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7 months - naps

3 replies

Charmanar · 03/06/2016 13:54

Looking for any kind of advice! DS (now 7 months) was a catnapper for ages but then at about 5.5 months started taking proper naps...until the past week when he has been doing 30-40 minutes again. I don't think he is overtired (how do I know?!) but I've increased his wake time from 2 hours to 3 hours gradually over the past week, and no help really. He goes to sleep without any sleep props, although its taking him a bit longer than it used to to nod off...maybe about 15 mins now, and he seems a bit more unhappy about it. Is this a simple question of wake time that I need to increase even more to 3.5 hours? Should I wait until he is literally yawning and rubbing his eyes out before I put him down? I feel like every waking thought of the day is now worrying about his naps, I hate the feeling that I'm getting something wrong and he is not sleeping enough as a result.

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kolapop · 04/06/2016 08:50

Have you tried the 2-3-4 routine? I.e first nap 2 hour after waking then 2nd nap 3 hours after waking that then bedtime 4 hours after that?

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kolapop · 04/06/2016 08:51

I think they need a shorter awake time in the morning regardless.

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FATEdestiny · 04/06/2016 14:27

Is this a simple question of wake time that I need to increase...

I would go the opposite way and encourage more sleep, not less. If baby isn't sleeping for as long, then I would make my DCs wake time less, so that naps are more frequent - more naps per day.

In my experience it is time asleep that drives the change to longer naps, not time awake.

was a catnapper for ages but then at about 5.5 months started taking proper naps

Short, frequent naps are "proper naps" for a younger baby. 40-80 mins awake followed by 20-40 minutes naps repeated throughout the day is just how a young baby sleeps. The change to longer, less frequent naps happens somewhere around 5 months - 9 months old.

It sounds like your DS is transitioning to the stage of longer, less frequent naps. But that he's not quite there yet. The process of transitioning isn't an overnight change, it is gradual. Not unusual that you will have some days with fewer, longer naps and other days with more, shorter naps - until the new sleeping pattern becomes fully established.

So a child napping for longer will naturally have longer awake. But a child having shorter naps is likely to have shorter naps regardless of awake time. So increasing awake time when nap times are short just creates over tiredness problems.

I'd cut awake time to tackle the build up of over-tiredness, so have lots of frequent, short, naps. Then once baby is no longer over tired he may well extend his naps naturally, which will naturally lead to longer time awake and so fewer naps per day.

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