13 Mo Old And PNP...Concern??

[nannyde]

This seems to be a common thing that some little ones do. My husband cut pieces of plywood for 3 of my pnps and it works well. I put the plywood in the pnp then the mat on top of the plywood. The sheet over top of the mat and the plywood. They can not lift it.

The plywood is also great for a child to play on when you need to put a child in a pnp to play as it just wipes up if the child messes or is drooling etc rather than having to completely wash the mat all the time.

I haven't looked this up but I don't think we are allowed to add anything into the sleeping equipment.

I would be concerned about kids still removing or moving the mat and having a hard zone to fall back on if they should fall in the playpen.

How do you keep the mattress pad attached so they can't pull it up?

The other thing I could see in that is the normal movment in the playpen could cause the board to go back and forth ... side to side and begin to wear on the vinyl surrounding it on all four sides. How do you keep the corners of the wood from not tearing into the side of the vinyl?

The only hard surfaces my kids have access to are the walls and the larger toys like the kitchen and the toy box. Other than that everything is cushioned or is mat bottomed. I would be worried about having them sleep in an area where they had access to a hard surface without direct supervision. Do they sleep within eyeshot of you?

There are a number of scenarios where kids can get froggy in a playpen and run around in it... slam into it... jump on it and fall backwards. I would be worried about having any solid hard area accessible to them.

[jen]

Most of my kids are out of pack n plays by the time they are 18m...sometimes a little earlier, sometimes later, depends on the kid. Anyway, I don't know if this will work for you, it really depends on your space, but this really works well for transitioning from pack-n-play to nap mat.

My space is rectangular with a vry short hallway on end; it's maybe 5 feet long. I gate it off and have them sleep there for the first few days/week until they get that the mat is for napping. They can see me and and other kids, they have their blanket, but they can't get up and walk around. It works very, very quickly.

Having a strong secquence for sleep also helps. For us: eat, excercise, transition activity (story time, yoga) then nap. Once they are used to that routine, they are pretty much out by the time you get the lights out.

Truly, I have ZERO nap issues.

[nannyde]

Most of my kids are out of pack n plays by the time they are 18m...sometimes a little earlier, sometimes later, depends on the kid. Anyway, I don't know if this will work for you, it really depends on your space, but this really works well for transitioning from pack-n-play to nap mat.

My space is rectangular with a vry short hallway on end; it's maybe 5 feet long. I gate it off and have them sleep there for the first few days/week until they get that the mat is for napping. They can see me and and other kids, they have their blanket, but they can't get up and walk around. It works very, very quickly.

Having a strong secquence for sleep also helps. For us: eat, excercise, transition activity (story time, yoga) then nap. Once they are used to that routine, they are pretty much out by the time you get the lights out.

Truly, I have ZERO nap issues.

Me either

We have a pack walk for 45 minutes, then a small free play to get lunch set up, have a big sunday dinner group lunch, about an hour of free play/activities and then nap.

Exercising every morning really helps with nap. Eating together as a group right after cooling down from the walk is very important to keep the flow. The hour of play time before nap gives time for everybody to potty and spend some one to one time with whatever mate is available and to self entertain.

We get everyone changed and pottied about fifteen minutes before nap and then they all go down at the same time. They are all out in less than five minutes.

Kazoink... snoozin like babies.

It's important for my group to have BIG group activities like the walk. Having a get your belly FULL meal together and then dividing off into smaller groups happens AFTER the big group activity. This seems to keep conflict down and the energy level during free play calm and smooth.