Having your child take a nap during the day is benefical to them and you: The child won’t be irratible because he is tired and the parent/carere gets a well earned short break.

The key is to have a routine and start young.

When they are babies, children will often sleep after being fed , as they will have a full tummy and clean ,dry nappy and naturally feel sleepy.

As they grow older it’s not always quite so easy to encourage a daytime nap; as there are lots of other more interesting things to do.

I would sit and cuddle my children while we watched a children’s television programme together before putting them down for a nap: This worked well as my son’s knew that the programme meant it was almost time for a nap.

When I was working as a registered child minder I took a different approach to nap time.

I would tell the child that after we had finished whatever we were doing, they would go upstairs for a nap. I learned that forewarning a child of a nap worked better than simpily telling them it’s time for a nap now.

The minded children would nap in a travel cot that was in my bedroom, I had a musical device that I wound up when they laid in the cot to help sooth them to sleep and I had a plug in baby monitor so that I could hear the child at all times, Some children had a dummy and occasionally a child would bring a favourite bedtime soft toy from home with them.

I also encouraged any older children who didn’t require a nap to take part in a ritual as part of the naptime routine. The older ones would say “night, night” to the child going for a nap ( even though it wasn’t technically night time). If there were no other children then the child would say it to my dog or even look out of the window to say it to the birds, or flowers ( you get the drift?).

Other ways to encourage a child to nap are to have dim lights and soft music or to read a story before taking a nap as a way to wind down.

A drive in the car or going for a walk in a pram/push chair will often send children to sleep, but you can bet on them waking again as soon as the motion stops!.

Read more on napping and bedtime routines here

Parents sometimes struggle with stopping their child from napping too as they get older and it interferes with night time sleep more on that here

As always questions and comments are welcome,

Until next time.

Karen

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