naptime (i.e. yet another sleep post)

The other day, a friend marveled at our kid's napping abilities and told me how lucky we were.  It made me start thinking about how this happened.  Because for months, I feel like all I did was complain about nap issues and how poorly our kid did it.  So, for anyone interested, I've put together some tips on raising a good napper.  These tips have worked well for me, and you know me, always sharing my hard-earned wisdom. 

• Create a regular naptime routine. For us, having regular naptimes never really worked, but what did was to have a general routine. About 2 hours after waking up, Diya was tired, so I would immediately start putting her down for her nap. At first, it wasn’t quite 2 hours (more like an hour and a half, and since she breastfed for ONE HOUR, it didn’t leave a lot of time to do much else after). And as she grew older, her periods of awake time lengthened, and her feeding times shortened.
• Stick with it. Always. No matter what. Our kid liked being swaddled and rocked, so that’s what we did. She could already have fallen asleep randomly on my boob or on someone’s shoulder, but still, we’d change her diaper, swaddle, and put back down (even if it meant waking her up in the process). Nowadays, she likes the sleep sack and her lovey blanket. We wouldn’t dream of putting her to sleep without it, and I’ve actually gone back home when I’ve shown up to daycare without it.
• Avoid leaving the house during naptimes. No naps in the car or stroller.
• Avoid feeding just before sleep, to reduce the chances of the kid waking up early with poop in her butt.
• Avoid visiting people that live more than 20 minutes away, since there is no chance of you being able to go, visit, then come back within the awake period.
• Encourage people to visit you instead but tell them to keep their voices down so as to not wake the baby prematurely from her nap.
• Also make sure they text you when they arrive instead of ringing the doorbell, so as to avoid the dogs going crazy and waking the baby up prematurely.
• Start eating dinner at 4 so as to get the baby to bed early (that’s not a nap tip, just a general bedtime tip).
• Avoid leaving the house after 4 for the same reason as above.
• Generally figure you will have no life after the baby is born until about 7-8 months when the naps are set in place. Then only plan on having a life in 2-3 hour increments (maybe 4 once the child is a bit older) so as to not interfere too drastically with the established nap schedule.
• After that allow for periods of adjustment as nap needs change (from 3 naps to 2, 2 to 1). Restructure your life accordingly.
• Brag about your child’s excellent nap habits to any existing friends over email and on your blog (unless they live within 20 minutes of you, in which case you may be able to brag in person).
• Wait for your child to become a teenager.