There are so many decisions to make when you have a baby – and one of the big ones is whether or not to let them cry it out for naps. Letting your baby cry can be tough, but there are some things to keep in mind before you decide what’s best for your little one.

In this new parents guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about letting your baby cry it out for naps. Keep reading to learn more!

Methods of Getting Your Baby to Nap and Sleep

The excitement of becoming a parent is probably tempered as soon as you brought your infant home and found that as cute as they look, they require constant attention. Your pediatrician promised that at about six months they would start sleeping about eight hours at a stretch.

They did not specify which eight hours and you probably wonder how to make the same eight you got used to sleeping before you became a parent. You are also likely getting a lot of feedback on letting the baby cry it out for naps.

You blissfully recall, though vaguely, going to bed at a decent hour and getting up in the morning at a decent hour. You can reclaim this life. You only have to make it through the first six months to get there. Here is how.

Baby Development Phases

In their first month, babies sleep like cats. Your baby will randomly decide to go to sleep, and they will nap for an hour or two, then wake up hungry. Rather than meandering to their food bowl though, you must feed them. After the breast or bottle and a good burp, you lay them back down and they do baby stuff. This may be more sleeping or wiggling. That is pretty normal.

Although they sleep all day, you still need to start the bedtime you want them to keep from the start. You create a routine and stick to it. Consistency means everything.

Your infant may seem to just lie there and gurgle and coo, but their brain develops extremely quickly, especially in their first two years, so they are actually learning as they seem to just lie there. Teach them well that a standard bedtime matters and a standard waking time matters.

You might decide you want to keep your old bedtime, but you probably stayed up pretty late, at least for a newborn. While 10 pm is out, you can pick something like 7 pm or 8 pm. Start the bedtime ritual about an hour before actual shut eye needs to happen.

First, turn off the lights in various rooms while holding your infant. Next, take them for their bath. You bathe your baby at night just before bed to relax them and calm them. Dress them in their pajamas.

Lay them down in their bassinet or crib. Turn on either a sound machine with ambient noise such as ocean sounds, rainfall, or another nature noise. Keep the level of this soft. Another option is a musical baby mobile. It just needs to have a timer that lets it play the sound for at least 30 minutes.

Turn off the lights in their room. The room should be as dark as possible. The idea is to create an ideal sleeping environment.

As newborns, babies sleep 16 hours per day. That sounds like you would have lots of free time, but no. They sleep for up to four hours at a time, then wake up hungry. You feed. They sleep. They can manage to stay awake for one to two hours at a time, then they need more sleep.

Their tiny selves have yet to develop circadian rhythms. We are not born with that, we learn it. By training them from the day they come home that 8 pm is bedtime, you make things easier for yourself and them as they age.

Our natural circadian rhythms tell our bodies that they need eight hours of sleep and our brains, once developed, divide this into two distinct sleep cycles, each of about four hours in length. Four hours gives our bodies time to go through each sub-cycle of sleep, including dreaming.

Your baby may cry when you put them down at this age and only for the first month should you pick them up or console them. For the first month of birth, you can pick them up and rock them to help them fall asleep, pat them, or sing to them. (“Rockabye Baby” seems to be a universal, timeless favorite, as it “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?”)

You do this during these first five weeks, so the child develops a sense of safety. They begin to associate their safety with the bedroom, mom and dad, their bed, etc. Once they calm down and fall asleep, you leave the room and shut the door.

In months two and three, rather than pick them up and rock them, if they cry, you might rub their back or stomach, or pat them there. You still console them, but you begin transitioning them to go to sleep by themselves. This is when you start to transition to the cry it out for naps concept.

Starting at month four, if your baby cries when you lay them down, you check on them and comfort them with words only, then you leave the room. You can add a quick pat on the back if needed. Simply say, “I love you,” then pat their back or stomach and walk out of the room.

This is the hard part for new parents. You make a decision to either use the Ferber method or a limited Ferber method. At four months, you do one or the other and stick to it, or you resign yourself to having a child that cannot go to sleep without you. That negatively impacts your life and theirs.

The Ferber Method or Cry It Out for Naps and Bedtime

At four months, when you tell them “I love you,” and pat them on the back or stomach, then leave, you go and stay gone. You just do not return to the room until morning when it is time to get up. No matter how much they cry, you let them cry it out.

It may sound heartless, but it is not. This is part of their brain development and learning phase. They have to learn at four months to learn to go to sleep alone or they end up delayed in learning to go to sleep alone. As their brains develop, they learn new things.

The crying will not hurt them. Typically, they will cry for up to 30 minutes. They tire themselves out and get frustrated and go to sleep. This might repeat itself for a week or two, but once they adjust to the new situation, they adjust to life.

You have built their bedtime ritual, so you still bathe them before this, use the same sound machine, etc. All of the other things remain the same. With the Ferber method though, once you say goodnight or wish them, love, etc., you are done.

You probably have a walkie talkie in their room, also known as a baby monitor. You are not ignoring them. You simply turn the volume down and accept that them crying at this stage in life when laid down at night is totally and perfectly normal.

You get yourself ready for bed and get the eight hours’ sleep you need, so you can be a terrific parent. The Ferber method works the fastest in getting your child to go to sleep on their own. You might ask, “Does Ferber method work for naps, too?” Yes, it does.

The Limited Ferber Method or Limited Cry It Out for Naps and Bedtime

This method seems easier for some parents because they feel more like they are actively parenting by using it. Both work well though.

With limited Ferber, at four months when you lay them down and they cry, you leave the room after your “I love you” and pat. You let them cry for five minutes, then you walk back in the room and pat or stroke them and say, “good night” or “It’s alright. Go to sleep now.” You walk back out.

If they are still crying ten minutes later, you go back and console them once again with a simple pat on the back or stomach and a kind word. You leave and only return 15 minutes later if they still cry.

As soon as they stop crying, you are done returning to the room until morning when it is time to get up. Every time you leave, you shut the door. You are teaching them how to appropriately go to sleep alone and how to behave appropriately.

Other Considerations

At about one year of age, your baby will stop napping in the morning. Their sleep needs to begin adjusting at this point. Some parents adjust the afternoon nap and bedtime by moving each forward a half an hour to reduce crankiness in an overly tired child.

Other parents do not need to do this because their child’s body develops more quickly, and they develop an adjusted rhythm. Your child’s behavior will let you know what to do.

You can help your newborn sleep better by swaddling them, so their arms and legs are not free to flail and kick while sleeping. These movements, called the MORO reflex, occur involuntarily while an infant sleeps and can become so rough that it wakes them. By swaddling them, you reduce this so their limbs cannot move that way.

Keep their room temperature at 68F. This optimum temperature helps your child go to sleep faster and remain comfortable while they sleep.

Try muslin baby blankets or pajamas so you can help your baby stay comfortable and cool. Sleepsacks like the Love to Dream Swaddle Up can help since they use a cool fabric that you can tuck tightly. In colder climates, try the Baby DeeDee Sleep Sack.

Schedule their naps, too. Stick to the schedule. You get free time when they sleep, so it is to your advantage to put them on a strict schedule from the beginning. Start the day that you bring them home for optimum training. If you start later than that, these methods will still work, it will just take longer.

When you start the day, you bring them home, their hunger decides when feeding times occur, but you decide the rest. Build a ritual without the bath component for their naps. Decide when you want nap time to happen. Chances are, during the first month, they will sleep when not eating.

Accept this but build in rituals to encourage napping and so the child links their bassinet or crib with sleep. Always turn the room lights off and turn on the sound machine or mobile when you lay them down to sleep. They should associate this with sleeping.

Once they establish circadian rhythms, you can set the nap and bedtime schedule. Choose the bedtime you want and work backward from there. If you want 8 pm as their bedtime, they need an afternoon nap of at least an hour. Subtract four hours from 8 pm.

They would wake from their nap at 4 pm, so they would need to go to sleep at 3 pm. You will need to put them down for a nap at about 2:45 pm. To determine the morning nap time, you subtract four hours from 3 pm. That means they would wake up at 11 am, so their nap time is 10 am. You put them down at 9:45 am. You have a nap schedule of 10 am, 3 pm, and a bedtime of 8 pm. That gives you time for coffee and laundry in the morning.

Create a Walmart, Target, or Schwan’s grocery delivery order on one day of the week, in the afternoon, and time to fold laundry. Once they get older and you place them in daycare or with an au pair so they can return to work, they have established sleep patterns that make them the ideal charge. In the meantime, you get a break, some time for yourself

Conclusion

In conclusion, you should cry it out for naps because you are teaching your baby how to sleep alone and how to appropriately go to bed. With a strict schedule, you can also get some free time for yourself.

Swaddling can help your baby sleep better, and you should keep their room temperature at 68F. Try muslin baby blankets or pajamas to help your baby stay comfortable and cool. Finally, make sure to schedule their naps!