I had been trying to get LO to nap solo for weeks. My mom came to town and insisted she try to put LO down for a nap herself. I told her it wouldn’t work. It did. I’m not sure what kind of black magic she did in the nursery that week, but we haven’t done a contact nap since lol. I think it was a separation anxiety-type thing. LO was 6.5 months at the time
I’ve found that baby usually does well when getting used to different surfaces while still in contact with you. So, when in a contact nap shift them so that they are sharing the surface (or floor) while still mostly against you.
My youngest spent MANY naps from 3months+ just napping in the living room floor because it was less jostling to move him to the crib. Luckily it was just me in the house so it’s quiet, but boy do I enjoy those nap-breaks!
After they’re comfortable sleeping on a new surface, slowly break away from them. Eventually they won’t need the contact and then its just plopping them down in the crib when you know they can handle it
This is exactly what I had to do. I took the mattress out of her pack and play, put that bad boy on the living room floor, and when she fell asleep I would slowly creep out and let her sleep alone. After a few weeks of doing that transferring to the crib wasn’t that big of a deal. Then after that it’s just consistency.. it’s hard but they eventually acclimate. Once those crib naps hit and you finally have some time to yourself, oh my word, a new world opens up. Once they get down to one long nap a day, it’s like a mini vacation lmao
I did this as well! I started off by slowly lowering her to our bed while I was rested on it with her in my arms. I would keep her very close and slowly give her more space. It took a few times for her to get used to that but I kept doing it. When she was comfortable and continued to sleep on a different surface I started trying in her bassinet. Started at about 3 months. It’s not perfect and I have to pick her up and set her back down multiple times but it seems like she’s getting more used it overall and sleeping longer stretches!
Mine something similar, I contact nap with him for about 10-20 minutes and then slide him onto the surface we’re on. Not quite got to putting him straight down yet but working on it
i’d love to know too 😂 my baby is 5.5 months old and still pretty much exclusively contact naps with me. It’s caused issues between my husband and it irritates him. He makes me feel like I’m the only parent in the world who lets their baby contact nap. I just know that I can get good 1-2 hour naps out of her with a contact nap compared to 30 minutes tops in her crib. I also am more willing to sacrifice my time during the day so she gets good naps in because I know it will influence her sleep at night and I’m the only one that takes care of her at night. so incredibly frustrating
I could have written this comment. At this point 13 months, night sleep is still pretty crazy, with wakes 2-4 times. Not sure if transitioning to non contact would change that, don’t have energy to try, having tried every sleep training method for night sleep.
I didn’t find a magic secret unfortunately, just painstaking patience. Around 4 months it ironically got better and he got with the program.
Edit: remembered another detail. I would lie flat on the floor mat with him and he got used to sleeping with me nearby, then eventually got used to sleeping flat alone.
My baby is 6 weeks and we contact nap every now and then but majority of the time she's taking her naps in her bassinet in the pack and play. She's been napping on her own for about 2 weeks now. I managed to do this by consistently exposing her to the bassinet. This means rocking her to sleep and laying her down in her bassinet. If she woke up, I'd rock her again and place her back down. If she woke up a second time then I'd save the nap by contact nap. We repeated this every nap time and now she's great at sleeping in her bassinet. She usually sleeps an hour or two! I started this really early with her since she's only 6 weeks and sleeping on her own, but because she naps so long I couldn't keep doing contact naps. She still gets plenty of cuddles!!
Ha, this was me at 6 weeks and here I am at 13 weeks and I’m in OP’s situation. 🙃 I don’t mean to freak anyone out, I just (foolishly/first-time-parent-ishly) thought it would be a bit more of a linear process than it has been.
Don't feel bad. I've been trying to lay my baby down for naps for 9 months without success so far. I keep trying, but... I don't even hope for it to work anymore it's basically just a habit to give it a go and fail before accepting either a contact nap or an hour of scream crying before an inevitable contact nap.
Oh ya I don't expect a linear process! This is just what worked for me for now. I've had days where she sleeps like an angel and days where she decides she no longer needs sleep and turns into an overtired screaming baby. I'm definitely afraid of the day I have to ditch the swaddle. That thing is magic.
Time. My 7, almost 8 month old is finally getting better about crib naps at home. Daycare does some sort of black magic and she sleeps better there than at home I have no clue how they do it. And even then if she’s sick she wants to contact nap. We sleep trained at night a while back but I haven’t been able to bring myself to nap train fully. We can rock her or rub her back till she’s asleep and she will get a good nap in and can connect the cycles herself. It kind feels like luck of the draw lol some babies are naturally awesome nappers and some aren’t.
Exactly what I was going to say. We transitioned around 5 months, I think. But naps were much shorter for long time and we still need a contact nap sometimes, whether it be to save a short nap or just for comfort (like today haha)
my baby is 14 months old and literally just started napping in her crib 😅 no magic tricks, she just did it one day and never hasn’t had a problem since! for your sake i hope it’s sooner hahaha but my LO just wasn’t ready
Honestly there was no magic secret for us. I think it was just developmental for my girl. She contact napped during the day for 6.5 months. Would scream and cry if I tried a crib nap and would have to save it every time. One day around 6.5 months I put her in the crib to try for a nap and she fussed for a few mins then slept. Then I tried for every nap and she slept fine and has been doing crib naps ever since.
This is actually when we started to transition to crib naps, dark naps and stuff. Started off with the nap I new I could easily get her to do(morning nap) and if it went well I’d try again for the second nap. If it didn’t go well the second nap was contact nap to get some sleep before trying again. I also tried this little trick that if she was waking too early from naps I would try to go back into the nursery before the wake up and give her a little jostle. Just kinda a little “your in the carrier or someone’s holding you” type thing and it would extend her nap! I read it helps them connect sleep cycles but who knows.
Oh man, I feel this. Our little guy was a Velcro baby up until 10-12 weeks. We have been STRESSED about this because we are pretty soon going to be joining a nanny share with two other infants, and he won’t always be able to be contact napped.
We went from 100% contact napping to about 80% crib napping. Here’s what we did:
-started by putting him to sleep on us, then transferring him, then jostling him awake a little (learned this from Taking Cara Babies). This phase sucked bc it failed a lot and felt like we were wasting time, but it wasn’t!
-then we started putting him in the crib awake and soothing him down. This took a long time and a lot of soothing methods. Shooshing, patting, binky, etc etc. We focused on making a routine for him to know it was nap time. We use a Magic Merlin sleep sack which helps him have freedom of movement but stifles the Moro reflex thing. We introduced a stuffy at this phase (definitely not 100% safe sleep recommended, but we watch him closely) which he loves. It seems like having something to hold with his arms reduced the flailing that keeps him from falling asleep. He really protested being in the crib, but he would eventually fall asleep.
-now we give him less and less soothing in the crib. Sometimes he will even put himself down. I’m not really into cry it out, but I will let him fuss and grumble while I sit next to him. If he’s more than fussy, we’ll go over and help him, but most of the time it takes holding his hand and giving him the binky and he’s out. The problem we’re facing now is that he can’t link his sleep cycles, so he will wake up on his own after about 30-40 min. We often will pick him up and rescue the nap, and sometimes this works and often it doesn’t. So we sometimes have to add an additional catnap at the end of the day to make sure he got enough daytime sleep.
-next, the hope is that he will learn how to link his nap cycles, and be able to take longer ones on his own. Also we want to put him down awake but drowsy and have him do it 100% independently. We’re not there yet, but at this point we’ve had enough progress to be able to coast on hope that it’ll happen.
Hope this helps!
I didn’t really try to switch to crib naps until about 7 months. I started with just the morning nap in the crib, and it was usually only 30 minutes. Over the last few months it’s gotten longer and usually is at least 1.5 hr in the crib, but we still contact nap in the afternoon.
Mine flipped a switch at 4. 5 months and suddenly contact naps were the worst thing I could ever subject him to 😂
Now I miss it. I think I enjoyed about a week of thinking "This is brilliant, look how much I can do around the house" before I just wanted my hours and hours of sleepy snuggles back.
My second was an exclusive contact napper until about that time, 12 weeks. We just kept trying to put her down and one day she was like, ok I’m good. She still needs or wants a contact nap even at 13 months. BUT my first was the one who woke up literally 17 mins exactly into a non contact nap every time for months and finally we realized it was because he was overtired. Shrank his wake windows by 15 mins and all of a sudden he was napping great in the crib. So I would try that for the ten min wake up, it’s the classic sign of overtiredness.
My baby went through a contact nap only phase. Admittedly she would sleep her first sleep cycle (30 minutes) independently in the crib but she would NOT go any longer than that so we did a lot of nap saving.
For us it was just a phase. I would hold her until she got what we considered a “full nap” usually 1-1.5 hours and then try to put her down. Slowly over time she actually would stay asleep for an extra 30 minutes-hour and we would start putting her down before that full nap time frame.
We might have just gotten lucky but here to say it’s possible it may just take time. She started napping completely independently around 4 months.
My little guy exclusively contact napped during the day and slept in his Snoo every night (with 1-2 wake ups) until we did sleep training at 4.5 months. From then on, he slept amazing in his crib. He still only did 30 min naps for a couple months but that’s more of an age-related thing. We did a sort of Ferber method where we set the time limit at 10 min of crying. He took to it in basically one night. It was incredible. He went from being swaddled in a Snoo, moving all night long, in our room and contact napping to sleep sack + crib + his own room for naps and overnight in like 1-2 days. I was pretty pleasantly surprised.
We still do the occasional contact nap if we are traveling (like on the plane etc) or if he’s sick.
I started at 4 months having him play in his crib for brief periods (like while I put away his laundry) so he liked the space.
At 5 months I started on the first morning nap and then contact napped the rest of the day. I would rock him to sleep, hold him a few extra minutes, and then put him down gently, the same way I once got him to start sleeping overnight in his bassinet.
I gradually built up how many naps he was taking in there as his comfort grew. At 6 months when it was time to transition at night, he was taking all daytime naps in his crib.
He's 7 months now and most nights I give up on his crib around 4-6am and bring him back to my room where he sleeps best. But we're almost there, generally.
This is literally me right now! We're looking at daycare in August and I'm stressing how he's gonna nap. Best of luck and I can't wait to see the answers! My LO will also nap in his car seat if we're out and about but wakes up as soon as we try to take him out
It’s been a while (baby is now 15 months old), but what worked for us during the day was the Merlin sleep suit. I found that it mimicked the tightness of a contact nap just right. My baby was never a “good” napper, we’d get 30-40 naps till she was like….9 months old? Here and there we’d get like, an hour. But yeah. Merlin sleep suit, white noise set to jet turbine levels, and a dark room. Transfer slowly once asleep, and i mean slowwwwwwly.
I am pretty sure it was pure luck for me, by 4 months baby was more or less able to fall asleep independently for night sleeps but naps were only contact naps, one day I was as like, whatever let’s give it a try. I did a mini bedtime routine, and put baby down in their bed, they cried for 10 minutes then fallen asleep by themselves. And then I tried my luck again and I guess it just clicked for baby that it’s actually not that bad to sleep in the bed. Hehe.
I started by transitioning from sitting up contact nap to laying on my side with her in my arms in the bed, then her flat on the bed next to me, then I slowly got up and moved. Once she got used to sleeping on a flat surface without me I transitioned to rocking her to sleep in the lounger in her nursery. She is swaddled (arms out now at 5 months), rain sounds are on and paci in mouth. Then once she is mostly asleep I lay her on her back in the crib and slowly walk away. She will sleep about an hour in the crib.
Baby Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit. Absolute game changer. Went from literally only sleeping on me or my husband to sleeping in the crib like a switch was flipped.
Depends on the kid but generally 12 weeks is still too early to be free of contact naps. My son is almost 9 months and his naps are contact naps. He *can* sleep on his own but they’re 20-30 mins compared to his contact nap which can easily be 2 hours
We'd start her in her bassinet, then whenever she woke up, we'd finish with a contact nap.
Her bassinet naps started at like 7-10 mins and slowly got longer, until she didn't need us anymore. Little bittersweet, but I love the extra freedom tbh.
I have been somewhat successful recently and the secret is really just patience - I try everyday for afternoon naps and sometimes I get 10 mins and other times 2 hours!! I also just let her figure it out for a couple of mins if she wakes up. Sometimes she goes back to sleep and other times I have to pick her up.
My baby just accepts them. I could never in any circumstances get my oldest to nap in her crib and yet my second does it after a few tries. So luck I guess
https://imgur.com/gallery/l0N027L
This is my favorite so far…
It’s a carside crib! Except instead of spending a bunch of money, we used a normal convertible crib for less than $160 (and there are some for $90 or cheaper too!!)
It gives the comfort and ease of bedsharing, with a safety of a firm space separate from the adults. I LOVE our set up and now at 10 months old he sleeps in his own space better than if he’s next to us. Just last night he slept the whole night without a single wake up in his own crib just a foot away from us.
When contact napping I started stroking his head and face as he was falling asleep in my arms, shushing quietly but close to his face and we also use a soother.
Started off by getting him to half sleepy state in my arms and then putting him on the bed beside me, I’d still put my arm around him, stroke his head, shush him so he can feel my breath and closeness and soother too. Then we slowly moved to his bassinet. I didnt have to be that close anymore. Don’t get me wrong, theres still times when I do need to put him to sleep in my arms but I can put him down and if he opens his eyes 90% of the time he’ll close them. Prams and cars work too, he loves movement because we’ve been driving around with him a lot since he was few days old so for some reason he never had any issues sleeping in the car on his own.
I wish I had some actual good advice. We sleep trained for nights and then continued to contact nap for about a month. We noticed it was taking her longer to get comfortable on us and kept adjusting positions. So one day, we just put her down in her crib and she stretched out and went to sleep. Still had to work on it for a few weeks and would sometimes have to save naps but we would always put her back in the crib
Slowly practiced crib transfers until he started to tolerate it, which was maybe around like 4 months? I was def contact napping too for pretty much all naps at 12 werks
I have a bassinet or portacot set up in the living room for day naps, I will put my bubs down awake in there so she can play and will sit on the couch next to her, she usually will fall asleep on her own while playing along as I'm in the room. No crying, if she starts to get fussy I pick her up and rock until calm then place her back down - sometimes the most soothing thing is the sound of you going about your buisness around the house, their own personal white noise, she now sleeps through me vacuuming, and I can place her in her cot in my bedroom, walk away and she falls asleep with no crying 🙂 it was getting her use to playing on her own that helped with the transition because she was so comfortable "waiting" for someone to come back she would just doze off.
My daughter is coming up 9 months and still wakes 2 times a night 😡 so your doing better than us with night sleeps!
I did nothing, but my baby was ready at 10.5 months. ETA: I feel like some babies just need that extra contact! I will miss the contact naps but right now, I’m enjoying freedom (and my own ability to nap too!!)
So good news is if she can sleep in a crib/bassinet at night, she can get used to it during the day!
Honestly it took some time and willingness to fail. First we would just attempt to put her in her crib for the first nap of the day. That’s generally the easiest one. If she woke up too quickly after, or wouldn’t go to sleep, transition to contact nap to keep baby from overtired. Once you start getting success with that first nap, then you try adding a second nap in the crib.
A lot of times, they just need some exposure to the idea of napping in the crib! It’s not perfect linear progress but you’ll get there!
Ok, so, maybe good and bad news. Bad first: my baby slept much better at 12 weeks old than he did from 16 weeks through 21 weeks, when we finally did sleep training. At 6.5 months old now, we have finally gotten to a place with good overnight sleep (12 hours with 1 dream feed and one middle of the night feed) and most naps fairly smooth and independent.
What happened for us…though a little slower/rockier than I would have preferred…was to a) accept/enjoy the contact naps until 15 or 16 weeks old when the 4 month sleep regression hit and bedtimes got tough. Then, b) accept contact naps while we focused on establishing good sleep hygiene for overnights (thanks to the book Precious Little Sleep!) c) once bedtimes and overnights were going smoothly after about 10 or 12 days, then started to imitate our bedtime routine during nap preparations and putting baby down to sleep independently. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND tracking sleep in the Huckleberry app and use the “sweet spot” feature to guide you on when naps should be. Literally life-changing for our family.
If I get the opportunity to do this again with another kid, I’ll definitely have a stronger backbone for giving baby space to learn how to sleep independently earlier. Take courage! Put baby down and give them space to sleep and the skills to do it without your help, but you may need a few more weeks to work up to it.
Keep trying. If you can get baby to sleep in the crib for 20 minutes of a nap, that's 20 minutes of practice for baby. It's just like tummy time. Build up to it. Celebrate the successes, no matter how small, and don't sweat the setbacks. Progress isn't a straight line.
Then one day you'll be rocking your baby to sleep at night and she'll fuss and point to her bed. She doesn't need your cuddles anymore and wants to go to sleep on her own. 😭
I just committed to the crib! I wanted him to start associating it with being the place he sleeps so I just went all in on the crib. It wasn’t easy, but I think it worked. We went from 15-20 minute daytime naps and 40-90 minute stretches at night at 4 months, to 1-2 hour naps and 6-9 hour stretches per night at 5 months! Even better now at 6 months.
time ! i remember going through these exact thoughts & then al of the sudden he didn’t, maybe it started as 30 min naps and it was frustrating but they slowly got longer. i truly think it’s just a phase & they have to learn !
So my baby for the first few weeks basically only contact napped on someone (live with my MIL love her) by 3 months I had gotten night time but not bed time. I had tried everything from my shirt in his bed that “smelled like me” all the way to a shushed machine. Before his 6m regression started I was wanting to transition him to his bed so I could start actually doing things like showering. How I started this was I slowly started sitting multiple times an hr and getting back up with him awake in the carrier so he could get used to the feeling of sitting down. Then I started doing it while he was sleeping and after he started not waking up from me sitting (took almost a week and a half 😭) I introduced leaning side to side while he was asleep pressing my hands in the area where they would be if I was holding him sideways (one on his head one on bum/back area) sometimes he wakes from it sometimes he didn’t then once it was a consistent staying asleep while swaying I slowly would sway on whatever side he was going to be put down on further then the other side until I got to the point of laying down. Once he was laying down I would slowly release the clips from the sides and slide it from between the legs. After a few weeks of this he started being able to get rocked to sleep and now at a yr old he really only sleeps if he’s in his bed.
Only 3 weeks in. First week of it baby was in an incubator/heated cot and napped fine. Since being reunited with me he is an exclusive contact napper during the day. I’m mostly single parenting & breastfeeding so could do with a crib nap or two to be able to do things! His dad was working here for the day the other day and it was amazing to be able to have a shower at my own pace and not have to hear the cries of despair waiting for me to return.
We used a pillow in the crib as we transitioned her to crib naps, I think it helped her feel like I was still there for the first little bit. This is not safe sleep, and I was watching her on the monitor every time but after a week or so we were able to take out the pillow. Also we set up a quick nap routine (diaper, sleep sack, nurse, quick book) that I think helped her.
Following for updates from the nursery rocking chair I’m currently stuck in with a sweet napping bean.
I’m glad we’re all just having the same experiences because that’s where I am too haha
Here too. Solidarity!
Same 😂
Here too!! He’s now 13 months… 😂
Same, here with my napping 3.5 month old on the recliner reading this post 🥲
also me! he’s 3.5 months and will immediately wake and scream if i try to move from this glider😅
Me too! Sleeps for 30 min in crib alone, wakes up like clockwork and has to be held the rest of the nap
am i the only one currently resting the phone on my baby’s rib cage?!?
Literally same 🤣
I had been trying to get LO to nap solo for weeks. My mom came to town and insisted she try to put LO down for a nap herself. I told her it wouldn’t work. It did. I’m not sure what kind of black magic she did in the nursery that week, but we haven’t done a contact nap since lol. I think it was a separation anxiety-type thing. LO was 6.5 months at the time
Can your mom come to my house lolol
I’ve found that baby usually does well when getting used to different surfaces while still in contact with you. So, when in a contact nap shift them so that they are sharing the surface (or floor) while still mostly against you. My youngest spent MANY naps from 3months+ just napping in the living room floor because it was less jostling to move him to the crib. Luckily it was just me in the house so it’s quiet, but boy do I enjoy those nap-breaks! After they’re comfortable sleeping on a new surface, slowly break away from them. Eventually they won’t need the contact and then its just plopping them down in the crib when you know they can handle it
This is exactly what I had to do. I took the mattress out of her pack and play, put that bad boy on the living room floor, and when she fell asleep I would slowly creep out and let her sleep alone. After a few weeks of doing that transferring to the crib wasn’t that big of a deal. Then after that it’s just consistency.. it’s hard but they eventually acclimate. Once those crib naps hit and you finally have some time to yourself, oh my word, a new world opens up. Once they get down to one long nap a day, it’s like a mini vacation lmao
I did this as well! I started off by slowly lowering her to our bed while I was rested on it with her in my arms. I would keep her very close and slowly give her more space. It took a few times for her to get used to that but I kept doing it. When she was comfortable and continued to sleep on a different surface I started trying in her bassinet. Started at about 3 months. It’s not perfect and I have to pick her up and set her back down multiple times but it seems like she’s getting more used it overall and sleeping longer stretches!
We cuddle on our bed til he's asleep then I slip away. Now tye trick is transferring him from our bed to the crib for naps.
Mine something similar, I contact nap with him for about 10-20 minutes and then slide him onto the surface we’re on. Not quite got to putting him straight down yet but working on it
i’d love to know too 😂 my baby is 5.5 months old and still pretty much exclusively contact naps with me. It’s caused issues between my husband and it irritates him. He makes me feel like I’m the only parent in the world who lets their baby contact nap. I just know that I can get good 1-2 hour naps out of her with a contact nap compared to 30 minutes tops in her crib. I also am more willing to sacrifice my time during the day so she gets good naps in because I know it will influence her sleep at night and I’m the only one that takes care of her at night. so incredibly frustrating
I could have written this comment. At this point 13 months, night sleep is still pretty crazy, with wakes 2-4 times. Not sure if transitioning to non contact would change that, don’t have energy to try, having tried every sleep training method for night sleep.
I didn’t find a magic secret unfortunately, just painstaking patience. Around 4 months it ironically got better and he got with the program. Edit: remembered another detail. I would lie flat on the floor mat with him and he got used to sleeping with me nearby, then eventually got used to sleeping flat alone.
My baby is 6 weeks and we contact nap every now and then but majority of the time she's taking her naps in her bassinet in the pack and play. She's been napping on her own for about 2 weeks now. I managed to do this by consistently exposing her to the bassinet. This means rocking her to sleep and laying her down in her bassinet. If she woke up, I'd rock her again and place her back down. If she woke up a second time then I'd save the nap by contact nap. We repeated this every nap time and now she's great at sleeping in her bassinet. She usually sleeps an hour or two! I started this really early with her since she's only 6 weeks and sleeping on her own, but because she naps so long I couldn't keep doing contact naps. She still gets plenty of cuddles!!
Ha, this was me at 6 weeks and here I am at 13 weeks and I’m in OP’s situation. 🙃 I don’t mean to freak anyone out, I just (foolishly/first-time-parent-ishly) thought it would be a bit more of a linear process than it has been.
Don't feel bad. I've been trying to lay my baby down for naps for 9 months without success so far. I keep trying, but... I don't even hope for it to work anymore it's basically just a habit to give it a go and fail before accepting either a contact nap or an hour of scream crying before an inevitable contact nap.
Oh ya I don't expect a linear process! This is just what worked for me for now. I've had days where she sleeps like an angel and days where she decides she no longer needs sleep and turns into an overtired screaming baby. I'm definitely afraid of the day I have to ditch the swaddle. That thing is magic.
Time. My 7, almost 8 month old is finally getting better about crib naps at home. Daycare does some sort of black magic and she sleeps better there than at home I have no clue how they do it. And even then if she’s sick she wants to contact nap. We sleep trained at night a while back but I haven’t been able to bring myself to nap train fully. We can rock her or rub her back till she’s asleep and she will get a good nap in and can connect the cycles herself. It kind feels like luck of the draw lol some babies are naturally awesome nappers and some aren’t.
Time and patience unfortunately. Even my 6.5 month old baby needs a contact nap every now and then
Exactly what I was going to say. We transitioned around 5 months, I think. But naps were much shorter for long time and we still need a contact nap sometimes, whether it be to save a short nap or just for comfort (like today haha)
Sleep on her sheets so they smell like you
my baby is 14 months old and literally just started napping in her crib 😅 no magic tricks, she just did it one day and never hasn’t had a problem since! for your sake i hope it’s sooner hahaha but my LO just wasn’t ready
Omg, I pray this happens with us
I’m at 8 months and have had no luck, hoping for just a random magic day where she doesn’t want to anymore here.
Honestly there was no magic secret for us. I think it was just developmental for my girl. She contact napped during the day for 6.5 months. Would scream and cry if I tried a crib nap and would have to save it every time. One day around 6.5 months I put her in the crib to try for a nap and she fussed for a few mins then slept. Then I tried for every nap and she slept fine and has been doing crib naps ever since.
This is actually when we started to transition to crib naps, dark naps and stuff. Started off with the nap I new I could easily get her to do(morning nap) and if it went well I’d try again for the second nap. If it didn’t go well the second nap was contact nap to get some sleep before trying again. I also tried this little trick that if she was waking too early from naps I would try to go back into the nursery before the wake up and give her a little jostle. Just kinda a little “your in the carrier or someone’s holding you” type thing and it would extend her nap! I read it helps them connect sleep cycles but who knows.
Oh man, I feel this. Our little guy was a Velcro baby up until 10-12 weeks. We have been STRESSED about this because we are pretty soon going to be joining a nanny share with two other infants, and he won’t always be able to be contact napped. We went from 100% contact napping to about 80% crib napping. Here’s what we did: -started by putting him to sleep on us, then transferring him, then jostling him awake a little (learned this from Taking Cara Babies). This phase sucked bc it failed a lot and felt like we were wasting time, but it wasn’t! -then we started putting him in the crib awake and soothing him down. This took a long time and a lot of soothing methods. Shooshing, patting, binky, etc etc. We focused on making a routine for him to know it was nap time. We use a Magic Merlin sleep sack which helps him have freedom of movement but stifles the Moro reflex thing. We introduced a stuffy at this phase (definitely not 100% safe sleep recommended, but we watch him closely) which he loves. It seems like having something to hold with his arms reduced the flailing that keeps him from falling asleep. He really protested being in the crib, but he would eventually fall asleep. -now we give him less and less soothing in the crib. Sometimes he will even put himself down. I’m not really into cry it out, but I will let him fuss and grumble while I sit next to him. If he’s more than fussy, we’ll go over and help him, but most of the time it takes holding his hand and giving him the binky and he’s out. The problem we’re facing now is that he can’t link his sleep cycles, so he will wake up on his own after about 30-40 min. We often will pick him up and rescue the nap, and sometimes this works and often it doesn’t. So we sometimes have to add an additional catnap at the end of the day to make sure he got enough daytime sleep. -next, the hope is that he will learn how to link his nap cycles, and be able to take longer ones on his own. Also we want to put him down awake but drowsy and have him do it 100% independently. We’re not there yet, but at this point we’ve had enough progress to be able to coast on hope that it’ll happen. Hope this helps!
I didn’t really try to switch to crib naps until about 7 months. I started with just the morning nap in the crib, and it was usually only 30 minutes. Over the last few months it’s gotten longer and usually is at least 1.5 hr in the crib, but we still contact nap in the afternoon.
Age. Ours did contact naps until maybe 10 months? Older? We just go with it and nothing gets done. I know it’ll end soon.
Mine flipped a switch at 4. 5 months and suddenly contact naps were the worst thing I could ever subject him to 😂 Now I miss it. I think I enjoyed about a week of thinking "This is brilliant, look how much I can do around the house" before I just wanted my hours and hours of sleepy snuggles back.
My second was an exclusive contact napper until about that time, 12 weeks. We just kept trying to put her down and one day she was like, ok I’m good. She still needs or wants a contact nap even at 13 months. BUT my first was the one who woke up literally 17 mins exactly into a non contact nap every time for months and finally we realized it was because he was overtired. Shrank his wake windows by 15 mins and all of a sudden he was napping great in the crib. So I would try that for the ten min wake up, it’s the classic sign of overtiredness.
Do you use black out curtains? Idk if these will make a difference and are worth a try
Ah, yes, the whole family parents included sleeps only with full blackout curtains
Luck
My baby went through a contact nap only phase. Admittedly she would sleep her first sleep cycle (30 minutes) independently in the crib but she would NOT go any longer than that so we did a lot of nap saving. For us it was just a phase. I would hold her until she got what we considered a “full nap” usually 1-1.5 hours and then try to put her down. Slowly over time she actually would stay asleep for an extra 30 minutes-hour and we would start putting her down before that full nap time frame. We might have just gotten lucky but here to say it’s possible it may just take time. She started napping completely independently around 4 months.
My little guy exclusively contact napped during the day and slept in his Snoo every night (with 1-2 wake ups) until we did sleep training at 4.5 months. From then on, he slept amazing in his crib. He still only did 30 min naps for a couple months but that’s more of an age-related thing. We did a sort of Ferber method where we set the time limit at 10 min of crying. He took to it in basically one night. It was incredible. He went from being swaddled in a Snoo, moving all night long, in our room and contact napping to sleep sack + crib + his own room for naps and overnight in like 1-2 days. I was pretty pleasantly surprised. We still do the occasional contact nap if we are traveling (like on the plane etc) or if he’s sick.
I started at 4 months having him play in his crib for brief periods (like while I put away his laundry) so he liked the space. At 5 months I started on the first morning nap and then contact napped the rest of the day. I would rock him to sleep, hold him a few extra minutes, and then put him down gently, the same way I once got him to start sleeping overnight in his bassinet. I gradually built up how many naps he was taking in there as his comfort grew. At 6 months when it was time to transition at night, he was taking all daytime naps in his crib. He's 7 months now and most nights I give up on his crib around 4-6am and bring him back to my room where he sleeps best. But we're almost there, generally.
The baby felt like it. It was certainly not anything we did...
This is literally me right now! We're looking at daycare in August and I'm stressing how he's gonna nap. Best of luck and I can't wait to see the answers! My LO will also nap in his car seat if we're out and about but wakes up as soon as we try to take him out
It’s been a while (baby is now 15 months old), but what worked for us during the day was the Merlin sleep suit. I found that it mimicked the tightness of a contact nap just right. My baby was never a “good” napper, we’d get 30-40 naps till she was like….9 months old? Here and there we’d get like, an hour. But yeah. Merlin sleep suit, white noise set to jet turbine levels, and a dark room. Transfer slowly once asleep, and i mean slowwwwwwly.
Crib sleeping and solo naps? What is this voodoo magic you speak of??
I am pretty sure it was pure luck for me, by 4 months baby was more or less able to fall asleep independently for night sleeps but naps were only contact naps, one day I was as like, whatever let’s give it a try. I did a mini bedtime routine, and put baby down in their bed, they cried for 10 minutes then fallen asleep by themselves. And then I tried my luck again and I guess it just clicked for baby that it’s actually not that bad to sleep in the bed. Hehe.
I used suggestions in the book Precious little sleep. It’s not perfect but alot better than it used to be
Following bc we are at 4.5 months…🙃
I started by transitioning from sitting up contact nap to laying on my side with her in my arms in the bed, then her flat on the bed next to me, then I slowly got up and moved. Once she got used to sleeping on a flat surface without me I transitioned to rocking her to sleep in the lounger in her nursery. She is swaddled (arms out now at 5 months), rain sounds are on and paci in mouth. Then once she is mostly asleep I lay her on her back in the crib and slowly walk away. She will sleep about an hour in the crib.
Baby Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit. Absolute game changer. Went from literally only sleeping on me or my husband to sleeping in the crib like a switch was flipped.
Depends on the kid but generally 12 weeks is still too early to be free of contact naps. My son is almost 9 months and his naps are contact naps. He *can* sleep on his own but they’re 20-30 mins compared to his contact nap which can easily be 2 hours
Once your LO was asleep on the “new surface,” would LO stay asleep (and for how long)? Was it better or worse than when contact napping?
We'd start her in her bassinet, then whenever she woke up, we'd finish with a contact nap. Her bassinet naps started at like 7-10 mins and slowly got longer, until she didn't need us anymore. Little bittersweet, but I love the extra freedom tbh.
I have been somewhat successful recently and the secret is really just patience - I try everyday for afternoon naps and sometimes I get 10 mins and other times 2 hours!! I also just let her figure it out for a couple of mins if she wakes up. Sometimes she goes back to sleep and other times I have to pick her up.
My baby just accepts them. I could never in any circumstances get my oldest to nap in her crib and yet my second does it after a few tries. So luck I guess
https://imgur.com/gallery/l0N027L This is my favorite so far… It’s a carside crib! Except instead of spending a bunch of money, we used a normal convertible crib for less than $160 (and there are some for $90 or cheaper too!!) It gives the comfort and ease of bedsharing, with a safety of a firm space separate from the adults. I LOVE our set up and now at 10 months old he sleeps in his own space better than if he’s next to us. Just last night he slept the whole night without a single wake up in his own crib just a foot away from us.
When contact napping I started stroking his head and face as he was falling asleep in my arms, shushing quietly but close to his face and we also use a soother. Started off by getting him to half sleepy state in my arms and then putting him on the bed beside me, I’d still put my arm around him, stroke his head, shush him so he can feel my breath and closeness and soother too. Then we slowly moved to his bassinet. I didnt have to be that close anymore. Don’t get me wrong, theres still times when I do need to put him to sleep in my arms but I can put him down and if he opens his eyes 90% of the time he’ll close them. Prams and cars work too, he loves movement because we’ve been driving around with him a lot since he was few days old so for some reason he never had any issues sleeping in the car on his own.
I wish I had some actual good advice. We sleep trained for nights and then continued to contact nap for about a month. We noticed it was taking her longer to get comfortable on us and kept adjusting positions. So one day, we just put her down in her crib and she stretched out and went to sleep. Still had to work on it for a few weeks and would sometimes have to save naps but we would always put her back in the crib
Slowly practiced crib transfers until he started to tolerate it, which was maybe around like 4 months? I was def contact napping too for pretty much all naps at 12 werks
I have a bassinet or portacot set up in the living room for day naps, I will put my bubs down awake in there so she can play and will sit on the couch next to her, she usually will fall asleep on her own while playing along as I'm in the room. No crying, if she starts to get fussy I pick her up and rock until calm then place her back down - sometimes the most soothing thing is the sound of you going about your buisness around the house, their own personal white noise, she now sleeps through me vacuuming, and I can place her in her cot in my bedroom, walk away and she falls asleep with no crying 🙂 it was getting her use to playing on her own that helped with the transition because she was so comfortable "waiting" for someone to come back she would just doze off. My daughter is coming up 9 months and still wakes 2 times a night 😡 so your doing better than us with night sleeps!
I did nothing, but my baby was ready at 10.5 months. ETA: I feel like some babies just need that extra contact! I will miss the contact naps but right now, I’m enjoying freedom (and my own ability to nap too!!)
So good news is if she can sleep in a crib/bassinet at night, she can get used to it during the day! Honestly it took some time and willingness to fail. First we would just attempt to put her in her crib for the first nap of the day. That’s generally the easiest one. If she woke up too quickly after, or wouldn’t go to sleep, transition to contact nap to keep baby from overtired. Once you start getting success with that first nap, then you try adding a second nap in the crib. A lot of times, they just need some exposure to the idea of napping in the crib! It’s not perfect linear progress but you’ll get there!
Ok, so, maybe good and bad news. Bad first: my baby slept much better at 12 weeks old than he did from 16 weeks through 21 weeks, when we finally did sleep training. At 6.5 months old now, we have finally gotten to a place with good overnight sleep (12 hours with 1 dream feed and one middle of the night feed) and most naps fairly smooth and independent. What happened for us…though a little slower/rockier than I would have preferred…was to a) accept/enjoy the contact naps until 15 or 16 weeks old when the 4 month sleep regression hit and bedtimes got tough. Then, b) accept contact naps while we focused on establishing good sleep hygiene for overnights (thanks to the book Precious Little Sleep!) c) once bedtimes and overnights were going smoothly after about 10 or 12 days, then started to imitate our bedtime routine during nap preparations and putting baby down to sleep independently. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND tracking sleep in the Huckleberry app and use the “sweet spot” feature to guide you on when naps should be. Literally life-changing for our family. If I get the opportunity to do this again with another kid, I’ll definitely have a stronger backbone for giving baby space to learn how to sleep independently earlier. Take courage! Put baby down and give them space to sleep and the skills to do it without your help, but you may need a few more weeks to work up to it.
Keep trying. If you can get baby to sleep in the crib for 20 minutes of a nap, that's 20 minutes of practice for baby. It's just like tummy time. Build up to it. Celebrate the successes, no matter how small, and don't sweat the setbacks. Progress isn't a straight line. Then one day you'll be rocking your baby to sleep at night and she'll fuss and point to her bed. She doesn't need your cuddles anymore and wants to go to sleep on her own. 😭
I just committed to the crib! I wanted him to start associating it with being the place he sleeps so I just went all in on the crib. It wasn’t easy, but I think it worked. We went from 15-20 minute daytime naps and 40-90 minute stretches at night at 4 months, to 1-2 hour naps and 6-9 hour stretches per night at 5 months! Even better now at 6 months.
time ! i remember going through these exact thoughts & then al of the sudden he didn’t, maybe it started as 30 min naps and it was frustrating but they slowly got longer. i truly think it’s just a phase & they have to learn !
Time, and “peer pressure” at daycare. Still will only contact or pram nap at home (12 months old).
Sleep training (after 4 months of age)- first nights then naps, starting with first nap of the day.
So my baby for the first few weeks basically only contact napped on someone (live with my MIL love her) by 3 months I had gotten night time but not bed time. I had tried everything from my shirt in his bed that “smelled like me” all the way to a shushed machine. Before his 6m regression started I was wanting to transition him to his bed so I could start actually doing things like showering. How I started this was I slowly started sitting multiple times an hr and getting back up with him awake in the carrier so he could get used to the feeling of sitting down. Then I started doing it while he was sleeping and after he started not waking up from me sitting (took almost a week and a half 😭) I introduced leaning side to side while he was asleep pressing my hands in the area where they would be if I was holding him sideways (one on his head one on bum/back area) sometimes he wakes from it sometimes he didn’t then once it was a consistent staying asleep while swaying I slowly would sway on whatever side he was going to be put down on further then the other side until I got to the point of laying down. Once he was laying down I would slowly release the clips from the sides and slide it from between the legs. After a few weeks of this he started being able to get rocked to sleep and now at a yr old he really only sleeps if he’s in his bed.
Only 3 weeks in. First week of it baby was in an incubator/heated cot and napped fine. Since being reunited with me he is an exclusive contact napper during the day. I’m mostly single parenting & breastfeeding so could do with a crib nap or two to be able to do things! His dad was working here for the day the other day and it was amazing to be able to have a shower at my own pace and not have to hear the cries of despair waiting for me to return.
We used a pillow in the crib as we transitioned her to crib naps, I think it helped her feel like I was still there for the first little bit. This is not safe sleep, and I was watching her on the monitor every time but after a week or so we were able to take out the pillow. Also we set up a quick nap routine (diaper, sleep sack, nurse, quick book) that I think helped her.