Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

This week’s question comes from Britney, and she writes:

“Our one-year-old started sleeping through the night at 11 months in her own crib. But during the day, she refuses to nap in her crib. Normally, she sleeps in my arms in the rocking chair for about an hour. How come she can go down great at night but fights her crib so hard during the day?”

Typically, naps can be more challenging that nights. There’s always much more protest at naptime than nighttime and it can take a few weeks for good habits to become established. The good news is that if she can do it at night those skills will eventually transfer to the daytime, but it can be a long process.

It’s probably not ideal for either of them that she’s napping in mom’s arms for that hour or so, and chances are that happens at least twice a day every day. That can be frustrating and time consuming for everyone involved. Ultimately if mom goes back to work or wants to spend a few days at grandma’s house, the baby will need to be comfortable enough to go down for naps on her own. We’d like grandma, a sitter or anyone to be able to put her down for a nap without a traumatic scene every time.

Since what she’s doing at night is working well, let’s recreate that routine as close as we can. Consider starting out by getting the baby in her jammies for the nap. Jammies are sort of a signal to a child that it’s time for sleep and are usually much more comfortable than what they’re wearing during the day. They can help settle them down and get them nice and comfy.

We’re recreating the nighttime bedtime routine and her jammies are signaling that “it’s sleepy time,” so let’s put her down in the crib. Make sure the room is nice and dark. A dark room can help stimulate sleep to occur and then keep them napping long enough.

Not knowing exactly what this mom did at night to get the baby sleeping in her own crib, I’d suggest the “stay-in-the-room” method at nap time as well. For the first couple of days you’re going to stay right next to the crib patting her on the back, gently touching her, laying her back down if you need to and repeating “its sleepy time.”

We want to give it a good solid try at this stage and by “solid try” I mean a good hour and ten minutes of waiting her out until she falls asleep. We don’t want the baby to think that by crying she can get out of the nap. You really want her to know that this is non-negotiable, that it is nap time and that this is really something that is going to happen.

As the days go on, you’ll slowly start to back your way out of the room. Move the chair back about five feet or so every three days until you’re eventually out of the room. The baby will become comfortable enough to go to sleep on her own and she’ll realize that although she may not prefer to take a nap in her crib, that it is something that is going to happen in her day.

What if you have a really bad “nap” day? You’ve tried for the hour and ten minutes and nothing is working; she just won’t fall asleep for a nap. Take a little break. Give the baby a snack to take her mind off of it for a bit then try again. If after thirty minutes she’s still not napping, you could offer either a ride in the car or in the stroller. When all else fails, those are two good alternatives to the crib at naptime that might make her sleepy.

What you don’t want to do is rock her in your arms until she falls asleep. A one year old will figure out within a day or two that if she continues crying, she’ll be taken out of the crib. We don’t want to teach her that you’ll eventually rock her in your arms if she cries long enough. And of course you certainly don’t want to yell or holler at the crib. That just upsets both of you even more.

Commit to two weeks of really giving this strategy your best efforts. At the end of the two weeks, you should see that progress is being made and that naps have started to come around; that your baby will indeed sleep well.