Q&A: toddler practicing walking can't nap

Carly writes:

"My 11 month-old daughter just started crawling last week. She has progressed with lightening speed, though, to pulling herself up everywhere and trying to walk.

This is causing immense problems at nap time. We lay her down, she immediately rocks on her knees or sits or pulls up. I end up going in again and again and again resettling her, each time expecting it to be the last because she's so obviously tired (eye rubbing, yawning, blanket caressing). The past week this has been happening, it sometimes takes more than an hour of resettling before she finally conks out.

I am wound tight as a wire and severely stressed about this, as it tries my patience more than any other issue since she was born. Today I yelled at her for the first time, making her cry. I worry I'm going to snap.

Do I keep going in and resettling? Should I just ignore it and let her tire herself out (if this even happens...)?

I always used to snicker at moms who said their child was beating them, that they let the kid win. But she is totally kicking my ass, and feel beaten and desperate over what to do."

Give in. Surrender, Dorothy. She's not doing it on purpose, and she has no more control over it than you do. You and she are victims of the same out-of-control roller coaster. So try to cut yourself some slack, and maybe it'll help you be calmer with her.

Let me repeat: She's not doing it on purpose. Her body won't let her rest while it's doing this new learning-to-walk thing. That's why she's screamingly tired, rubbing her eyes, cranky, but still can't sleep. She's as upset about it as you are, except that she hasn't had the misfortune of reading the baby care books that say what she "should" be doing, or listening to advice from mothers-in-law and people at the grocery store saying all kids should be napping on the same schedule all the time by X age, or people telling you that she's trying to play you and you need to "show her who's boss." (Trust me--you won't win. Even if you win now, you won't win when she's 16.) No one's guilting her about this, and no one should be guilting you about it, either. (And she won't remember that you yelled at her, so just put that behind you.)

The best way to look at this is if you're partners, she and you, and you're in this together, and you help each other out. That way you take the power struggle out of the relationship. Because who wants to be struggling for control with a person who can't even talk yet? It's a vicious cycle that will only make you feel more frustrated and more disconnected from her, and will leave you both angry.

You're already saying you feel "beaten and desperate." What an awful feeling! Changing the way you look at it will give you back the confidence and mastery you know you have as her mother. Looking at it as an exercise in detective work or problem-solving will make you feel more connected and better at parenting her. So let's talk about some ways you can get through this time until she can walk and her body lets her sleep again like she did before.

How could you get her to sleep better during this time? And if there's nothing you can do about her sleep, how can you help yourself calm down during this time and remember that you're still a great mother, but now is about movement leaps and not naps?

Well, I'd start by looking at what's waking her up. It's the movement her body needs during this time. It might be possible that if you can create the movement externally, she might be able to sleep. You could try putting her in the stroller and walking her around so she can stroller-nap. Or putting her in the car and driving her around so she can sleep in her car seat. Yeah, she might not sleep as long as she usually does in her crib, but it's bound to be more than she's getting now. And at least you'll be out of the house, either getting exercise by walking or listening to CDs in your car.

Whether creating movement for her helps her sleep or not, you definitely need to de-stress. The mantra you should repeat during this time is "It's not my fault, and it's not her fault." You two are the innocent victims of a developmental movement spurt. You'll make it through this one, and then another one will come along, and you'll make it through that one, too. If you can try to think of it as funny instead of awful, you may be able to keep your calm. Have you taken any photos of her in the crib with her butt stuck up in the air, practicing? Both of mine were so freaked out by that stage. Sometimes they'd be asleep, and then would wake up because they'd be standing and they had no idea how they'd gotten there.

The other thing that may help is to just give up on the nap if it doesn't work after a set amount of time (my limit would probably be 30 minutes, but my patience seems to be decreasing as I age). Yes, she'll be extremely cranky by the end of the day, but you won't be as stressed out from trying so long. Then you can hand her off to your husband as soon as he walks in the door and just go out and do something for yourself. Exercise, or go drink a cup of tea somewhere, or just sit on the front porch by yourself and call a friend. If she's fussy or cranky because she didn't nap he can take his turn with her. You can probably bump her bedtime earlier by half an hour or so until this blows over.

And that's really the take-away from all of this: It is going to blow over. She'll start walking and then she'll start sleeping again. You won't believe how well she'll sleep, because she'll be so tired out from running her little legs off all day long. But in the meantime, please don't think of it as her "beating" you or as a battle of wills between the two of you. That's a road you don't want to go down because there's no possibility of either of you winning.

(If you're scratching your head about how I can advocate not trying to win against your kids, read the amazing book Between Parent and Child by Haim Ginott. It will change your whole way of looking at yourself as a parent--in a good way--and how you relate to your child.)

Comments

[Kate]

Ohhhh, it is so frustrating when they need to nap but won't! My 9.5 month old is going through this now--he's extremely physical (and, as a bonus, is so distractable he won't nurse to sleep unless my 2.5 year old is at school or sleeping), always moving, etc.

Plus he doesn't sleep in a crib, so it's pretty labor intensive to get him to settle into his "bed" on the floor. If he's not in the mood he just crawls away.

What we've been doing to cut down on the drama is only trying for 5-10 minutes to settle him (lying next to him, back patting, singing, etc.). If he's resistant--i.e. doesn't lie down and find his thumb within that time frame--we come back to the living room and let him play for another 10-15 minutes and try again. It almost always works the second time.

If motion helps her fall asleep, I'd definitely try that: stroller, baby carrier (back carries are good! let you do other stuff!), car. Whatever it takes. You'll probably get less personal time in this period, but as Moxie pointed out, once she finishes with the leap she will exhaust herself every day running around. Potentially 3-hour nap exhausted....

Good luck!

[Amy]

I have the same problem with my 8 1/2 month old. He went from crawling (right at 8 mo) to cruising (earlier this week). Now when he goes to bed/nap he stands and plays, jumps on the bed, or yells while watching the door to the hallway (there is a 2nd door to my room he doesn't know about, so I watch from there sometimes!). As long as he's content, I just leave him be. He may play for an hour, but eventually he lays down and goes to sleep (thank goodness he can get himself back down!). If he starts to get upset beyond fussing, I go in and get him, play for another 10-15 min (like the comment above) and put him back to bed. This usually works for me the 2nd time too. Hope you get some relief soon!

[Lisa]

This might have been cut for length, or just an oversight...but there's no mention of the baby (verge of toddler) crying in the crib. If she's just laying down then getting back up, maybe she just needs a little quiet time to settle down before napping. If that's the case, give her a stuffed animal or lovey to play with, and let her be. Eventually she'll fall asleep, and if not, at least you've both had a little quiet time.

My son did the same thing, and I thought it was the beginning of the end of naps. But as it turned out, he needed (and still needs) a little time on his own before he surrenders to sleep.

Some nights he'll be up in his crib talking to his bear for 1/2 hour before it gets quiet. It's really funny when he puts Bear in time-out. :-)

[Katy]

My son went through this recently as well, right after he started cruising and crawling (and after being off schedule due to stomach flu and holiday craziness). The napping problems were driving me crazy, but I promise this will eventually pass! In the meantime, there were a couple of things that helped me.

Though he was used to going down awake, and continued to do so at night, I found I had some success if I rocked him in the dark and put him down almost asleep or sometimes completely asleep for naps. Sometimes he woke up after only a half hour, but at least I had that little bit of time and he had a bit of sleep. (And now he's back to going down awake, so it wasn't a lasting habit.) If he didn't get much total sleep in the morning and afternoon combined, I'd get in the car with him around 4pm (my breaking point in the day) and drive around listening to my favorite talk radio. Sometimes it took him almost a half hour to fall asleep, but once he did he usually was out for an hour, and that gave me a nice break, plus helped him make it to bedtime without being so crabby.

I finally had success getting him to nap well again shortly after I put some blankets over his windows and made his room completely dark at naptime. It might have just been coincidence - maybe he was moving out of that phase anyway - but since then he has napped much better. (Mornings are still spotty, as I think he's working on moving to one nap, but then again, this morning he's already been asleep a whole hour.) His room had already been pretty dark, but you could definitely tell it was day - now it's almost as dark as it is at night, and I have a sense that it did help with the problem.

Hope that helps!

[B]

Totally let it go and take the kid up on her needs as she goes through this phase. I speak as someone whose child does not like to go to sleep at night. This used to really stress me out, because I was counting on getting work done after 8 pm, when I expected my daughter to sleep. Well, her circadian rhythm is such that she is cheerfully up until late (10pm usually) but also stays asleep until 8 or 9 in the morning. Instead of plunking her in front of a light machine in order to shift her circadian rhythm, we've decided not to force the issue and give her the playtime, reading time, running time with us that she apparently wants and needs. She is in daycare, so that might have something to do with it, though the 10pm bedtime doesn't change during vacations. Anyway, I think the way to reduce your stress as a parent is to stop seeing these differences in needs as power struggles and instead view them as opportunities to practice new skills and learn new words.

[Maureen]

Only thing I can suggest is maybe try moving your nap up a little. She may be so tired by the time she's put down that she'll fight it more. Maybe if you try being really active 45 minutes before her normal nap time for about 10 minutes and then have about 5 minutes of storytime/unwind time, and then put her down about 30 minutes earlier than normal, that might work. It is worth a shot... also, maybe try giving her her bath before nap rather than before bed. Might help to get her calmed down and in that mode.

[Jessie]

Another great post, Moxie! Another book suggestion with a similar theme is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn.

[Jen]

Oh man, I know what you're going through.

We were in the same boat up until about a month ago. What helped was going in after a few minutes of her standing and crying and resettling her. Over, and over, and over, over. As each day passed, she got better at settling. (I know it's downright tedious). The days when she absolutely was too wired to settle herself, I would rock her until she was drowsy or all the way asleep. It was important to our family to have her be able to fall asleep on her own, so initially, I was worried that this would create a habit, but so far, (and we rock every few days, more out of fun than need anymore), she's been great at going down when she needs to. Just remember that this too will pass.

And although I agree that you need to take some time to de-stress yourself, I do want to say that you have no need to beat yourself up for yelling that one time. I've raised my voice at my daughter a handful of times in the past year, and each time, I've felt terrible for making her scared/upset. But I definitely didn't make it to 11 months before the first time, so that's to be commended! Losing control is never a good thing, and when it happens often, it's a problem. But I can guarantee that one time yelling is not going to scar your little one for life.

That being said, remember also that despite a schedule or routine having worked for months and months, there are times when that little one just needs something else. Coming from someone who is pretty routine/schedule oriented, I have to say that it took a fairly decent amount of time before I finally realized that there were going to be days that didn't go as planned. I could easily let that mess me up mentally or just go with the flow, knowing that the next day was new.

You sound like a great mom! Keep your chin up, it gets better.

[Michelle]

We let the boy figure out ow to put himself to sleep. It sucked the first week my DH mader us do it, but after that it's awsome.

i have a few small safe toys in his bed to play with.

when he goes down, he is down. i don't check on him or anyting. if hs is crying, i go wash dishes (drown out the sound). he knows that when it's time for bed, momma is serous and not coming back until he has napped.

read your baby's cues and know when they are ready for bed. for us, if the boy is cranky, usually he's ready for a nap.

from a year on, i put him down after he's been awake for 3-4 hours (usually up at 8am and down at noon and up at 3:30 and down at 8pm. our routine is flexable based on how he is doing and what we have going during the day.

[Michelle]

oh, we started this at 6 months with two naps a day and we eventually moved to one long nap when he was able to stay awake longer. oh, and i don't wake him up from a nap (unless we need have an appointment); i try i keep his sleep on his cues.

once your baby can put themselves to sleep, it make sleeping throught the night so much easier. when their bodies wake them up (from wanting to move), they can play in their crib until they can are ready to go back to sleep.

oh, and this is really hard to do when traveling or if if you are sharing a room.

[B]

Michelle, how do you know when your child is communicating a problem to you? Preverbal children cry in order to communicate their needs. If you "drown out the sound" of crying, how do you figure out what your kid might need? There's also increasing evidence that persistent crying creates pathological levels of stress in the child, with possibly long-term harmful consequences. Michael Commons at the Harvard Med School has done a lot of work on this.

[Shandra]

I think it was right here at Ask Moxie that I read something that has now translated in my mind to "enjoy the day, not the nap."

Sometimes I have gotten focused on that nap as a) my time to address my endless to-do list and b) as something My Child Cannot Thrive Without. It was worst right around where you are - 10-11 mos or so.

And it's true, a napless day results in a kind of rough 4-6 pm slog (at which point we put him to bed, if he hasn't napped) and sometimes interferes with his night's sleep.

BUT living every day in fear of him missing The Nap, or trying to gauge every little thing so as to hit The Nap perfectly was totally interfering with my better parenting skills. Both because when it didn't work I felt like the whole day was ruined, RUINED, and also because I was more focused on the nap than my child!

I think it's important to take the routine seriously and if he doesn't nap, we have a cuddle/read books/sing soft songs time at that time and as soon as he's old enough I'm implementing rest hour (you can be awake but you have to be on your bed doing quieter stuff, no clue how I will get him there of course :-)).

But I no longer live around The Nap, but just have the day. And that has beem working better for us for some time. I don't know if that perspective helps any but that was our solution. YMMV!

[laury]

This sounds like a blip - let's hope it's over when the walkingn kicks in. My son's being doing the standing up in cot and refusing to lie down for eight months and he's still not really walking. The only thing that helps a little is baby sleeping bags - can you get them in the US? Makes it a little harder to get up from lying down, and we use a very light one for naps. Like swaddling for toddlers...

[Sarah]

It really does get better! But the way it gets better may not look like what you were expecting it to look like. My daughter went through the no-nap-due-to-standing/cruising thing, and the only way I got through it was to resettle her maybe once or twice and then give up. I'd check on her periodically to make sure she was ok, but otherwise I just waited until she tired herself out and went to sleep on her own. Sometimes this meant she was awake in the crib for 45 min before she went to sleep! Nowadays she goes to sleep a little faster, assuming she really is tired and is ready for a nap, but even so, she usually spends 5-10 minutes up and playing before lying down for sleep.

[kate]

There were two main things that got us through this (three times over- when she learnt to roll, then crawl, then stand). Firstly we had to make sure she had plenty of time to tire herself out by practising her new skills. Secondly, we found that constantly going in and rolling her over; laying her down etc was hindering her ability to learn to have a little play then get herself somewhere comfy to sleep. Once we decided to leave her alone to figure this out, it didn't take long at all (yes it did involve some crying, but I'd go in if she sounded distressed).

[Chelle]

This might sound crazy but it worked for my now 9 month old son. I have to lay him on his side when I put him down for a nap or the night. If I put him on his back, he squirms to get comfortable, then ends up on his hands/knees and finally decides to stand.

[susan]

OH YES! we've been at this for months now, first with crawling (6 months) and now with pulling up (he's 8.5 months). I was just like you Carly, I thought I was about to snap. I would constantly take him down and make him lie down, he'd get right back up, we'd do it 100 times and he'd be crying, I'd be frustrated and crying.

Now I just nurse him, put him in his crib and let him do whatever he wants. Sometimes he goes right to sleep and if not, I just shut the door anyway and leave the room, check email, do crosswords, whatever, til he starts to fuss again. He usually is quite content in there for 10 mins or so at a time. When he starts to cry (because he IS TIRED) I go in, pick him up, shh him and remind him it's time for sleepynap and put him down again on his tummy (how he sleeps) and if he gets up again, so be it. We can do this dance for an hour. But it helps in that it's no longer a battle and I just leave the room and do whatever and respond when he needs me.

So I agree with Moxie. they can't help it. Just let her do what she needs to do and don't expect her naps to be predictable. And do what you need to do to calm yourself. It gets easier after a few days of doing this!

[susan]

Can I just add that people's responses are amazing. It's so good to read (especially when I'm taking a break from waiting for the Samwich to nap).

Shandra, you rock. That is SO good to hear "enjoy the day not The Nap" as I get SO focussed on The Nap sometimes it's pathological. I am working on it.

[Her Bad Mother]

I'm chiming in days later to say this... sometimes, it doesn't blow over. But that, too, can be okay. WonderBaby called a halt to her naps (in crib) at about 9 - 10 months and hasn't looked back. I spent hours and hours and weeks and weeks trying to get her to nap in her crib again (she will nap in her stroller, or in the car seat), to no avail. It was only in the last month or so that I reconciled myself to the fact that the nice, long leisurely crib nap is over for her, and I am SO MUCH MORE relaxed for this reconciliation - Shandra's reminder to enjoy the day, not the nap, and Moxie's advice here to just roll with it are spot on.

(She does, I should add, sleep through the night, 12 - 13 hours, unless teething is bad or she has chickenpox, as she did over the holidays. And she goes to be around 7, and yes, she can be pretty fussy between 6 and 7, or at least until she gets into her bath. But nowhere NEAR as fussy as she gets if someone tries to compel her to NAP against her will.)

PS I wrote about my resignation around napping here - http://badladies.blogspot.com/2007/01/putting-things-to-rest.html. That came after a particularly bad stretch of sleep-deprivation (she stopped sleeping through night and continued to avoid naps oh my hell), which I wrote about here - http://badladies.blogspot.com/2007/01/wherever-you-go-there-you-are.html. If that helps anybody.

[Lea]

This blog and all the wonderful comments that followed was just what I needed. Thank you ladies!

Three days ago my 7.5 month old boy learned to scccrrrreeeammm for fun, two days ago he learned to pull up to a kneel, yesterday he learned how to pull up to a stand and today he crawled his first three "steps" in a row. (Baby T has been able to hold all his weight for months so we knew it was just a matter of time before he'd develop the arm strength, confidence and coordination to put it together on his own.)

Now the last two days have been just too exciting for him to sleep. We had been putting him down awake (we started this at 6.5 months) and he was sleeping a good ten hours at night and 3-4 hours during the day. Now, I see from the other posts just how spoiled we were. He is just so darn proud of himself when he sees us watching him stand up that when we lay him back down he screams bloody murder. I get him calmed down and we try again, and again. We leave the room for a change of scenery and play a little more. As soon as he figures out that we are working towards bedtime/naptime though he starts exercising those vocal cords that I mentioned earlier.

I can't find much online about nighttime separation anxiety but I'm wondering if that is playing into this too. Many times he'll be screaming in his crib for five-ten minutes and will continue to cry if we pick him up and stay in his bedroom. But if we walk out in the hall, then he'll be fine. Ugggg. We try so hard to play, read and sing in his bedroom so he doesn't view it as the place where his parents dump him off. He's so much better during the day (with the exception of the last two days). Anyone know anything about nighttime separation anxiety?

So, I think I can combine all of your advice:

1. Continue to let him exert lots of energy during the day: in the Jumperoo, trying to crawl and trying to stand.
2. Continue to give him extra lovin' at bed and nap times while keeping with our familiar routines.
3. Put him into his crib while he is awake but sleepy.
4. Tell him that we'll be back to check on him and let him be until he hollers out in distress.
5. Once he is clearly unhappy then we should continue to lay him down as he stands back up. Do this for up to 30 minutes to give his body time to settle so that he can fall asleep.
6. If no luck, give up for a while and take baby out of the bedroom for a change of scenery. Play quietly for 10-15 minutes.
7. Repeat #4 and 5.
8. If baby is super tired then take him for a walk or a drive. This sleep-inducing technique actually works very well for my little motion-a-holic. Noted: naps may be shorter.
9. Try moving bedtime a little earlier and shortening naps if needed.
10. Ignore 1-9 and just go with the flow. :o)

I think I summed it up, right moms? Thanks for being here!

[Lea]

Hello again,

Just wanted to report that things are sooooooo much better (much like other things it was about my husband and I adjusting, not our baby). We just switched up bedtime and naptime routines to incorporate 20 minutes+ of floor play plus additional crib play (until he tires of that and "hollers" for us) before we start the usual pre-sleep routines:

For his afternoon nap today, we played on the floor until he got tired of that. Then he played in his crib and practiced pulling up until he got tired of that. (I watched him on the monitor as I did chores.) Then, I just had to start his music, lightly wrap him up, offer a bottle, lay him back in his crib awake and rub his back for 20 second. He passed out right away because his body had already done all the pulling up that it could handle for the time being. This morning's nap was even easier. Both were nice and long!

Last night we let him get plenty of floor and crib play before even starting the bath, then we all laid down in our bed and watched a ten minutes of the "Praises and Smiles" DVD while he sucked down a bottle. We finished with a book in his bedroom and put him down in his crib awake. He put himself immediately asleep and slept from 9PM until 7 AM.

It made such a huge difference once we realized that even though he may already be tired; he still has to get the need to practice pulling up out of his system before he can rest. Unlike expected, we haven't had to remind him "it's naptime not playtime" by laying him back down continually. We were prepared (though not enthusiastically) for weeks of that.

It worked so much better just to let him (his body) decide when he was done practicing this new skill and then we started the quick bedtime routine from that point. I didn't have to fight with an overtired baby who couldn't settle because he started playing in his crib well before his normal nap time and was ready to sleep within 2-4 hours his previous waking.

I hope this insight can help someone else who stumbles here (at wits end like my husband and I did).

Thanks for listening and good luck!

[organic ergo baby carrier]

Each child naps in a different way as we all are different .

[ash]

phhew im not the only one having issues with the diapered ruler of the house :P
but thankyou ladies for you help, i now know its normal and what to do, as my man has just started this the last 4 days, i thought somehting was wrong buit now i know its just his body practising his new skills!
so thankyou!