Baby sleeps through the night but has trouble napping...CIO?

[ku9296]

My 9 months old son (I breastfed him until 5 mos but he's exclusively on formula now) has been pretty good about sleeping through the night; he's started sleeping through the night (6 hours) at 8 weeks and now sleeps about 10 hours without much interruption (unless he's teething or something). We have his crib set up in our bedroom since birth and we've been meaning to put it upstairs in his bedroom but since he's been very good about sleeping through the night, we haven't bothered to set up his nursery yet.

The problem is that he now has difficulty falling asleep during the daytime and often times I have to lie down next to him or carry him in ERGO in order for him to take his evening nap. He goes to daycare full-time (0900-1700) but it's so chaotic in the infant room (there's no separate crib room so the kids are forced to sleep in a very bright, noisy room) that he does not get any more than a 30-45 min nap at a time (he usually takes 2-3 very short naps while in daycare). So when he comes home at 5:30 pm he is so tired and overstimulated that he has to take a 90-120 min nap before he takes his bath, eats dinner and goes to bed around 8-9pm.

He used to have no problem taking this evening nap before, but these days he has trouble faling a sleep. I've actually tried CIO and he has fallen asleep in about 30 minutes (after crying very violently, of course) but even after having tried this for over a week, he still protests every time I put him down in the crib (and consistendly cries anywhere between 15-30 min) and I'm wondering if it's worth all the effort because it's just the evening nap that he does this.

I know many kids have trouble falling asleep at night, but in his case it's just during the evening nap! He has no trouble falling asleep at all at night (no crying at all!) so I'm puzzled. Anyone have similar problem with their babies?


--Kay

[brittone2]

I haven't read the CIO books and haven't done CIO. However, what I wonder is whether at that point in the day, he's so over tired (and there isn't much you can do about that) that he truly needs the help (from the Ergo, etc.) to go to sleep?

[KrisM]

Can you figure a way for the daycare to be better for naps? It seems like they'd want the kids to nap while there.

If not, I am not sure what to do. I know my kids dropped that evening naps about 9 months, but they were also having longer daytime naps.

Do you think he'd be able to go without the nap and an earlier bedtime instead? Maybe no nap and 6:30 or 7 in bed. Get him some food and playtime and off he goes. I'd skip the bath, if it added too much time.

[WatchingThemGrow]

I think by that time, our DC were on a 2-nap schedule where bedtime was 7:30ish. Did you look at what Weissbluth recommends? His book is great!

[daisyd]

Do you think he'd be able to go without the nap and an earlier bedtime instead? Maybe no nap and 6:30 or 7 in bed. Get him some food and playtime and off he goes. I'd skip the bath, if it added too much time.


This is what I'd do.

[maestramommy]

I agree that it might be easier to just feed him dinner, and put him to bed for the night. I would also talk to the daycare about whether they can do anything about the noise level in the infant room, or something that might make it easier for your ds to take a longer nap.

[ku9296]

Many thanks for your replies! As for daycare, I really don't even want to bother talking to them because it is a very disorganized place with too many staff oversights (e.g. forgetting to feed my son for nearly 6 hours; forgetting to give him his medication; etc.). In fact we'll be pulling him out in a few weeks and put him in a new daycare. The new caregiver seems extremely responsible and caring so I'll talk to her about my son's napping schedule once he starts. The new daycare has a separate crib room from the playarea (with shades and soothing music) so I think he can get longer naps there. It's also a much smaller daycare (the current daycare has about 10-14 babies in the same room) so I think it'll be less chaotic/noisy.

I've also tried skipping the last meal and just putting him to sleep around 6pm but the last time I did that he woke up hungry around 1am so I'm not sure if that'd work. I guess I could just feed him and then put him to sleep (like what many of you suggest) but sometimes he comes home SO exhausted that he starts getting really cranky while being fed. I could try asking the daycare to give him his dinner (solids) so that when he comes home in the evening I can just give him his bottle but I really don't like the way the caregivers feed the babies--so mechanical!! They just keep stuffing the babies' mouths with their food without giving them much time to chew their food. I know they're very busy but when I saw them feeding other babies, I was horrified and have not trusted them to feed my son with solids (I feed him solids first thing in the morning and one more time before he goes to bed so that I can do the solid feeding myself).

I think I'll try experimenting the earlier bedtime thing--the challenge will be when to bathe him--maybe I can try waking him a bit earlier and give him a morning bath instead of a night bath.

Thanks so much for your suggestions! I hope to be able to write back in a few weeks with a positive report.

[KrisM]

Bathing shouldn't be too much of a problem. DS is 9 months and gets 2-3 baths a month. They don't need a daily bath, so if it doesn't work during the week, do it on the weekend.

Sounds like it will be nice to switch to a different daycare.

[ku9296]

Hi ladies--so last night I tried just putting my son to bed at 7:30 pm or so, after coming home from daycare at 6pm and finishing the 4th bottle of the day.

Normally he would nap in the evening and then I would bathe him and give him his last meal of the day (bottle + solids) but yesterday I just gave him a quick bath after the 4th bottle and put him to bed. He protested violently so I lay next to him in my bed until he fell a sleep (the other night when I tried CIO, he cried so violently that he threw up his entire feeding, so I stopped doing that) and then put him into the crib (which is right next to our bed).

He slept for about 2 hours and then woke up crying but fell back asleep after I picked him up and soothed him so I put him back in the crib again, in which he slept until 4:30 am or so. He slept between me and my husband 4:30-6:30am. I was concerned that he might wake up in the middle of the night hungry (since he skipped an entire meal which he normally eats at 8pm or so), but overall, I think it went OK. It was a bit of a choppy sleep compared to other nights, but he'll probably get used to it after a while.

Anyway, I'll keep experimenting with this new schedule--thanks so much for your advice & suggestions!!