Maybe my 12mo just doen't require much sleep????

[Serepta]

My 12 mo who has been at daycare all school year is now home wit me for the summer (I work in a school and get summers off). At daycare she supposedly takes 1 2 hour nap in the middle of the day. At home... I'm lucky if I get her to nap 20 minutes! I follow the same routine as daycare, and she goes own just fine, but after 20 minutes is wide awake! She's not a great sleeper at night either. But, she's a happy baby who, other than nap time and in the middle of the night almost never fusses and is very active. I really don't know how she has the energy she does, since she sleeps so little! I'm really not a fan of CIO, since my peanut NEVER stops crying (the few times I tried it she cried for over 3 hours, despite me going in and trying to comfort her). Could she just be some sort of strange mutant baby who doesn't need that much sleep?????

[Minnifer]

Couple of thoughts - all kids have different sleep needs, and divvy them up between day and night sleep differently. I guess she could just be on the low end of the sleep needs spectrum - you can find charts online. My DD never napped well, but slept (and still sleeps) a solid 12 hours at night. My DS needs good naps, but also gets a lot of sleep at night. I also think your daughter is probably wanting to spend the time w/you rather than nap now that she's not in daycare - my DD definitely did better w/naps for our nanny than for me on the weekends. That being said, IME the saying "sleep begets sleep" is definitely true - the more/better sleep my kids get, the better they sleep overall.
I'm really not a fan of CIO, since my peanut NEVER stops crying (the few times I tried it she cried for over 3 hours, despite me going in and trying to comfort her). I just wanted to say that IMO to successfully CIO I think one has to follow Ferber to the T, so you're going in at intervals but the comforting has to be really, really minimal (otherwise the baby is learning to cry more to get the desired result). I did Ferber with my DS (who is also 12 mos) on the young side (6.5 mos) and it worked but I really had to stick strictly to the intervals. It was hard and took a while, which I think was b/c he was a smidge young for it, but I really had no choice for various reasons. Anyway, it was so worth it - since then he has gone down awake easily for naps and nighttime. W/my DD, I did Weissbluth's "extinction" at 14 months to night wean (she was already going down for the night and naps awake, it was just night wakings that were the problem). I used that method b/c ANY going in to her just incensed her further :p. Which method works best depends on the kid's age and personality. But overall I'm a big fan of sleep training b/c IME it pays off in the end - I know others differ on this of couse ;)

[Serepta]

I'm beginning to think she goes through phases... after a week of very minimal sleeping, she crashed on the weekend and took a 2 hour nap on Sunday (I was shocked!) and only woke up once during the night Sunday night. I don't know. My mother told me I was the same way as a baby. Honestly, I'm like that now, and tend to go through phases where I just don't really sleep much. Must be because my mother never believed in sleep training when I was a kid.... LOL!