7 things you need to know about day naps and baby sleep

The day nap is one of the biggest things I get asked about in relation to baby sleep. How much should each baby be napping, and when do they transition to fewer day naps and sleeping through? Today's blog will put all those questions to bed, literally.

All babies need day naps. Without a day nap we have a very unhappy, cranky baby and this leads to poor quality night sleeps.

1. Sleep is controlled by melatonin, the neurotransmitter that helps babies get to sleep and stay asleep.

To trigger it we need darkness. Even during the day babies should sleep in a dark room. When they're awake it's important to expose them to daylight to set their circadian rhythm.

https://youtu.be/mBNyUpJrePU

Options for creating darkness are - aluminium foil, block out blinds and the gro anywhere blind by the Gro Company - https://gro-store.com.au/products/gro-anywhere-blind

2. Babies need a cool room to get to sleep, 16-20°C (60-68°F) is ideal

On a hot day, close all the curtains and blinds in your home, close the doors and either use fans or air conditioning to cool down baby's room. If it's too hot they're not going to sleep. Watch the above YouTube video for my favourite way to keep a room cool in summer.

3. Teaching your baby how to self-settle before 4 months is the key to great daytime naps and begone catnaps!

If you leave teaching this skill after 4 months it is a little trickier. I'm a fan of helping babies learn to self settle very young i.e. two to eight weeks. I have many clients seeing me early with their second baby and they are having AMAZING day sleeps - up to two hours each time and a lot of them are sleeping through naturally - and are breastfed - because of how we manage the day.

Here's a blog on the reasons why it's so much easier before 4 months and how you can help baby learn: https://nurtureparenting.com.au/the-dreaded-4-month-baby-sleep-regression/
Here's a blog I've written on catnapping: https://www.nurtureparenting.com.au/baby-sleep-and-catnapping/

4. Getting baby down for their nap in their sweet spot is so important.

It's knowing the right time to put them down for a sleep. Timing is everything.

It's good to keep an eye on the clock but what is more important is what are the tired signs you are seeing. I like babies to ask for their cot. By this I mean I want to see a few tired signs, not just one yawn. If we put them down too early it creates stress for the baby, likewise if we put them down too late.

A newborn baby is often ready for a nap an hour to an hour and a quarter from the start of the feed whereas a three to four-month-old baby will be ready at 1.5-2 hours of uptime and from the start of the feed. I'm working on something at the moment to help you with the day naps and how to read babies. I'm very excited!!

https://youtu.be/Pr-eiuuDPAM

5. Putting your baby down for a nap AWAKE is key to self-settling and that is the key to a great day nap.

And by awake I mean no sleep crutches and these are - patting to sleep, rocking to sleep, dummies getting replaced a lot, feeding to sleep, etc. you get the picture. It isn't as hard as what you think to do this and we can teach this at any age.

6. We need to move our babies on with development.

If they're not doing tummy time, rolling over and crawling at the right ages then sleep and day naps can and do come undone. Lots of floor time is key and doing this little and often to tolerance. Teaching rolling over at three to four months is vital.

https://youtu.be/VAvF2qwksFU?list=PLAxD8TxIPOIUX2nGdoznA2IbG_UEkSlB5

Once they can roll remove the wrap and allow them to move into a tummy sleep position, do not stop what they naturally want to do. It is not a SIDS risk. I've seen many families rolling babies back onto their back and then we're going to have an unhappy baby and create a sleep problem. As long as you follow the SIDS guidelines your baby will be safe.

https://youtu.be/4tHvtRJYhw4

https://www.nurtureparenting.com.au/why-we-need-to-teach-our-babies-to-roll-over/

7. Last but not least! Babies need 3-4 naps a day until 6 months when these naps become 2.

A shorter morning nap (40 mins to an hour) and a longer afternoon one (1.5 to 2 hours). Doing 3 naps after 6 months will not be your friend for a stress-free bedtime. A long sleep is important to mop up the stress hormone cortisol. Avoid a nap past 4pm as this will impact on bedtime and getting them down easily.

If you have more questions, why not ask me to answer them during my next Facebook live which I usually broadcast every week on Wednesday at 2.00pm Sydney time (AEDT).

https://www.facebook.com/NurtureParenting.BabySleepGuru/

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Tags: baby sleep Baby sleep problems Baby Sleep Schedule fil_Baby Sleep and Settling Nurture Sleep Program Sydney baby whisperer

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Karen really understand Toddler Behaviour

I have been going to Karen since my daughter was 7 weeks old. Even through her toddler years, Karen has been spot on and has helped immensely with toddler behaviour related questions. Karen guided me through potty training issues and how to best navigate them based on my strong willed child.

Nurture Parenting - knowledgeable, supportive and gentle

Karen was understanding, kind and supportive with clear strategies to help improve our toddlers sleep. She explained what was happening and gave us a plan to follow. This is the second child we have used Karen’s methods with and I would recommend Nurture Parenting to any parents wanting to better understand their babies sleep and gently help them to self soothe and sleep better.

After buying Karen’s newborn program and successfully using it on baby 2, i decided to start even earlier with baby 3. I got a little confused on certain things since she’s preemie but Karen helped me go back to my core and center, listened attentively and answered all my questions. She also went beyond that and shared new ideas with me. It was ace. I might book another in a few weeks if needed. For now baby is doing everything by the book

Advice and videos are so clear and succinct

I just wanted to write and say thank you. We started your program almost three weeks ago, and it has dramatically changed our babies sleep for the better. Toby (10 months) went from waking 6+ times each night. We fumbled during each wake, as we offered dummies, bottles, whatever we thought would stop the crying for a moment. The only thing that we achieved, was waking him up even more and frustrating the **** out of him!

The first night of magic presence took 40 minutes, and now he is down within minutes once he is placed in the cot. We have had a few sleep throughs as well.

Your advice and videos are so clear and succinct. We found them so easy to follow. To compare, we looked back on a sleep consultant plan that we paid $300+ for with our firstborn and were stunned at how complicated and convoluted the plan was. No wonder it didn't work!!

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never wanted to sleep train, I didn’t think I could personally tolerate listening to my baby cry endlessly. It surprised me how quickly my 7mo picked this up. Night one we removed the dummy and overnight feed cold turkey. We’re on night 11 and bub has been sleeping through almost every night since night 2 (we’re still battling early wakings every now and then). Day naps have also improved remarkably! I’ve also got one of the mums in my mother’s group onto this who is having huge success with her 8mo boy who she fed to sleep previously!

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