being out of bounds for a couple of hours in the afternoon while he slept in the pushchair. Just did the usual sleep training thing - put down in the cot, if still crying return after 2 mins, repeat at 3/4/5 minutes until they sleep. If they're tired they'll crash out after a bit.
He is young to be dropping naps - our lad is 3 in June and still sleeping during the day. It gives us an hour off at lunchtime as well, so we aren't in any rush to keep him awake.
He also preferred the car seat to a cot, but we didn't want to form a habit of always driving at lunchtime, so I screwed a couple of long eye bolts into the top corners of a door frame and used a couple of pound shop dog leads to hang the car seat from the bolts. This made a quick and dirty swing, which we strapped him in and he slept fairly well.
My little girl was the same, she would only sleep in the push chair or the car, as soon as the push chair stopped moving or the car engine switched off she would wake up, my girlfriend had to drive around for an hour every afternoon! It sounds ridiculous but she was awful if she didn’t have a nap! She’s 3 now and no longer napping, it’s lovely not having to plan days around her afternoon nap!
Russi - we were exactly the same! Had to be the pram or the car for a long time and as soon as we stopped or went inside somewhere if we had the pram she would wake up instantly. Eventually she got into the swing of napping at home and actually started to ask to go to bed! She dropped the afternoon nap quite a while ago though now which contributed to her sleeping through for longer at night.
It's all well and good people saying "just do this....." and if that worked for their baby that's great, but we know what it was like for us and it was fxxxking hard work because she just would not sleep. It took a long time to crack it.
Have a look at "robopax" on eBay. I got one for sale 😜 it was a godsend for us!!
More Whiskey in his milk.
Also, I think 19 months is way early to be dropping his naps altogether, if I’m not mistaken?
There's no rule. When you need sleep, you need it - and when you don't, you don't. Both our kids stopped napping before 12 mo, but they obviously didn't need to nap, they weren't tired. If they don't want to you can't force them. They have always gone to bed late and got up late, and still do now they are 7 and 10. No 5am starts for us.
A clearly tired kid though, you just need to find a way of helping them nod off. The problem with asking for advice is everyone will swear by what worked for THEIR kid, and guess what, all kids are different.
our 17 month old is the same. never sleeps at home in cot, only in the car or at nursery. we gave up trying.
we live in the sticks so often have a reason to pop out in the car in which case he'll usually drop off in less than a minute. if not we just let him stay awake till bedtime.
as others have said if he's kipping ok at night just kneel down and thank the lord for that huge mercy! our lad is a nightmare at night still so be grateful you've solved that problem...
My daughter (17 months) sleeps like a log. Nap in the day and sleeps from 18:00 to 06:00 unless she’s ill. My son (5) still doesn’t sleep through the night and dropped naps really young. Because of this I honestly thought my daughter was broken. Remember standing over the cot in amazement at the fact she would simply sleep. They’re all different and I’d try not to worry about it. Easier said than done I know.
Also, I think 19 months is way early to be dropping his naps altogether, if I’m not mistaken?
According to who?
We take our little one (2½) for a walk in the pushchair. Usually asleep with in 10-20 minutes, then we park the pushchair in the utility.
She even gets in the pushchair for a walk knowing it's to make her nap, but won't entertain having a nap in bed.
My daughter never slept during the day. Always slept fine at night. Don't worry about it.
JP
Neither of mine have ever had naps in their bed/cot but slept ok at night. We put it down to them being breast fed so we’re rarely put down once asleep as babies. Put the youngest in the car seat when he’s tired and you don’t even have to start the engine.
Mine's the same. Regular afternoon naps stopped around 18 months. OH plans her day around noticing him looking tired and doing all those things that require driving around. He also looks quite done in, especially round the eyes, stumbles about and falls over, like he's drunk. Sleeps well through the night and rarely any problem getting him into bed (unless we try to ruin his life with the wrong coloured milk bottle and wrong coloured bottle top).
We used to lie our boy on our bed mid-afternoon with a bottle of milk, asleep before the bottle was empty
Our 2 year old sometimes misses naps, he went through a phase of no naps but is back to 1-2 hours in the afternoon. I dread the day he requires no nap! What helps for him is blackout blind plus some kind of repetitive noise/music to send him off. We had a white noise machine for a while but now have an Oli The Owl (I think?) teddy in his room.
my 2 1/2 year old naps fairly intermittently from one day to the next, we're not worried about it. yeah sometimes in the evening it might lead to a slight overtired meltdown but again it's nothing bad. just go with it, if he's happy enough and he sleeps through the night then you're doing fine imo. you may just have to accept that he's pretty much in charge now!
stick him in the pram, walk around in circles until asleep, leave in pram in hallway, job done
That's what I did with my eldest. She slept brilliantly at night (mostly) and poorly during the day. I reckon I've walked every street in South Bristol...
Are you copying the routine that the nursery use? If not, try to do things (timings etc) like they do.
Ours wouldn't sleep indoors during the day, or cars. She was awake for an 8hr drive to France last year, that was fun. She would sleep outside (even when zero degrees) in a pram but even that had pretty much stopped by 18 months.
Our 5 month old often only sleeps half an hour morning and afternoon some days. Forget getting anything done those days.
What about waking up early? My 17 month old naps in the day for up to 2hrs and has always slept well at night (lucky us) but has recently started waking at about 5:30. Tried putting him down later to get him to sleep in a bit longer but it doesn't seem to be making a difference.
Waking earlier than he/she usually does is more likely to just the a stage. Cross your fingers and hope for the best! (and install a blackout blind if you haven’t yet)
Mashr - expert due to having one (1) child
As (many) others have said, if he's sleeping well at night I wouldn't worry about it.
From our experience (sample size of 2!), we had problems in the other direction, in that if our kids had too much sleep in the middle of the day, or a restorative nap in the car on the way back from somewhere (even 10 min), they would be up until midnight. The difference between 'enough' and 'too much' nap was alarmingly small. On our last holiday in SW Scotland, on the first night, after the drive up, I was up at one in the morning doing a jigsaw with our 2 yo.
As a good case control study we have twins, now 36 months
Son has nap every day around 2pm , but then takes a while to go to sleep at night- lots of messing around and shouting downstairs etc
daughter has never had naps, fights like a wildcat if you try & put her to bed in daytime (unless in car or sometimes buggy) but she drops off in second at bedtime
This is fascinating stuff, and really helpful (good ideas and also generally reassuring), so thanks everyone.
Drac - just going by what more experienced parents say, and the stuff we've read about development etc. Not exactly scientific though, admittedly, and very child dependent. It wouldn't really bother us at all if it wasn't for the fact that the poor lad looks proper knackered and seems to really need a sleep, but fights it. Also, not getting a rest ourselves can be quite tough, as we have no family nearby to help out on days when we're frazzled and the other one is at work. It's not a nightmare though, and we're eternally grateful for the fact he sleeps very well at night and is generally a happy little lad (he's says, jinxing this forever).
Sleeps at night, lucky bar steward..
They are all different. Wait till you have teens... urgh...