Scheduled naps

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Scheduled naps

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Parents often ask if it's really important to follow a strict nap schedule and keep naps at the same time. And the answer is if you're sleep training, it's extremely important to keep the naps exactly where they need to be. However, sleep training should take you 3 to 4 days. And so once you're finished with that, in everyday life, you're not going to be always perfect at timing your naps. However, you want to be conscious when your baby is starting to get tired that it's getting pretty close to a nap time. So I would look at intervals. And so, for instance, a 5 month old baby should go down two hours after they wake in the morning for nap one. Sleep, you know, roughly an hour plus or minus. And then two and a half hours later, go down for a nap two. Sleep their nap there. And two and a half hours later, go down for a nap three. Okay? So what you want to be conscious of is if your baby... if you're hitting two hours in the morning and you start to see the eye rubbing and yawning, you want to avoid them getting too overtired, which would potentially cause them to not sleep as well. So you want to be conscious of naps. You don't have to be a complete slave, but be conscious, and again if they don't nap well during the day, pull bedtime earlier that night.

Watch Video: Scheduled naps by Jill Spivack, LCSW, ...

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Jill Spivack, LCSW

Sleep Expert

Jill Spivack, LCSW, completed her graduate studies at the University of Southern California. She developed an expertise in parenting while working as a psychotherapist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Early Childhood Department. Jill, a mother of two children, went on to develop a sub-specialty in pediatric sleep disorders while working in New York City at a parenting center after experiencing sleep problems with her first child. In 1999, upon returning to Los Angeles, Jill co-founded the pediatric sleep firm Childsleep.

Recognizing that today's parents were lacking the essential support, education, and sense of community they sought to do their best, Jill was inspired to co-found Sleepy Planet.  Offering a wide variety of services, Sleepy Planet helps parents of babies, toddlers, and young children with behavioral sleep problems through private consultations, and provides parent education, psychotherapy, and professional presentations on a wide variety of topics, including the transition to parenthood, child development and behavior, sibling rivalry, marital issues, and how to balance work and family. In addition, Jill holds weekly groups for new and second-time mothers to allow parents to share experiences and emotions, ask questions, and support one another through the journey of parenthood. 

Jill is also the co-creator of The Sleepeasy Solution, a book and DVD that show parents how to break difficult sleep habits without breaking their hearts in the process.  She has been featured in a variety of media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, The Los Angeles Times, Parenting, Variety and has appeared numerous times on The Today Show. She is also a co-consultant for Pajanimals, a new television project with the Jim Henson Company airing on PBS Kids Sproutthat features four adorable puppets who model for preschoolers, the skills they need to manage the various emotions and issues that they confront in early childhood. 

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