Amelia’s naps seem to be somewhat all over the place at the moment, some day’s she will have one in the morning and one in the afternoon but those days are rare now. There’s just too much to see and do to be going to sleep during the day when you’re 18 months old.
I was asked a few weeks ago to share some of the tips we use at home to help Amelia sleep during the day as I know there are a lot of toddlers out there who flat out refuse their naps and then fall asleep in their dinner.
Whilst Amelia fluctuates between two very long sleeps and maybe only 45 minutes all day she does always have a sleep at some point during the day and there are few things I always do to help make sure she sleeps well.
- Keep it dark; I always close her curtains before putting her to bed. Normally a few minutes before, whilst changing her nappy and we have blackout curtains so even on sunny days they help to make the room dark.
- Try to keep to a routine; it can be super hard when they get to toddler age because you never know when they’re going to sleep but previously I have always tried to give Amelia her naps around the same time of day. Usually, around 10.30am and 3.30pm as I think it helps her to prepare for going to bed when she knows what to expect.
- Have a comforter or favourite toy; we don’t go anywhere without Amelia’s comforter anyway so it goes without saying that she would take it to bed but I guarantee there will be no sleep without it.
- White noise/music; we used to have Ewan the sheep but he broke a few months ago and for a while, we didn’t have anything playing for her when she went to sleep. More recently though we’ve found her sleep to be restless at night and have started to play her the built-in music and sounds from her video monitor and we’ve found that having them on the lowest volume all through her naps has helped her to sleep longer.
- Leave a sippy cup in the cot; I used to find that Amelia would cough a little in her sleep and it would end up waking her up. We decided to leave a non-spill sippy cup in her bed where she can reach it and during her sleep, she will reach for it when she is thirsty or wakes up coughing. I’ve found that it helps her to just settle herself and then go back to sleep rather than have the disruption of us going in to see her and stimulating her to get up.
Those are the things that I do each and every nap time to try to help Amelia has the best sleep and so far it seems to be working. Each nap time is a little different at the moment as she hasn’t fully decided whether or not to drop her morning nap but making sure that we do all of these things really helps to settle her.
I hope this will be helpful if you’re little one is a pickle at nap times and if you have any tip and tricks that help you please share them in the comments to help others.
Rachel xx
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