The No Cry Nap Solution (7 page)

mind that parenting isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon, and you’ve only

just begun, so there’s no reason to rush yourself or your child.

You can copy and fi ll in the following pages or visit my website,

www.nocrysleepsolution.com, f
or PDF fi les to print.

Plan Worksheet

In advance of making a plan, it may help to think about, and write

down, what things are most important to you, what you hope to

gain from a nap plan, and what your specifi c goals are.

The things that are most frustrating or disruptive to us now are:

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What we hope to achieve from a nap plan is:

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Create Your Sleep Logs and Your Nap Plan
29

We will begin our nap plan for ___________________________________

(name)

on ________________

(date)

Goals for our Daily Schedule (Wake Up, Eat, Sleep)

Approximate time

Activity

Goals for Consistent Wake-Up Time and

Morning wake-up time is approximately: _____________________

My child’s naptimes will be: ______________________________

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Bedtime (lights out) is: ______________

Specifi c Solutions We Will Use for Our Situation:

From page: _______ Section heading: __________________________________

Description of the idea and what we will do:

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30 Nap Magic

From page: _______ Section heading: _________________________________

Description of the idea and what we will do:

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From page: _______ Section heading: _________________________________

Description of the idea and what we will do:

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From page: _______ Section heading: _________________________________

Description of the idea and what we will do:

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From page: _______ Section heading: _________________________________

Description of the idea and what we will do:

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Create Your Sleep Logs and Your Nap Plan
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From page: _______ Section heading: _________________________________

Description of the idea and what we will do:

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A Persistent, Consistent Nap Plan

Brings Success

Changing your child’s naptime patterns can be a complicated

undertaking. There are so many different factors to consider that

the solutions aren’t always simple to identify or to apply. In addi-

tion, children grow and change along the way, and their sleep

needs change, too. In order to see the most pleasant and long-

lasting changes, you’ll want to follow these steps:

• Make a commitment to identify your child’s sleep issues.

Every child is different, so it is impossible to create a one-size-fi ts-

all nap solution. It takes detective work to clearly identify your

child’s sleep issues. The issues are also different for each parent,

and your needs must be taken into consideration as well.

• Find the right solutions.
Each family has its own philosophy

about life. You cannot blindly accept someone else’s prescribed

solution and expect it to work for you. It’s important to choose

solutions that suit your family, your beliefs, your child,
and
your

sleep needs.

• Organize solutions into a complete plan.
Reading about

good ideas is only the beginning. You must organize them into

a plan. Writing them down will be most helpful, so that you can

remember all the parts of your plan as you go through your day.

32 Nap Magic

• Follow your plan in total every day.
Making a grocery list

but then going out for a walk in the park won’t fi ll your refrigerator

any more than making a nap plan and leaving it in the book will

solve your sleep problems. Commit to following your plan, and

positive changes are inevitable.

• Be fl exible enough to make adjustments as necessary.
It’s

not always possible to make a perfect plan from the get-go. Some-

times it takes a few adjustments as you work through the ideas.

While you should give each idea enough time to settle, you should

also be looking to make adjustments along the way until you feel

that you’ve settled on your best solutions.

• Be realistic enough to have reasonable expectations.
It

takes time to experience change. Let’s face it, no matter how good

your plan is, there are times it will be impossible to follow—you’ll

be out at a birthday party past naptime, or your child will come

down with a cold. Don’t beat yourself up over these natural digres-

sions. Just dust yourself off and start anew. If you stay the path,

your child will be napping well in no time.

• Keep your perspective.
It isn’t always easy, but it is immensely

helpful to keep your perspective and maintain a feeling of joy. Nap

problems can take time to solve, but in the big picture of life, it is

but a blink. Children are little for a very short time, and parents of

older kids will tell you that these early years are the most magical

of childhood. The things you’ll remember most are the adorable

little antics, the sweet smiles, and the joy-fi lled pleasures of raising

a little one.

Pa r t 2

Newborn Babies

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Growing into a

Napping Rhythm

The actions we take with our newborn babies set the stage for

good napping habits later. Seemingly innocent caretaking pat-

terns can develop into barriers to good napping. To prevent prob-

lems from cropping up, treat your newborn’s daytime sleep hours

as precursors to future nap behavior. It helps to understand how

newborn napping rhythms develop and change so that you can

take the actions that set your child up for years of great napping

ahead.

The Nature of Newborn Sleep

Newborn babies sleep a lot, but here’s the challenge: they don’t

actually
nap
. Their fi fteen to eighteen hours of daily sleep are dis-

tributed evenly over four to seven brief periods—day and night.

Premature or sick babies will likely sleep more overall hours, but

they sleep for shorter spans, so they divide their sleep into six to

ten sleep periods.

Since we adults don’t break our own sleep into small chunks

throughout the day and night, our new babies’ sleep schedules

can appear strange. We want our babies to conform to a “normal”

pattern of sleep. But for your newborn, this haphazard pattern
is

normal. This pattern is the same as what your baby experienced

while in the womb, and it feels right to him. What he is experi-

encing is
normal newborn sleep
.

The term
newborn
does not have an exact defi nition. When it

comes to sleep, we’ll use the term
newborn
to include babies up to

four months old (for premature babies this is adjusted age—based

35

36 Newborn Babies

Professional-Speak

“Your baby’s nine months—or three trimesters—is a time

of unbelievably complex development. Nevertheless, it

takes most babies an additional three months to “wake up”

and become active partners in the relationship. This time

between birth and the end of your baby’s third month is