hello this week we are continuing on the Sleep Learning Journey and talking about
those ever elusive daytime naps yes so we are going to cover everything from
nap routines ideal schedules by age and ultimately what worked for us yeah and
just in case this is your first time meeting us I'm Kurt I'm a board-certified pediatrician
I'm Sarah I'm a board-certified ob gyn mom to one little one-year-old
and we are pregnant with number two after IVF yeah and we are the doctors bjorkman
foreign
if you are anything like us naive first-time parents you may have imagined bringing your
sweet baby home from the hospital um having a pack in place set up in your living room
and there you planned you would set your baby for naps while you did work did some
laundry cleaned maybe made dinner watched some Netflix whatever yeah sounds wonderful however
if your baby is anything like ours has been the reality is not even close to that no you can
you can born sleep that is full of great tips for sleep for little babies
um but needless to say we were very very eager to find ways to help our daughter become a good
Napper during the day as she got a little bit older yeah and so also you may have watched our
video All About sleep learning where we discussed how sleep training is generally not recommended
to about four to six months of age and then we also went into lots of details about some of the
medical evidence and studies that show there may be some benefits of Street sleep training
routines and more importantly no clear harm from these as I know that's a worry for many of you we
also shared at the end of that video it's a very straightforward tips about how to actually go
about helping your child do sleep learning yeah so those of you who are you know thinking about sleep
training or maybe have started doing it yourselves you know you're wondering about naps how do you do
nap is it kind of the same process is it different what do you do yeah and so as promised we're going
to dive into naps now now just to be clear this episode is all about nap times for those babies
who are old enough say four to six months of age at least who are also ready to start working on
sleep learning for nighttime sleep yes those newborn sleep tips naps can be found in our
newborn sleep video which we can link but this is for those little bit older kiddos so as we
mentioned in our sleep episode which is we will also link here it's generally recommended that
you start working on nighttime sleep first okay so night sleep and day sleep use different parts
of the brain so once your baby is starting to consolidate that night's sleep then it's kind of a
great time to also start working on daytime sleep so I think it was about after one or two nights
of doing the sleep learning and things had gone fairly well from that standpoint we said hey this
is working well at night maybe it's time we can apply the same things to daytime sleep yes because
we that sweet baby she had been swaddled that was really the only way she would sleep as a little
bitty baby she was like very much swaddled loved it and so you know they hit this three to four
months of age thing and you're supposed to have sleep regression that comes out of no the sleep
regression that hits at four months plus they're not supposed to be in a swaddle anymore as they
can start to learn to roll over so we were trying all these things like during her naps during the
day of having one arm out of the swaddle that didn't work we tried like the magic Merlin suit
the starfish one yeah the nope nope that's that's the what is the starfish there's one that they
look like a little flying squirrel starfish magic Merlin was that like marshmallow puff
suit that was like they looked like they were in a little snow suit so they couldn't move very much
none of that was working um and we said let's work on let's get our night sleep good let's do the
same thing during the day and we were ultimately glad we did now important things to keep in mind
for NAB learning are schedules wake windows and routines babies thrive on schedule repetition
and that routine being relatively the same day to day of course you want them to learn to be
flexible but in the beginning with nap learning especially it is a great idea to try to stick to
the same routine as much as possible and this all starts with having them wake up and around
the same time each day now of course it may vary a little bit from day to day but for most babies
a wake-up time between 6 and 8 AM works really well and also allows them to get those needed 11
to 12 hours of sleep at night that you're working on with them in the sleep learning process right
also you can never forget about wake Windows wake windows are how long babies can stay awake before
needing their next nap this does vary a bit from baby to baby but there are some general guidelines
for expected weak windows by age yeah and so for the average five to seven month old these
wake windows are going to be about two to three hours by for a seven to ten month old it's two
and a half to three and a half hours by the time they're getting close to a year 11 to 14 months of
age those wake Windows may be three to four hours and then 14 months to two years of age that's four
to six hours and then with this knowledge that you then can kind of craft your day around these wake
times and wake windows for your kiddo other things that you must consider when kind of figuring out
your routine for the day is the average amount of daytime sleep that your baby needs as well as the
number of naps needed and so here we're gonna break down for you those needed numbers based
on Age and what the averages are yeah so back to those same age groups we just talked about
for the five or seven month olds they usually need about three naps with a total of three to
three and a half hours of daytime sleep for those seven to fourteen month olds it's two
naps it usually totals about two and a half to three hours of daytime sleep and then for those
one to two year olds that transition to one nap a day usually happens for a total of two to three
hours of daytime sleep yes so with all of this you are shooting then for a bedtime between 6 30 and 8
P.M which is that set up again for 11 to 12 hours of nighttime sleep a couple quick special notes
if your baby is taking multiple Maps so two or more naps a day two hours is kind of the maximum
amount of time you want them to sleep for at one time as those longer naps can end up disrupting
the other naps during their day so I know it's really hard but for this process it's generally
a good idea to wake your baby if they've been sleeping for two hours during a daytime nap yeah
so another note um if your baby is still taking that third nap in the afternoon you want to make
sure that you are waking them up at least two to two and a half hours before bedtime so that they
can have a good wake window and are then ready and tired for sleep around between 6 30 and 8 o'clock
and so if you're wondering what is all this end up looking like in real life there's actually
some really good sample nap schedules online yes so Huckleberry is a sleep app um or just
a Tracker app that you can get on your phone and they have free sample nap schedules taking care of
babies is has wonderful free resources all about sleep that is what we use to guide us and we will
put it you know in the description below and how do you actually get a baby to nap in their crib
during the day yeah so Keys here are again just like night sleep are routine and environment you
want a shortened version of your bedtime routine to then help signal your baby that it's time for
sleep even though it's daytime so you get them into their comfy clothes put them in their sleep
sack read them a short story sing them a lullaby put on their white noise these are all kind of
those cues that you set up for nighttime sleep to help them understand that it's time for rest yes
also it is really important to prep the environment darkness really really helps
um signal baby it's time to sleep and stay asleep so it's a great idea to get some blackout
curtains so you can get the room they're sleeping in it really as dark as possible
and then you do that routine and it is the time um you know your goal is to lay your sweet baby
down awake in their crib and have them learn to fall asleep on their own yeah and to do this is
just what we talked about with our sleep learning video okay we'll do check-ins with your baby every
5 and 10 and 15 minutes until they fall asleep so let's refresh any new viewers on exactly what that
looks like practically in that way so just like nighttime sleep learning you weigh your baby down
in the crib you tell them that you love them it's time for rest and then you walk out of the room
and if your baby is crying you start a timer after five minutes of crying you go back into the room
you gently Pat them on the back let them know that you love them that you're there that they
can do this and then you again leave this time set your timer for 10 minutes if baby is still crying
at the 10 minute Mark you go back in again you reassure them they are safe they are loved they
are dry they're fed and then again you leave this time setting the timer for 15 minutes I'm still
crying at 15 minutes again back into the room with the same routine of reassurance and then leave
you continue then checking in on your little one every 15 minutes if they're still crying
so at what point though do you kind of abandon ship and just give up on that nap yeah usually
for most this is around 60 to 75 minutes or after that fifth to sixth check-in at that time you go
in maybe during a while in the crying if you can get baby up and do something active and
awake you then try to reattempt nap in about an hour and repeating the above process exactly what
about times where they fall asleep but the nap super short they sleep for 20 minutes yeah so
we generally said that if a nap is only say 20 to 25 minutes we would let her hang out in the
crib for another 20 minutes to get to about a 40 45 minute Mark just to give her a chance to
fall back asleep on her own um if she didn't fall asleep by that 40 minute Mark we then go in get
her up for a full wake window after that yes if the nap was longer than 40 minutes we said well
that was the nap we went in got her up and then did a full week window yeah um and I think for
many parents if you've already done sleep training sleep learning at night or in the process this
nap training learning seems to go a lot better having them already learn the routines at night
I think for us I think for many people definitely not everyone but like naps can be really hard yeah
like my sister had these wonderful three little boys that would just nap anywhere all the time
and that was not the case for our little one um and so something that was really helpful for us
is just realizing that good sleep helps bring more good sleep yeah and so like getting a good
nap in the morning meant we would get a better nap in the afternoon there was no benefit if we
kept her up later between naps like we pushed away window it just like made it harder to get
that next nap and then like one bad nap then like often just leads into a second bed crabby and yeah
and so for us anyway we got so much benefit out of having a pretty set schedule and routine as much
as possible yeah and I think that there is this thought that like hey you know I want my baby
to be flexible and I want to continue to live my life and and that's wonderful but also and
important but also if like you have a routine and that allows your baby to nap and that gives you
some sanity and some time for you so that you have this routine and your baby's napping well
also don't feel bad for protecting that for yourself and your family and you know not everyone
will understand that because maybe their kid would literally sleep anywhere or maybe your friends
don't have kids and so know that this is a season of life and that you it's absolutely okay if you
did it channel change your life a little bit around your kids naps like and the nap schedule
is going to change in a couple months yeah like just when you get it figured out then it's time
to transition to two now two naps or then one and then even like you know we had like we right now
where we're at like we want we have her doing something set in the morning every day and so
like where she used to naturally fall asleep for her once daily nap at like 10 30 11. yeah she goes
to preschool yeah and so her nap is from one to three and so like yeah you know these are things
like you do have some flexibility in like moving your windows around a little bit and setting up
that routine but just like having something set can be so helpful if you're struggling literally
just when you're like oh we've got a good nap routine it's you're moving to that next age where
they're oh it's something I think the other thing that just give yourself Grace as you're doing this
some kids again are flexible will nap wherever you take them my kid our dear sweet kid needed to
be in her crib in the dark with her white noise on if we were going to take if we were gonna nap like
that sweet baby I think fell asleep on the floor playing one time in her whole entire life she just
like she's not gonna sleep anywhere except she's so excited about life otherwise right so maybe
that's her parents maybe that's the way God made her I yeah that's just the way it was and so I was
like well we said yeah this was it so we'd bring her pack and play with us and a portable White
Noise if we were going to be out and about we'd say hey we're gonna put blankets over the windows
wherever we are to make a dark spot for her have some white noise and like try to make it like her
routine away from home too and then worked okay for us so there there's ways you can you know try
to accommodate this in other environments but just do what works for you give yourself Grace
don't feel bad if you don't have have the super flexible kid at this point good sleep is a happier
kid and a happier parent caregiver whatever so may your naps be long and wonderful that's going
to be it for this episode again we are not sleep experts but we have been through the process we
did a lot of reading about this and just wanted to share what we did with you in hopes that our
process could be helpful for you as you're going through it as well yes so may this lead to some
good daytime naps for you and your little ones if you have any questions comments suggestions
please leave them in the comments below we love to see them it's so helpful for the other parents and
caregivers who watch these videos we love having you here and we'll see you next week bye guys
we're doctors but not your doctors anything we've said in this video
is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not medical
advice any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider