Is Your Baby Taking Short Naps? 🌟 Free Taking Cara Babies Class Sneak Peek 🌟

We've learned the importance of good naps, and they can be a challenge at times. We've learned how to set the room up for success. But what's the trick for getting good naps? Well, there is no trick. But one thing that makes a huge difference is filling your baby's tired tank. I need you to imagine that your baby has a tired tank in him that looks like this. Yes, a red solo cup. I like to use this as a metaphor to help you understand sleep pressure, that drive that makes us fall asleep and stay asleep. When your baby wakes in the morning, that tired tank is empty. Everything we do is filling that tired tank. You get her out of the crib and offer her a feeding. It's filling. You get her dressed for the day. Still filling. She sits at the high chair and eats some waffles. Still filling. You give her time on the floor to roll around a bit. Or maybe you take her outside and let her play at her water table. Still filling. You come in and she empties your laundry basket. Still filling. Everything she does between getting up in the morning and being placed back in the crib for her first nap fills this tired tank. The goal is to have this tank completely full so that when she is placed in the crib, it dumps out, washes over her and helps her fall asleep easily at nap time and stay asleep for an hour or longer. Then when she wakes after this nap, that tired tank is completely empty and it starts all over again. The goal is to fill it completely between every nap and before bedtime. Can you see what would happen if it's not filled all the way? Let's say it just fills to right here. It wouldn't be enough to dump over her and wash over her completely, so nap time will be a struggle. Or maybe it's full enough to help her fall asleep. But it doesn't wash over her completely, so the nap will be short because she doesn't have the sleep pressure or sleep drive to stay asleep. As you can see, a full tired tank is so important. Now, on the flip side, if it's overfull, that's like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. It's coming at her so quickly that it's flooding her body. This represents an overtired baby who is being flooded with the stress hormone cortisol. Yes, cortisol and adrenaline flood their little bodies when they get overtired. Overtired babies also struggle with falling asleep at nap time and struggle with short naps. So our goal is to fill it Completely without overfilling it. How long it takes to fill a baby's tired tank is typically dependent upon his age. The younger a baby is, the less time they need to fill it. As they get older, that tired tank gets bigger and it takes longer to fill. Basically, we fill those tired tanks by offering a full wake window. A wake window is simply a fan, fancy term for how long your baby is awake between naps. It's the amount of time it takes to fill that tired tank. Now, you don't have to worry about finding the exact minute. It's always a range. It may slightly differ from day to day, but it's typically always within that range. Now we are going to dive much deeper into this later and I'll show you exactly how to implement this. But let's look at typical wake windows based on your baby's age. 5 to 7 months, 2 to 3 hours, 7 to 10 months, 2 and a half to 3 and a half hours, 11 to 14 months, 3 to 4 hours and 14 to 24 months, 4 to 6 hours. Again, I'll teach you so much more about this later, but one important point I want you to understand is this. Filling that tired tank starts when you take the baby out of the crib and ends when you place them back in the crib. So that's how we time wake windows. Wake windows start when you take your little one out of the crib and end when you place them back in the crib. If you've taken my newborn class, you have learned the all all about sleepy cues. And even if you haven't taken that class, you've probably noticed some sleepy cues with your baby staring off, yawning, rubbing their eyes and becoming fussy. These are the cues that tell us our babies are tired. Now, in those newborn days, when you saw those sleepy cues, it meant it was time to get that baby to bed. As little ones get older, we want to balance sleepy cues with the time on the clock. For example, let's say I told you that an 11 month old's wake window is three to four hours. But at two and a half hours, he started yawning, rubbing his eyes and becoming fussy. Well, even though he's flashing sleepy cues, his tired tank isn't completely full. So this baby will likely struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep. We need to help him stay awake a bit longer. How do you do that? Well, let me ask you, have you ever yawned at 4 in the afternoon? Does that mean it's time for you to go to bed? No. Most likely it means that you just need to change up your activity. If you're sitting at your desk, get up, go walk around, have a cup of tea or a little snack. Babies are just like us, we just need to change up their activity. Go in another room, go outside, offer different toys, give them a snack, or turn on music and have a dance party. Just change it up and help them fill that tired tank. Now back to that 11 month old. You took him outside, walked to the mailbox, came in and let him splash at the sink to help you wash dishes. Now it's been three hours and he really is getting fussier. Okay, great. You stretched his wake window to three hours and filled that tired tank. He's showing sleepy cues. It's time to put him down for a nap. Yes, the wake window range is three to four hours, but he was telling us that he needed to be on the earlier end of that range for this nap. We got a full wake window, but on the lower end of the range this is success. So. So yes, sleepy cues are important, but at this age we must balance it with the time on the clock so your baby gets a full wake window. We need a full tired tank so it will wash over him and help him fall asleep easily and take a great nap. Now perhaps you're the parent thinking, but Kara, my baby doesn't flash sleepy cues. He just goes and goes and then crashes. Okay, I do see this. Sometimes in this scenario, just aim for full wake windows somewhere in the middle of that range. As you're doing your very best to fill that tired tank between naps, I do want to caution you, some things will cause that tired tank to spill out a bit. Lets say you're out taking a walk and your baby drifts off to sleep for 10 minutes in the stroller. This will steal a little bit out of the tired tank. Let's say you're running an errand and on the way home your baby snoozes for 15 minutes. This also steals from the tired tank and it may make it harder for your baby to fall asleep at nap time. So do your very best to keep your little one awake between naps and before bedtime. Now, I know this isn't always possible. Babies drift off to sleep sometimes when we're out and about. Do your best and if it happens, wake your baby as soon as you can and add a few minutes to that wake window so your tired tank fills back up. One last thing. Have you heard me talk about Rab? If you haven't heard about Rab, now is the perfect time for me to tell you about him. Rab is a nasty little vill who likes to steal from our baby's tired tanks. His name explains it all. Rab stands for rest at the breast or bottle. Here's what happens while your baby is nursing or taking a bottle. She dozes off or zones out. She gets a little rest at the breast or bottle. Rab steals a bit off the top of the tired tank. Rab will make falling asleep and staying asleep at naps so much more difficult. So keep him far away. Later we'll talk more about feedings and how to get them without allowing Rab to steal from the tired tank.