Falling asleep in the car ruining naps!

AAAHHH! What's the deal with this? If they fall asleep in the car before naptime, and I don't mean right before, today it was 1.5 hrs before nap, asleep for maybe 10 min, the whole nap is ruined. I am tempted to just go drive around for two hours if they are asleep. I try talking to them, turning up the music, shaking their feet at stoplights, nothing works if they are falling asleep. They wake up when I take them out of the car, so it's not like I can bring them in the house and set them in the cribs. Oh, the days when that used to work! I can't stay home every morning, and it's unpredictable if they will fall asleep, sometimes they don't.

 

AAAHHH! What's the deal with this? If they fall asleep in the car before naptime, and I don't mean right before, today it was 1.5 hrs before nap, asleep for maybe 10 min, the whole nap is ruined. I am tempted to just go drive around for two hours if they are asleep. I try talking to them, turning up the music, shaking their feet at stoplights, nothing works if they are falling asleep. They wake up when I take them out of the car, so it's not like I can bring them in the house and set them in the cribs. Oh, the days when that used to work! I can't stay home every morning, and it's unpredictable if they will fall asleep, sometimes they don't.

 

mine also had car induced sleep but we are leaving in an urban area and it did not affect me so much. I used to drive around to make sure that they take their nap if they went to sleep in the car

now we do have a dvd player in the car and if we want to keep them awake (on the 1/2h trip back from the zoo at lunch time) we play signing times or elmo but I dont consider this a good solution

 

I feel your pain!! My girls are the same way - if they fall asleep in the car, the nap is ruined. Luckily, the chances of them falling alseep in the car before 1pm is slim, so we go out in the morning and then I get back by lunch time.

If they do fall asleep, I have done two things, depending on how long they were asleep for: still put them in their cribs when get home or at their normal nap time at least for some "quiet" time (ha, ha) or keep them up and they go to bed 1-2 hours earlier.

I try not to fight it or stress about it anymore, although, I hate missing that nap time!!

Robin

 

That used to happen to me, too! I swear, they'd close their eyes for 2 minutes in the car at 10 am, and there was no way they'd nap at 11!

If it was close to naptime when they dozed off, a few times I just let them sleep in their car seats in the car. We have an attached garage, and I checked on them frequently. It didn't make for much of a break for me, but at least they got some sleep and stayed on schedule.

 

Kelly, we have the SAME EXACT problem here as well!!!!

Here is what we do, come home, leave the car locked and running in the driveway-probably not ideal, but it works. I check them CONSTANTLY. They will sleep for 1/2-45 more that way.

I posted before I read any repsonses. I sure hope you get some ideas....

 

That used to happen to us too. It still happens if we are out to close to nap time. The only thing I can suggest is to take the long way home and give them at least 30 min. Good luck!