Napping is an adjunct to sleeping. It is not a substitute. Babies need both. If your baby didn't sleep well last night, a good nap today is an essential. A good nap is an essential under any circumstances until she's three or older. But don't think she can readily get by regularly with a few hours of sleep a night because she is napping well during the day. Your baby needs both naps and night sleep.

The patterns of REM sleep and non-REM sleep are different when sleeping at night than they are when sleeping by day, which tells us that the sleep derived from a nap is in some ways different from the sleep we get at night. Though both are important and one can help make up for the lack of the other, neither is a real replacement for the other. Your baby needs both. You need to see that he gets them.

Adult Naptime

For a while, until he learns to sleep at night and stay awake by day, you may need to do some of your sleeping by day as well. If you have a toddler at home or if you're already back to work at an outside job, this may be difficult. Even if you're a stay-at-home parent or still out on maternity leave from your job and you have no other children, the doorbell and phone may preclude your getting all the sleep you need by day. Just get as much sleep as you can by night and as much napping as you can by day, take turns with your spouse in staying up at night with the baby when necessary, and get through it as best you can.

Dealing with Naptime in a Family Bed

Naptime is another time when a family bed baby may insist on your lying down with her before she'll go to sleep. If you've been yawning and feeling drowsy, longing for a nap for quite some time yourself, lying down for a snooze with Baby may be just the most appealing thing.

But if you have a toddler to watch, a mound of ironing you want to get out of the way while Baby is safely out of reach of the iron, or dinner to get started, you may not want to spend from one to three hours asleep on the bed. Even if you do take a nap yourself, it's likely to not last the duration of your baby's nap. Some family bed parents solve this problem by putting their baby to sleep for her nap in her swing or even in her car seat, in whatever room the mom or dad is in. Is it a perfect solution? No. Is it a workable solution? Yes. Will it work for you, if you have a family bed sleeping arrangement? Try it and find out.