Cara Dumaplin identifies five nap saboteurs: moving kids between car seats and strollers, letting them doze during the routine, using upbeat music instead of calm audio, bright light, and parental tension. She shows how to fix each one, modeling the routine with her child May.
How are naps going in your home? If you're struggling, these things might be wreaking havoc at nap time, and we're gonna talk about them. Let's show them. Okay. One thing that might be wreaking havoc on your nap time— no, not the stroller. It's the fact that you go from car seat to stroller to the shopping cart to the stroller back to the car seat. See, you and I have to move our bodies to sleep well. And so do they. I get it, we have errands to run, but we gotta get down and move our bodies, don't we? Should we get out and play? Out? Okay, let's go. Oh my gosh, show them, show them what we're gonna do. Good night. Oh, what, you need a nap time routine? Let's tell them. Say, I can't be thrown in there. I need a nap time routine. Just like you and I, if we walk out of the gym, we might be exhausted, but we probably aren't gonna just be able to lay down and go to sleep. We need to come home, take a shower, unwind a little bit. I think she wants down, but they're like us, they want to unwind. We can't pick them up from playing and just plop them in the crib. The lights— another thing that can wreak havoc on nap time is a little sip of sleep in between naps. So perhaps in the car, just a 4-minute snooze, or During the nap time routine, they doze off a little bit either during a feeding or while you're reading books. That wipes out the sleep drive, so it makes it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. So she's tired, but we're keeping her awake until she actually goes down into the crib. Night night. Night night. He's brushing his teeth, isn't he? Good night, baby. Good night. Night night, baby. You ready to show him? Ready? Push the button. Keep in mind, music stimulates the brain. We want something to relax the brain. You want to push the button? You like that? We want something soothing that cues the brain that it's time to sleep, right? Yeah. Oh, that's something else. Let's talk about that. Thank you for showing them that. Can you turn it off? Good job! Let's talk about that. Another thing that might be wreaking havoc on your naps is light. My iPhone is making this a little bit brighter than it actually is in here. It's kind of dark, but there is light sneaking around. May doesn't mind it. She does well with it, and so we haven't blacked out the blinds here at our house. Can you say hi to everybody? Hi everybody! Hi everybody! If she really started struggling with With naps, we would black out those blinds. If naps are short or they're struggling to fall asleep, make it dark. Everybody goes night-night. One thing to keep in mind is that little ones mirror us. They can pick up tension in the room and they mirror it right back to us. So, if you're feeling like, oh, I just need you to take this nap. Or, I'm stressed because I don't know if this is going to be a 20-minute nap or a 2-hour nap. They feel that! So during this time, try to stay nice and calm. The more regulated you are, the more regulated they're gonna be! Do my teachers go night-night? Yes, they go night-night! Night-night, everybody! You ready to go night-night? Night-night! Notice she's going down into the crib fully awake, okay? She's ready for nap, but she's fully awake! Night night, sweet girl. I love you. Lay down. I love you. You want your puppy? Good night. Night night. Night night. I love you.
