What's your pre-nap ritual?

[puglucy]

We have a pretty good, consistent ritual for bedtime, but not for naps, & I think we really need one. Would love to hear ideas . . .

thanks!


Lucy
mama to Alex 3/18/03

[flagger]

For the most part, we are still not keeping Cocoa up longer than two hours at a time. We usually give her the bottle or Ms. Flagger nurses and we put her down. I start her white noise machine and give her three kisses fingertips to my mouth to her face and tell her goodnight "Cocoa". We then close the door.

We have always put her down when she was awake and she will sometimes go right to sleep or lately she will talk to her mobile and tell it about her day and then drift off to sleep. It is what worked for us or at least it is what is working for us so far. :)

HTH

[Karenn]

Up to 7 or 8 months, our routine was for me to turn on the FP aquarium, hold him in my arms until it was done, and then put him down to sleep.

When that stopped working, we switched to a very simple routine. I change his diaper, put on his sleep sack, turn on his white noise CD and put him in his crib. The sleep sack seems to be a very powerful sleep association. Now, if I put on ANYTHING that zips, he starts signing that it's time to go to sleep! I love it!

[houseof3boys]

I'm still trying to be super consistent with our nap ritual but it goes something like this:

nurse him, change him, put on his sleep sack and tell him "nappy time" a few times and then i will put him in the crib and just rub his tummy and rock him side to side for about 30 seconds.

This works most of the time except when I am bad and put him down after 2 hours. The 2 hour rule is great because once he gets overtired....forget it!

[alleyoop]

We usually read a couple books to calm down and then I say, "it is nappy time." I sing 'Good Night, Sleep Tight' (the Lawrence Welk song) on the way to the room. Then I pull the curtains over the window, saying "good night grass, good night trees, good night sunshine." I put him in his crib, hand him his paci and his spare and cover him with his blankie. One last "night night" and I am out the door. The morning nap he goes to sleep right away, but the afternoon nap he usually talks to himself for awhile.

The Lawrence Welk song came about because I couldn't remember the words to any other lullaby. Kind of embarrassing to admit, but it works. BTW, when he gets up, the first thing we do is pull the curtains back and say "hello grass, hello trees, hello sunshine. My nap is over."

[Momof3Labs]

I change Colin's diaper, darken the room, nurse him, and if he falls asleep, turn on his music, rock him a little, then put him in his crib. If he doesn't fall asleep, I turn on his music and try to rock him a little, but he's usually trying to dive into his crib by then! BTW, his music is Kenny Loggins' Return to Pooh Corner. I've heard that CD a few times a day for almost a year and still love it...

[lmintzer]

We go upstairs after lunch (lately, he's perfected the art of stallling, stating "Play toys for a few minutes!"). We always do nap betwen 12 and 12:30 p.m., even though ds is almost 2 1/2 (the consistency in schedule necessary with him, and he can't make it any longer due to his relatively early a.m. wake up).

We change his diaper, tell him he can pick a book (and he'll go into his closet and pick). Then, we'll read the one book and let him say "night night" to a few pages. After that, we sing the lullaby "All through the Night" except that we change the word "night" to "nap".

We then put him in his crib with his sippy water and bear and turn on his "nap machine" (white noise) and tell him to have a good nap and reassure him that we'll be there when he wakes up.

Sounds complicated, but it works really well and takes only 10-15 minutes total, including the diaper change. We even have our nanny follow the same routine on days I work. I had to write out the words to the song for her at first, lol.

We've been doing this same nap ritual for about a year and a half!

Lisa
& Jack, 4/20/01
& Little brother to be, e.d.d., 12/15/03

[C99]

We go upstairs, I change his diaper, turn on the CD player so that it plays the last 5 lullabyes on the CD (as opposted to the first 5, which are the bedtime music), turn off the lights, close the door and rock/nurse him to sleep. His room is kept dark most of the time anyway. I also have recently started calling naptime "morning rest" and "afternoon rest."