If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcription of the video…

This week’s question comes from Carmen. She writes:

“I’m glad that my baby is such a great sleeper, but it’s horrible when she won’t fall asleep anywhere else. On special family occasions, my family only sees a cranky, overtired baby who’s not happy because she’s tired… but she refuses to nap at anyone else’s house. What can I do?”

And you know, I hear that question a lot, and I can sympathize. I think it can be a little bit confining if you have a great sleeping baby but they only sleep great when they’re in their own crib. But you know, have a look at it from a different perspective in that, I only sleep really great in my own bed. You know, I find when I travel or I sleep over at someone’s house I very rarely have a very solid, decent night’s sleep. So I think we all tend to sleep better in our own beds. But that just is the way it is, and it makes total sense when you think about it from that perspective.

And so when my children were still napping, I really tried hard to plan our day around the nap, and certain days it was tougher than others. If there’s more than one nap a day it’s a little bit confining. But you know, I’d always ask myself, “Do I want to be at Gymboree with a baby who’s cranky and wanting to nap, trying to have fun with her, or would I rather her be at home taking a decent nap and then maybe we go to the park instead, at a different time?”

And you know, there’s nothing worse, in my opinion, than sitting through a class or you know, exercise class or slim-and-taught class with a cranky baby who’s rubbing her eyes and indicating clearly that she’s tired, but you’re trying to have fun. You know, it’s not very fun.

And so, I agree that it can be little constricting, but one thing to think about, Carmen, is sometimes the more you practice with a baby, meaning if you took your playpen along and at naptime you set that up in a quiet room and if you went in with her and did a bit of a routine together and put her down, the more you did that the better she would get.

I can remember doing that a lot with especially my first child, especially at evening functions if we were going to be late. I took my playpen along, and off we went. We did a bit of the routine and then into his playpen until we were ready to go home. And he became very good at that and he would pretty much sleep anywhere. It just required some practice.

I do know, however, that at daycares and such, my children never napped as well as they did at home, and you know, that was something I just had to learn to live with, and knew that they napped at least a little bit so that on the days they were home they napped better. And that’s just the way it was.

So, I would encourage you to do a little planning. Spontaneity is not something that most people can have when they have children, so it might take a little pre-planning to decide, you know, okay, what are we going to do when it’s naptime? Even a stroller – I mean, you can always use the stroller if you just have to step out and go around the block a few times so she’ll fall asleep in the stroller if that’s what you have to do on the rare occasions you’re out. I mean, that’s just life. I’m not suggesting everyone stay home and never go anywhere. If you’re out and about once or twice a week, and it’s naptime and she falls asleep in the car or you have to use the stroller, that’s okay, and you know, sort of an 80/20 rule you can adopt on that.

So thanks for your question Carmen, and sleep well!