Heavy/HGTV/YouTube HGTV's Ben and Erin Napier of "Home Town"
When Erin Napier’s youngest daughter, Mae, was just two months old, the HGTV star marveled at what a good sleeper she was. In 2021, she shared on Instagram that the baby slept at least 10 hours a night and had a “nap schedule.” But three years later, it’s a very different story.
On May 10, 2024, Erin, 39, shared in her Instagram Stories that Mae, who will turn three on May 28, has been struggling with sleep so much that she and her husband Ben finally called in the experts — and it’s beginning to make a difference.
Erin Napier Shares Strategy They’ve Learned to Address Daughter Mae’s Nightmares
In Erin’s first Instagram Story about the sleep issues they’ve been trying to help Mae through, she posted a sweet outdoor photo of Mae from behind, dressed in a white top and pink skirt as she drew with chalk on the ground.
Over the photo, Erin wrote, “thank you @takingcarababies who know all the answers when your toddler is having awful nightmares and can’t sleep. her toddler class is saving our life”
Erin, who also shares six-year-old Helen with husband Ben, added a link to the “Taking Cara Babies” website and wrote, “it ain’t just for babies.”
Run by neonatal nurse and certified pediatric sleep consultant Cara Dumaplin, the site offers parents strategies for remedying sleep issues with children in three age groups — newborn to four months, five months to 24 months, and two to four years old.
On Mother’s Day, May 12, Erin posted an update in her Instagram Stories. She posted a photo of their daughters from behind, sitting together on a large rock. Big sister Helen was in a swimsuit with her arm around Mae, who was wearing a baby blue summer dress, as they watched an outdoor bonfire.
Erin added the 90s R.E.M. song “It’s The End of the World As We Know It” to her Story and wrote, “our new way to get rid of bad dreams is to just get it out from under your bed, put it in a cardboard box, kick it down the stairs and burn it 👋”
Erin Napier Likes to Share Parenting Solutions & Resources With Her Fans
This is not the first time Erin has provided fans with insight into her and Ben’s parenting struggles — and solutions.
In 2023, she shared on Instagram how they kept Mae busy on a plane ride, writing, “Shout out to painters tape, @wilbursofmaine Gummi lobstahs, Wesley from the seat in front of us, Helen for being an awesome traveler, and stuffed animals for helping us get an overtired 2 yr old Mae home from vacation.”
In 2021, when Helen was three, Erin shared a parenting aha moment she had while on another family vacation. Captioning a photo of Helen riding her tricycle toward the beach, Erin wrote that it had been an “honestly difficult trip to Florida” between their tired toddler and spring break crowds.
“I began to realize the most important toddler parenting I can do is so simple but not actually intuitive and I feel like I should share it in case it’s useful for someone else,” Erin wrote. “I’ve always defaulted to quickly stopping her when she’s doing something wrong, saying ‘no ma’am, that’s not nice!’ … and that was it. I left her hanging without giving her feedback on WHY or how to FIX IT.”
Erin went on to give an example of how she began explaining to Helen the reason she sometimes corrected her behavior, and called it a big “breakthrough.”
“Every correction must come with a lesson,” she wrote. “Imagine if your boss told you “No! I don’t like how you’re doing this!” without any other feedback. I think we take for granted that social cues came naturally and we just knew what to say and do, but we didn’t. Thanks, mama, for teaching me before I could remember it!”