Why I ResCue Naps
Why I Rescue Naps (and recommend that you do too)
Traditional Sleep Training: Crib 60/90
It is commonplace in the sleep-consulting world, for parents to receive the instruction to practice a “crib 60” or “crib 90”. What this means is that at your child’s scheduled nap time you are instructed to put your child down for his nap (usually awake, so that he can “fall asleep independently”) and then leave him there for 60 or 90 minutes. You leave him there if he cries, you leave him there if he plays, you leave him there short of him climbing out of his crib! The idea behind this practice is that your baby will eventually fall asleep independently and learn to put himself back to sleep independently. The mission is to consolidate naps, by letting your baby “work it out” for the full 60 to 90 minutes. This is often prescribed for every nap of the day, and you will likely be told to use this method consistently for a full month, before you switch up the schedule or try something new.
Holistic Sleep Coaching: Rescue that Nap!
Within my practice, I do not use this method. While we do work on naps (usually within the second week of my packages), I suggest parents use the sleep shaping methods we are practicing for only about 20 minutes. If the baby is becoming hysterical, the parent is becoming stressed, or it’s just not working for the time being, I tell parents to stop and soothe their baby to sleep any way that works. In addition, if a baby goes to sleep great but wakes up crying 30 minutes later, I ask that the parent go in and soothe the baby back to sleep or rescue the nap with a contact nap when possible. After trying to rescue the nap for about 15 minutes, if that sweet baby is still wide awake, parents can go ahead and get them up from their nap. Practice is done.
Benefits of Rescuing Naps
Rescuing naps saves baby from being overtired. If you are changing up your child’s sleep habits you are asking them to do something pretty hard already! We don’t want them working on new skills while also being exhausted. Imagine going to work after barely getting any sleep for the night (er um maybe you don’t have to imagine that…), it feels pretty awful! Baby will have more success with nighttime sleep, if she’s not going to bed overtired. The same is true for her next nap opportunity. Over-tiredness is the enemy of sleep progress.
Letting baby get hysterical is counter-productive. If your baby wakes up in the night or early from a nap, giving them a little time to work it out can be a great tool. But, it requires parents to be attuned with their child’s cry and understand the difference between an “I’m annoyed you’re not holding me cry” and a “I’m in fear of my life” cry. We also would not want to let baby cry for 30, 60, 90 minutes! We want to avoid the amygdala going into fight or flight mode and labeling nap time and the crib space as a threat. Once your baby’s brain starts to associate the naptime with stress instead of calm, it can be a very difficult thing to overcome. Your baby will also be producing cortisol, which keeps the body wired, rather than calming it down. If your baby is getting hysterical go ahead and soothe them back to sleep already! It won’t break them; I promise! The association we want to create with their safe sleep space is of calm and sleepiness, not stress and wakefulness.
Helping them Get their Full Nap Keeps their Schedule Intact. For the most part I use wake-windows when working with clients on naps rather than concrete schedules (although every now and then a concrete schedule is a good solution). This means you would put your baby down for their next nap after a developmentally appropriate window of awake time has passed. So, if we let baby cry for 40 minutes of their nap in order to “teach them how to consolidate their nap”, that means they are spending 40 minutes of their wake window in their crib crying, and we will have to put them down for their next nap much earlier than usually, throwing off their entire schedule and moving bedtime earlier. Earlier bedtimes can lead to early morning wake-ups, and it can become a vicious cycle very quickly. When we rescue a nap, we are helping to regulate their schedule, and protecting bedtime.
Ensuring your baby gets their nap helps set their internal clock. This one is very much linked to reason #3. When we ensure a baby gets a good nap around the same window of time each day, we are helping set their internal clock, so that their body begins to understand “at this time of day we sleep”. If your baby is spending that time crying, rather than sleeping, their internal clock is getting an entirely different message.
It feels better to my heart. Not least of all, a wonderful benefit to rescuing the nap is that is feels a heck of a lot better than letting your baby cry for extended periods of time. Your attitude and energy towards your baby’s sleep MATTERS. I cannot stress this enough. Listening to your baby become hysterical most likely spikes your adrenaline and drives you towards hysteria as well; when you do “check-in” on your baby, they sense that there is reason to be afraid; they can feel that mommy herself is panicked. Instead of going into what I like to call “the red zone”, feel free to work on sleep-shaping techniques that do not bring your baby (or you!) to hysterics, and if they aren’t working at the 20 minute mark; take a deep breath, remember that this is not a life or death situation, and support your baby to sleep in a way that works.
Nap FAQ’s
But what if my baby always fights sleep? If your baby is always fighting sleep then you are either using the wrong wake windows, or your baby is experiencing an underlying factor that is keeping them from getting comfortable or calm enough to fall asleep within the correct windows. These are both things we can work on inside of a Holistic Coaching Package.
But doesn’t rescuing the nap keep my baby from learning to self soothe? Babies can't self-soothe from a state of dysregulation (most adults can’t even do that). They need loving adults to co-regulate with. Once your baby is calm, they will be able to fall asleep with your support, or perhaps even independently as you practice independent sleeping skills. Your baby’s naps will naturally consolidate, when it is developmentally realistic, wake windows are correct, they feel calm in their sleep space, and they feel confident that a responsive caregiver is nearby.
Why does my baby only cat-nap? Depending on the age of your infant a cat-nap, or a nap that is 45 minutes or less, may be developmentally appropriate. Sometimes a baby that has been contained much of the day (think carseat, to high chair, to bouncer seat) might also take shorter naps, so prioritize that floor time! A baby that is put down outside of their wake window (either undertired or overtired) is also likely to wake early from a nap.
My baby goes down independently for night time sleep, and sleeps well, why are naps so much harder? Daytime sleep is naturally more difficult because once sunlight hits your baby’s eyes they begin to produce cortisol which boosts wakefulness, whereas in the evening they begin to produce melatonin which boosts sleepiness. Daily sounds and sunlight filtering into their sleep space may cause distractions, and depending on the activities of the day they may be more or less wired than usual. Simply put, naps are just trickier! Have you ever laid down for a nap and realized you were never going to fall asleep? Your baby struggles with this as well. It makes sense that your baby would need more support for naps than night time sleep.
Nap Support
Naps can be tricky! But, your child can get on a regular nap schedule and consolidate their daytime sleep for longer, more quality naps. If you aren’t sure where to begin, book a discovery call today, so that I can share how a holistic approach to naps might be the solution you are looking for.
