Naptime Struggles with Aly Dabbs: Podcast Episode #265
Kristin Revere and Aly Dabbs discuss how dropping naps too soon can affect sleep at night in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast. Aly gives tips on how parents can push through this phase. She is the founder of Restful Baby and has a podcast called Aly, The Restful Mama.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Aly Dabbs today. Our topic is all about toddler naps. Aly is a wife and mama to two wildly curious boys and lives in the Nashville area. She graduated from Center from Pediatric Sleep Management in September 2023 and started her business, Restful Baby, in February 2024. Aly hired a sleep consultant with her firstborn and saw firsthand the benefits of teaching her baby to sleep independently. When pregnant with her second, Aly kept feeling this pull to help other moms navigate a time that feels really, really hard and often isolating. Through working with families, watching her own toddler grow, and taking continuing education classes, Aly has developed a love for all things toddler sleep. It is her passion to help exhausted toddler moms work through those big toddler emotions, to get their child to sleep through the night, and in their own bed. Her approach is to lead with love and take this dreaded thing – bedtime and naptime – and turn it into something fun.
Since starting her business, Aly has learned a ton about networking with local businesses, marketing herself on social media, and has also launched her own podcast, Aly, The Restful Mama.
Welcome, Aly!
Hi! Thanks for having me! I’m so excited!
Yes! This chat is so important. Even the doulas on my team – and we have four sleep consultants at Gold Coast – struggle with getting their toddlers to nap. It’s those battles that continue when you’re dealing with a newborn and trying to get naptime in an established routine. I would love to hear your thoughts on navigating that very important naptime for toddlers.
Absolutely. Naps can be so tricky. They’re a little bit more complex and a whole thing in and of itself. I think it’s such a great topic.
Absolutely! And I know that naptime effects sleep time, and so it’s important to continue that, even if you’re getting some resistance from your toddler.
Yes. Especially those two-year-olds that have the whole fear of missing out. It’s a real thing for these little guys, and they can really start to fight naps and not want to miss out on anything. Moms, it’s just a phase. We have to push through.
Yes! So where to begin, Aly? I would love your tips.
So a lot of moms – and I do work primarily with toddlers, even though I do help the little ones, but the season of this summer, I’ve worked with a lot of moms who are expecting second babies. They are realizing that sleep is going to be a lot harder once they have maybe a toddler who’s fighting naps and having issues at bedtime, and then they’re going to have a new baby and starting all of the middle of the night wakes and feedings. The exhaustion multiplies, so they have those feelings and fears, and they want to get sleep in a better place before a new baby comes. So I’ve been working with a lot of soon to be second time moms wanting to get sleep in a better place for their toddlers, whether they’re dealing with inconsistent naps or fights at bedtime. For naps for the toddlers, it is so common for a two-year-old to start protesting, resisting, fighting, having big emotions, about naptime. For all of those reasons: not wanting to miss out, feeling like they really don’t want to sleep. And a lot of moms are like, okay, my toddler is done napping. We made it to two years.
Right. I see it on social media all the time. It’s like, okay, my kid said they’re done today. Naptime is not a thing anymore.
Yes, and I think the statistic is that 2.5% of two year olds are napping, but they don’t need to, and then it’s really the 97.5% are more like four to five years old. Naps come up a lot, and I always tell my moms, really try to get it to four. If you’re getting those nap strikes at two, it’s just a phase. Keep going. You can get to the other side and naps will get in a better place. Those are some things that I work with my families on, whether it’s just a nap strike or just getting naps more consistent. And then I have some tips and tricks, too, for when it is time to drop the nap closer to four or even five. Some kids continue to nap later into life, which is awesome. Keep the nap as long as possible. But then there are some transition tips for when it is time to drop a nap and getting some quiet time in replacement of that nap as well.
That is so important, even for those three to four year olds where the mom wants to rest when baby is during the day and there isn’t a set naptime and the child’s got a very short daycare or preschool phase and may be home during naptime.
Oh, yes. I think it’s probably harder sometimes for the stay at home moms because if they’re there and their toddler is fighting naps, they maybe kind of give up or they assume, okay, my child is done napping. Or they spend an hour or two trying to get them to nap, and then naptime is past, versus daycare having a little bit more structure. And toddlers are so much like monkey see, monkey see. If the other kids are laying down, even if they have some trouble with naptime – because I have worked with daycares, too, to help with that – but they maybe are more likely to lay down just like the other kids are, where they maybe don’t do that at home, right?
Absolutely, yes. As you mentioned, it’s more of that imitation, and if that’s the routine at daycare and there’s not that structure at home, then even on weekends, those routines that are established may go away unless following the patterns of the daycare is something that’s done in the household.
Yes, and through sleep training, whether with the little ones or the toddlers, my big push is consistency, right? We want to make sure that we’re being consistent on all fronts, and that way the toddler knows what to expect. If you’re maybe enforcing it one day and not the next, it can be a little confusing and probably frustrating for the child and for the parent, if I’m being honest.
Yes, I totally agree, Aly. And what are your thoughts on the theory that if you eliminate the toddler nap during the day, that they will sleep longer at night?
You will very likely find an overtired toddler who missed their nap, is super fussy, extra cranky, giving you a hard time at dinner or right before bed, or the toddler who gets the second wind and is doing the zoomies all over the house right before bedtime, running around like a crazy person, because they’re just so tired that they really can’t function anymore. You are more likely to start seeing pushback at bedtime, fighting bedtime harder, or maybe your toddler normally sleeps through the night pretty well, but now they’re waking up throughout the night or super early in the morning, and it seems so backwards, but when your child is overtired, it’s more disruptive to sleep, and you start seeing other disturbances and early morning wakeups, middle of the night wakeups, or the overall bedtime fight because they’re just too tired. And I know it seems so backwards. I hear a lot of moms or grandparents say oh, the child is going to sleep so well tonight because I ran them so hard at the park. They didn’t take a nap. They’re going to be exhausted! And in my head, whenever I hear that, I’m like, oh, no, it’s going to be a long night. Even for my own mom, when she takes my three year old and maybe he takes a shorter nap or she skips it and then they go do all these things and have so much fun and she’s like, oh, he’s going to sleep great tonight – and in my head I’m thinking, it’s going to be a long night.
Exactly. That is the truth! The theory that if you skip it or tire them out, that it’s going to be an easy night, it’s not reality at all.
Right. So kind of my tips for if you have the two year old or three year old who’s fighting nap – again, push through. Hold on to that nap. Keep going. Working on your nap routine, making sure it’s consistent with a mini version of what you do at bedtime. I really like the Hatch sound machine because it has a light feature that you can use and you can change it from your phone. So kind of like the OK to Wake clocks, if you’re familiar with that, the light is red overnight while you’re supposed to be sleeping, and then in the morning when you’re able to get up and leave the bedroom, the light turns green. I use kind of a modified version of that for naptime, kind of like the stoplight, where when the light is red, you need to be actively laying down trying to sleep. And then the light can change to yellow, maybe 30 or 45 minutes into to the nap, and then for another 15 to 30 minutes, the light turns yellow. At that point, the toddler can get out of bed. They can play with some quiet, approved toys in the bedroom that you’ve already discussed with your toddler. Maybe take out anything really loud or crazy that they have, and they can maybe do a puzzle or play with some blocks. My toddler can’t read yet, but he picks up his books and kind of pretends that he’s reading, and he’ll kind of remember stories that we’ve told him based on the book. Have some of those things that they can do quietly for the allotted time while the light is yellow. And then when the light turns green, they’re able to get up, leave the room, and play. Naptime is over. And that’s the bigger thing when we’re transitioning away from naps and still having quiet time because even if your toddler is four and they drop a nap, 12 to 13 hours in a day is a long time without any rest for your toddler, especially when they’re used to having that nap. So from napping even an hour a day to nothing can be really hard and you can have those fussy, cranky evenings. Whereas if you start implementing quiet time, even after they are old enough to drop that nap, it can kind of help get you through the rest of the day. And so when you have that two or three year old that’s fighting it, if we are working on getting naps more consistent or pushing through that nap strike, we’re going to be following kind of the same steps that we’re doing in maybe a sleep plan overnight, but if they’re really fighting it, I would much rather you implement the quiet time than skip it altogether.
That makes complete sense. So what other tips do you have for families who are trying to navigate the stressful time – or if there’s a caregiver in the house, say an au pair or a nanny – how do you work with families where other people need to implement the daytime and overnight plans?
Great question. My answer for both would be communication. One of the reasons that I absolutely love working with toddlers is because they can communicate with you. They can be involved in the decision making. They can really get into the process, whether it’s overnight, fixing bedtime, or working through nap problems. You can really get them on board and involved in such a different way than we can with the little babies who are working through sleep training. And same with day care or nannies or maybe grandparents are helping out. I find that a lot of times, people really want to help. If you go to your daycare provider and you let them know, hey, this is kind of what we’re going through. This is what we’re working on at home. More times than not, they are on board and they want to help you. They want to do the same things that you’re doing at home or tell you what they’re doing there so you can kind of mimic what they’re doing a little bit.
Same with a nanny coming into your home. I think communication goes a really long way and letting them know what you’re working on and why it’s so important. Same with the little kids. My big push is, every time I work with a family with toddlers, I want every family that I work with to call a family meeting. Let the child know what’s expected at bedtime or naptime and why it’s so important. I send little videos to the toddlers that I work with. They’re like, “Hi, I’m Aly. I’ve been working with your Mommy.” I talk about why sleep is so important for your body and all of these things, and they really, really get into it. That gets them really excited about it, and then you’re also talking to them about it in a positive way. You can make it really fun. You can have it where they send videos to grandparents after naptime to say, “I waited for my light to turn green,” or whatever it is that you’re working on. And then when that goal is reached, celebrate it. Let them call grandparents. Let them call aunts and uncles. If they’re in daycare, they can tell their teacher in the morning. Whatever it is. If you’re working with a sleep trainer and they do send videos back and forth like me – I love getting videos back from my toddlers, especially when they’re so excited because they’ve reached that goal. It’s a big deal for them.
Absolutely. I love that you mentioned grandparents, Aly, because grandparents are often caregivers now that we’re in this childcare shortage. And with inflation, it’s hard to afford childcare. So it can be challenging for grandparents who are used to parenting a certain way to follow your individual family goals that may differ from even their other children and how their other grandkids sleep or don’t handle naptime, for example.
Absolutely. I’ve definitely worked with families who had the maybe over-opinionated mother-in-law who says, you know, we didn’t do this whenever I was raising your husband or whatever. Or their own moms are like, well, you didn’t sleep like that. You were fine. Look how you turned out. But again, I think talking to them and kind of meeting them where they are – and I know people are different, but more times than not, I think that people are really on board with helping, especially if they know why. If you tell them, look, my little guy is waking up seven times a night, even if only briefly. They’re getting up out of bed and they’re coming into my room. I’m just so tired. We really have to work through this, and even if it’s going to be a week or two weeks of a push, we’re going to come out on the other side and let them know, like, hey, this is temporary.
And I’m not the sleep consultant who’s super rigid and strict. Nothing has to be so serious. I’m all about having fun with it. A lot of moms come to me and they’re like, you know, I want to do this, but I want to be able to still have my toddler in my bed with me sometimes. I want to still be able to snuggle with my baby. And I am all for that. I think when those are the exceptions, that’s different than the norm. And we can get sleep in a better place, and then every now and then, you can still have those fun nights, or maybe when it’s storming or a little one is sick or maybe a family fun night where we watched a movie and we’re going to stick you in bed with us just because.
Yeah, absolutely. So what is the benefit to working with a sleep consultant or coach like yourself versus reading a book or going through a program that is not customized the way you’re talking about meeting individual needs and so on?
Oh, my gosh, great question. So for all of the information out there on Google – there is a million things. You can type in one question about your little one’s sleep, and you’re going to get a million different answers, a bunch of different ways to treat that issue. It can be really overwhelming. You’re maybe asking your girlfriends what worked with their kiddos. You’re in Facebook mom groups kind of stalking all the questions and trying to find the answers. But every kid is different, so what worked for your best friend or another mom in a Facebook mom group might not work for yours. And then for those generic sleep plans – you can type into Google a sleep plan for a six month old, and something is going to come out. They’re going to spit out something. But what if you are the working mom, and that sleep plan says your baby wakes up at 7:30, but you have to be out of the house by 6:45? That now has skewed the whole schedule. That doesn’t work for you. If it has these nap schedules but daycare doesn’t do that – Google doesn’t take into account what you’re going through. It also doesn’t take into account what sleep issues you have, and more importantly, what sleep goals do you have. What are you wanting to achieve out of this? I can come up with a sleep plan based on age, but my number one is, I want to know that mom or dad’s sleep goals. What are they actually working towards? Because if I give them a sleep plan – yeah, it will get your baby sleeping, but maybe you had something more specific in mind that you’re really, really wanting to focus on those 5:30 a.m. wakeups or you’re still breastfeeding and you want to be able to do that through the night, which I am all for. Those custom sleep plans really get to the heart of what are you going through, and what does your child respond to? I worked with two kiddos this summer, different families, same age, a boy and a girl, and we worked on different things. I really try to get what motivates the toddler and then going more towards, let’s have fun with it. Let’s get them involved. Let’s see what they respond to.
The little boy, he was working towards being able to go get a Build A Bear. He had a sticker chart, and he working towards earning a bear. And he went to Build A Bear and he got to pick out his stuffed animal. He was telling all the workers that he learned how to sleep in his own bed – because he was sleeping on the couch with mom and then being moved into mom and dad’s bed after he fell asleep. He was so excited, and I got videos all the time for him. He was really, really into.
At the same time, the little girl I was working with, same age, she told her mom that she could throw that sticker chart in the trash. She didn’t want it. She didn’t need any more toys. We switched gears. We were working on the OK to Wake for sleeping in because she was getting up at 4:45 every morning, and we were trying to get that closer to 6:30. We were going to do it where she had a date with Mom. They could go have a pancake breakfast or something, just the two of them. But she was like, I spend enough time with you. She was not into any of these little rewards that we were coming up with. So we had to really get creative: what does she want? What will she respond to where she’s going to work towards that? And we figured it out. It was pretty funny. But it just goes to show you that kids respond differently. They work towards things differently. They have different motivators. They’re just all so different and so special.
They are! So now I’m invested – what was her motivator?
Candy. It was so funny. I pulled out all the stops for this little girl. They were so funny. They were cracking me up. But we did Bedtime Passes, so she would get so many Bedtime Passes at night, and then if she kept them, however many – let’s say she had three Bedtime Passes. If she got up in the middle of the night, Mom would take one of her Bedtime Passes away. Then if she still had one or two in the morning, she could trade them in for something. She didn’t care about it. She was getting up all the time. So I was like, give her extra Bedtime Passes – the goal being we want her to be successful. We want her to win. We don’t want her to go all night and not have any because we want her to learn that if she keeps a pass, she gets something – for a temporary basis as she’s working towards later sleep. So we shifted it to candy because the mom says she really likes sweets. And I was like, well, if you’re okay with her having maybe some M&Ms in the morning, let’s just try it. And this little girl – we told her the night before. She had her Bedtime Passes. She knew what she was going to get if she kept them. She kept every single one of them. She didn’t get up one time. And then when her light turned green, she ran out of her room, and she was like, I get candy!
Oh, so funny! I love it. And I also think it’s so unique that you’re in the thick of it with your own kids, so you can be so relatable to your clients.
Yeah, we have a one year old and a three year old, both boys, so it has been neat kind of being back in the baby days and everything with multiple naps and following wake windows and all of that. We finally got him down to one nap a day, so they nap kind of together. Whereas before, my baby would nap twice a nap, so from 10:30 to 12:00, and then my toddler would go down, and when my toddler would wake up, the baby would go down for a nap. Every day, one of my children were napping. It was like we didn’t leave the house. We couldn’t do anything because we really don’t want to mess up naptime. It felt crazy. I’m so glad that now they’re kind of napping once a day at the same time, and it’s really opened up some of that time for us to go and do things again.
That’s perfect. So any final tips for our listeners, Aly?
What I tell every single mom is give yourself some grace. It is super hard. Mom life is insane, and it’s amazing and wonderful and beautiful, but it’s also very challenging. You question yourself, and you’re always wanting to be the best. And you are. You are the best person, the best mom for your kid. Lean into that, and it will all be okay.
Agreed. Great advice! So how can our listeners find you?
The easiest way is Instagram. I am @aly_sleepconsultant. Super easy to find there. Give me a follow. And then my website is restfulbaby.com. And I do have a podcast, Aly, The Restful Mama on Apple, Spotify, wherever. It’s all things momhood and sleep. I also have my sleep packages, and if you guys are listening, you can just let me know that you found me from Kristin, and we can do $50 off.
Excellent! What a gift! And as you mentioned, you live in the Nashville area, but you work with clients all over the country, correct?
Yes, that is the beauty of it. I’ve worked with people in New York and Texas and California. Everything is virtual, so we can get on regular phone calls, Facetime, texting. It just depends. Some moms are anti-phone calls, which I get. It’s so much easier to text. That’s totally fine. I also send videos back and forth with mom’s permission for their little one to be involved. I email over the sleep plans and all of that good stuff. So yes, all virtual. Wherever you are, we can work together.
Beautiful! Thank you so much, Aly! Appreciate all of your wisdom today!
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