If you have not already done so, please read Blog Posts 1 through 5 that describe how sleep is important and beneficial. I will post specific information for parents and children based on my book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Please do not be put off by my book’s length. This is a reference book. Read only the topic of interest to you.
Biological nap rhythms begin to develop between 3 and 4 months of age and are well established by 6 months. Beginning around 3 to 4 months, the goal is to harmonize the onset of soothing — to a drowsy-but-awake state — with the onset of the biological nap rhythm. The midmorning nap develops first. Initially, naps tend to be irregular and brief but by 6 months of age, there are usually two major nap: mid-morning and midday.
The Nap Drill is an attempt to establish age-appropriate naps in a child who appears to be not sleeping well and whose naps are not regularly occurring in the mid-morning and midday. It is an attempt to create an ample mid-morning and midday nap. It is not needed for babies under 6 months of age who appear to be well rested and still have an irregular nap schedule.
The nap drill may be attempted anytime between 3 and 6 months when you think your baby is ready, and certainly any time after 6 months. It may fail in babies younger than 6 months because nap rhythms may still be too weak — but there is no harm in trying it for several days.
Before You Begin
Three practical points before starting:
First, the environment matters. Some young children — especially post-colic babies — nap best in a very dark and quiet room. Others are less sensitive. Experiment with different rooms. One family living on a noisy street temporarily used a large walk-in closet with the door open because it was dark and quiet enough. Too much light or noise can cause the nap drill to fail at any age. White noise machines or blackout curtains might help.
Second, the quality of night sleep matters. If night sleep is poor, the nap drill may fail regardless of how carefully it is implemented. Night sleep lays the foundation for the midmorning nap, and the midmorning nap lays the foundation for the midday nap. The sequence matters. A too late bedtime is a common cause for the Nap Drill to fail.
Third, consider starting the nap drill on a weekend when the father is available. By smell, babies know when their mother is present — and they tend to protest less when the father does the soothing to sleep and the mother leaves the house. This is not a workaround. It is one of the most reliably effective elements of the nap drill. Maybe start on a Saturday.
The Nap Drill: Midmorning Nap
Put your baby down to sleep, after soothing to a drowsy-but-awake state, around 9:00am — or as close to this time as possible if he wakes very early. There are three scenarios to be prepared for when the nap is substantially less than one hour:
Scenario 1: He cries and never falls asleep. Ignore him completely for one hour. This is your attempt to establish the midmorning nap. If he does not fall asleep, pick him up after one hour and actively play with him. This is essentially extinction with a one-hour cap. Graduated extinction and check-and-console do not work for naps because the expected nap duration is too short for those methods to be practical.
Scenario 2: He falls asleep but sleeps less than 30 minutes. You have two choices:
If attempts to extend the nap or wait out the 30 minutes rarely succeed, abandon them.
Scenario 3: He falls asleep and sleeps 30 minutes or longer, but substantially less than one hour. Try brief minimal soothing to extend the nap — but note that the longer the nap has already been, the less likely extension will succeed. You may choose to end the nap and enjoy his company. Do not ignore him for an additional 30 minutes in this scenario.
After the Midmorning Nap
For babies younger than 6 months: after picking him up in any of the three scenarios, enjoy his company and try to keep him awake as long as possible for a midday nap. The goal is to reach 12:00 to 1:00pm, but if the midmorning nap was absent or brief, you may only reach 10:00 or 11:00am. Alternatively, for babies substantially younger than 6 months, focus for the rest of the day on maintaining brief intervals of wakefulness, putting him down drowsy but awake, and enabling good-quality night sleep. For these younger babies, the midmorning nap usually falls into place within several days after night sleep is going well.
For babies 6 months or older: once the midmorning nap pattern is established, attempt a midday nap by putting your baby down drowsy but awake around 12:00 to 1:00pm — or earlier if the midmorning nap was brief. The same three scenarios apply to the midday nap drill. You may also choose to work on both naps simultaneously.
Two Conflicting Goals
Goal #1 is an attempt to keep your child up to reach the time when a midday nap rhythm appears to use it as an aid to take a midday nap, let’s say around 12:00 to 1:00pm.
Goal #2 is an attempt to not keep your child up too long in order to prevent major pre-sleep arousal that will interfere with taking a midday nap.
Trial and error may be needed to find the sweet spot whereby you can comfortably extend his wakeful period a little after the midmorning nap attempt and try for a midday nap.
— Marc Weissbluth, M.D.
I have a 4-month old and I put her down immediately after seeing drowsy signs, and she usually does a good job falling asleep for her naps and her naps are often longer (averaging 1.5h).
I’m still a little confused about what to do since naps are still irregular.
1. Should I be trying to push her to regular nap times?
2. What happens when she naps really close to when an early bedtime should be? (She sometimes naps 4:30-7 pm).
3. I’ve put her down for an early bedtime, but sometimes she fights it, or she will sleep for 45 minutes and then cry for 45 minutes, so I go and re-settle her. She’s been going to bed around 8:30 pm (she cries out but then falls asleep). Not sure what’s going on.
Her consolidation has decreased. It used to be 6-8 hours but lately, it’s usually only 4 hours.
Naps become quite regular between 4-6 months of age. For now, drowsy signs are your best signal.
“I put her down immediately after seeing drowsy signs”: Describe in detail what you observe when she is drowsy.
The drowsy cues are yawning and red eyebrows. She sometimes gets more still, rather than moving her limbs a lot.
Excellent!
Great! I will continue to follow her cues then.
If she takes a nap at 4 pm, should I wake her up to maintain an early bedtime?
Try to shorten the interval of wakefulness before her naps to see if she gets mor daytime sleep. Hopefully, naps will lengthen and she will not be sleepy at 4pm. Her night time circadian sleep rhythm is quite strong now and her brain wants to go to sleeo for the night early, maybe even 5:30pm. If true, than the 4pm nap will mess up her night sleep. I suggest you try not to have a new nap start after 3pm. But there are conflicting goals:
A: Try to keep her up to the onset of her night sleep rhythm for circadian alignment.
B. Keeping her up might cause pre-sleep arousal that interferes with easily falling asleep and staying asleep.
Try my suggestions for 3-4 days and nights and report back.
What age is appropriate to do a nap drill?
Our son is 11 weeks and will only falls asleep for naps after feeding/rocking. If he is set down in the bassinet he will not stay asleep for more than 10 min so he is basically doing all contact naps to ensure good daytime sleep. He goes down for bedtime fine after a bottle/rocking and stays asleep for about 3 hours. We try drowsy but awake for naps while he is still calm and just starting to show drowsy signs but he immediately cries and will not settle with gentle shushing etc. He escalates right away to frantic crying which takes a lot of effort to calm down, which is frustrating for everyone because now he is overtired. Should we give the nap drill a try?
“The nap drill may be attempted anytime between 3 and 6 months when you think your baby is ready, and certainly anytime after 6 months of age.” is from my book. However, a common problem causing nap issues in children under 6 months of age is a bedtime that is too late causing presleep arousal and impaired night sleep so that the infant starts the day short on sleep leading to nap issues. Another common problem is an interval of wakefulness before the nap that is too long, causing pre-sleep arousal.
Describe a common time that you begin the bedtime routine and the time when he actually falls asleep at night and how he sleeps overnight. Night sleep rhythms begin to develop around 6 weeks of age and naps around 3-4 months of age but naps might not be regular and long until 6 months of age. Let’s focus on night sleep first.
Also tell me what is happening during the hour before the bedtime routine is started.
1. Describe a common time that you begin the bedtime routine and the time when he actually falls asleep at night
I start bedtime routine with him around 6:30/6:45. He is in his crib at 7/7:15. He no longer cries when placed in the crib and just rolls onto his side and goes to sleep after a few minutes.
He typically wakes for feeding around 11 and 3 and wakes up for the day about 6:30
2. Also tell me what is happening during the hour before the bedtime routine is started.
He eats as soon as he wakes up from his last nap and then we do calm playing. He is calm and smiling and will start to slow down at 60 min which is when we start bedtime.
When does his last nap start and when does it end.
The last nap usually starts around 4:45 and ends by about 5:45. If it ends earlier we move up bedtime a little to keep the 75 min wake window that seems to work for him.