Why Won't You Sleep?! Adoption and Sleep Part 3: Naps

Sleep issues are so common in children who are adopted, in foster care, or have experienced trauma, and they can be really tough to work through! I'm sharing what has worked well for us, though every child is different so what helped our daughter might not help your child. Part 1 discussed the challenges with falling asleep, Part 2 discussed the challenge he's with staying asleep, and the last puzzle piece was naps.

Naps

Naps were a challenge even while we were in India with her, and there are definitely things I wish I did differently. We just sort of stumbled along and managed through India, but then we came home and Geoff went back to work almost immediately, and I was left home alone all day with a child who frankly, didn't like me very much. So come afternoon, mama needed a break. She never loved nap time, but tolerated it if someone was with her. I started off lying down with Vennela and sneaking out once she fell asleep, but she quickly caught onto that and threw a huge tantrum whenever it was nap time. She also became hyper-vigilant and would wake up as soon as I moved, making it sometimes impossible to sneak out. This wore on my already thin patience, and for the most part it was just a battle until she went to preschool and we only had two days to try to get her to nap at home instead of seven. Looking back, I wish I had come up with some more creative ways to manage nap time while I was home with her instead of just butting heads with her every day. Next time I would try bringing some books or audiobooks into her room so I could have some entertainment after she fell asleep. I'd also just let go of the idea that I needed to be productive and clean during that time, knowing that it was only six short weeks we were home together, not forever, and the house could be messy and no one would die. If I had just let it be a break instead, and stayed in her room with her, we both would have been more rested. 

Even once she was in preschool, it wasn't a magical fix, and she still hated nap time. Napping on weekends continued to be a battle, full of many tears, until we thought of a new approach. We told her that from now on, she would have a choice after lunch, she could either choose to nap, or have "quiet time." We explained that quiet time meant she could look at books in her bed, and didn't have to lie down or sleep. The two rules were she had to stay in bed, and only books were allowed in the bed, no toys. Given that the alternative was napping, she was quickly on board with quiet time. There were still some meltdowns because she didn't like being "alone" in her room, but we stayed where she could see us at first, and if she still had too hard of a time, we would come in but say she had to lie down and nap with us. 

This approach worked out really well because she definitely liked it better than napping- but 95% of the time, she ended up falling asleep anyway. On those rare days she didn't nap, we usually found that she made it through the day okay without one, so we figured if she didn't nap, she didn't need it. As time went on and it appeared she didn't need to nap as often (and as we tried to improve her ability to fall asleep, as noted in parts 1 and 2) we gave her more freedom and allowed her to play anywhere in her room for quiet time. We still do this, and she rarely naps, but on occasion when she's tired she'll end up crawling into bed (or as above, any comfy spot!) and will take a nap.

So this is what worked for us, there's no magic bullet for the variety of ways kids can make sleep terrible, but with some creative thinking there are a lot of solutions to try!