When can I drop 3rd nap?

[Tumtitum]

So my DD has always been a nap resister. Her night time sleep varies but at the moment it seems to be asleep by 7, 1/2 wake ups then awake for the day around. 6. A bad day for naps sometimes impacts on her night sleep but other times not. She has her first nap around 2 hours after waking then another 2-3 hours after that. If she's in her cot she generally cries for about ten mins then sleeps. Her naps range from 30-40 mins to 2 hours, although shorter naps are much more the norm! Occasionally she's only had two naps, if she's woken too late from the second to squeeze in a 3rd (she has to be awake from 4 otherwise she takes forever to get to sleep at bedtime). But generally she has a third nap which she FIGHTS. I cannot get her to have it in her cot at all, it has to be in the sling which is getting to be a huge PITA especially if I have been out in the day and need some time at home!! Basically I'm wondering do I just suck it up knowing it won't be much longer until she drops it anyway, or should I do some kind of sleep training around having the third nap in the cot?! She's 7 months. Thanks!

[mrsmugoo]

In my experience you do have to be somewhat productive in dropping naps if you think it would be beneficial overall.

I remember stretching out awake times to drop a nap and initially it's a struggle and you get grumpy babies but after a week or so the new routine is established. You'll probably find the two naps lengthen to an hour and a half each.

[Tumtitum]

I was toying with the idea of stretching her awake time and just going for it with two naps a day for a while and seeing how it goes... I'm just worried her naps won't lengthen or that she'll get overtired and not self settle and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that battle all over again! we're also travelling in a couple of weeks so I'm thinking I should probably wait until we're back until I start messing around with her routine?!

[PatPhelan]

My 7 month old is now on 2 naps a day.
About 2/3 hours sleep time between them both.

However his afternoon naps have got later and later meaning hes not so tired at 7pm bedtime, so I'm going to try for just one nap after lunch soon.

Id try and move the first one later and keep it to 2 naps a day and see how that works?

[PatPhelan]

Just read your reply, you could try by just sttetching it 15 mins at a time each day? Do by the end of 4 days it will be an hour later.

[Tumtitum]

To be honest I'm not that rigid with the timings so I'm not sure I can do the whole stretching it by a few mins as I'm not sure she'd notice! Maybe my bad timing is really the root of all the troubles! ;) maybe I can try doing 2.5 hours awake and then if there's no time for a third but she's tired I can bring bedtime forward...

[villainousbroodmare]

DS dropped his third nap at 7 mths. We did exactly what you've just suggested. I think if they no longer need it, that sleep training will just be wail-in-the-cot-while-angrily-awake training, which will be pointless and distressing. I was actually delighted to lose the third nap as the other ones magically stretched longer and we have more time in the middle of the day to do stuff.

[Summerdays2014]

Hi OP, no advice I'm afraid because I'm in the same situation! My son is 8 months and I am trying to get him onto two naps. I've finally cracked putting him in the cot and waiting with him whilst he falls asleep. I say cracked, but this can still take 40 mins... Before this he would fall asleep in my arms and wake up the second he was in his cot.

My problem is he is still only sleeping for 30 mins, 40 mins max. I've been lengthening the awake time (3- 3.5 hours) but it's made no difference yet (been doing this for a week now) so he is still sometimes having a 3rd nap depending on timings (Wakes at different times in the mornings!) Today he only went down for 10 minutes though at 3.45 so not even sure it counts as a 3rd nap.

Not sure how to improve things so will be watching with interest! Was going to start my own thread today!

[Tumtitum]

Summer, I think the last nap can be as short as ten mins as its only "supposed" to be a cat nap to get them through to bed time I reckon?! My DD seems to go through phases of short naps then she'll have a few days of longer naps and I'll think I've cracked it then it goes back to short naps!
Villainous, what are the timings of your naps? And how long did they take to lengthen? When we go away in two weeks we're going for her christening so I don't want her to be in the throes of crankiness then!!

[Tumtitum]

Summer, I think the last nap can be as short as ten mins as its only "supposed" to be a cat nap to get them through to bed time I reckon?! My DD seems to go through phases of short naps then she'll have a few days of longer naps and I'll think I've cracked it then it goes back to short naps!
Villainous, what are the timings of your naps? And how long did they take to lengthen? When we go away in two weeks we're going for her christening so I don't want her to be in the throes of crankiness then!!

[Tumtitum]

Stupid app always posts twice

[Cocolocos]

Same here. DD is 8.5 mo, and we are trying to get her onto 2 naps. I had a few fab days of 2x1.5h naps but then she reverted to crappy 30 min ones. On days where the naps are short do you stick with the 2 naps, or add in a 3rd one? It's frustrating!

[Summerdays2014]

Tum, the 10 minute cat nap thing makes sense I guess, makes me feel better anyway. I just want to have a bit of time to myself in the day to make dinner and have a coffee! 30 minutes at a time at rubbish!

Coco, I will try for a third nap if he seems tired or he woke up before 1.30pm-doesn't always work!

I'd also be interested to know the timings of other babies naps. At the moment my son wakes between 5.15 and 6am and goes to sleep a between 6.30 and 7.00 pm (DH just putting him down now!)

He is able to sleep through (so capable of linking sleep cycles) though this is by no means a regular occurance, has just stated to self soothe (doing gradual retreat-still at the sit next to him and pat stage, but he is no longer screaming!) and hasn't had a night feed for months.

What times would people suggest I put him down? And how long 'should(!)' he be napping for?

[Tumtitum]

Summer that's great that you're not doing night feeds anymore. DD still has 1 or 2, that's definitely cut down but I haven't the heart to cut it down anymore as she is still so teeny :)
Tell me about it you just start to relax after the stress of getting them to nap and then they're awake again!! The few times she has actually had a 2 hour nap I still haven't managed to do anything useful as I'm on tenterhooks waiting for her to wake up!!

[villainousbroodmare]

Awake at 6, sleepy bf and back in the cot for an hour or so. Up at 7.30ish. Breakfast about 8 and first nap about 9 or 9.30. Usually up at 11. Offer milk on waking, usually takes a small polite amount. Lunch at 2. Nap around 3 or 3.30. Depending on what we are doing could be as late as 4. Must be awake by 5 or won't sleep later on. Dinner at 6. Bath at 7. Bed at 8. Wakes about 10pm for a snoozy good-humoured bf.
So we have from 11 to 3 to go out and do things... or sometimes if I have to be somewhere I'll time it so that he has the morning nap in the car.
He goes into the cot awake. Soother, white noise, teddy. Walk out. Return if wailing is genuine, replace soother, and leave. Baby remains in cot for minimum 30 min whether he sleeps or not. Occasionally he doesn't sleep and just chats to himself and wails intermittently. I notice that a wail is generally the prelude to falling asleep.
I reckon that removing the nap coincided with increased crawling and energy-burning anyway so it seemed to work well enough for us though I am probably editing out the screamy bits!

[Cocolocos]

Summer, my DD also gets up around 5.30ish and bed at around 6.45pm. It's a long day if she only has 2 short naps. On a good day she would nap from 9-10.30, then 2-3.30pm. But on bad days we are back to 3x30min naps.

[Summerdays2014]

Thanks for sharing villa. My son is trying to crawl (has been for ages and still only going backwards or round in circles on his tummy) so hopefully once he gets it he will be exhausted and ready for a longer nap!

Coco, they sound very similar. Agree it's a very long day if they Only have the two 30 minute naps, leads to tears before bedtime.

My son has never slept for more than an hour in his cot and I can count those times on one hand! He has slept for upto 1.5 hours on me, but I just can't do that anymore.

The past few days I have been trying to get him back to sleep the minute he wakes by patting/shhhing/picking up and rocking but it hasn't worked. Sometimes he wakes up crying and rubbing his eyes etc so I know he is still tired.

I would love to get this sorted so I can plan my days and have some sort of routine. I also think he will be less grumpy in the day if he naps well and people have said that good naps are the key to good nights...

[MYA2016]

Ds will be 8 months next week and has been on 2 naps for around 5/6 weeks now.
he went from sleeping 30 to 40 mins (in my arms) to having much better longer naps upstairs.

We do..
6.30 am wake
9.30 am nap in cot for 1.5 hours till 11am
2.30 pm nap in cot for 1 hour till 3.30pm
7.30 pm sleep for the night

So there's a gap of 3 hours, then 3.5 hours the 4 hours between sleep. He is sleeping a million times better at night since we sorted out day sleep. Dropping the 3rd nap meant the 2 he was having just got longer

I was obsessed with him becoming overtired but it was fine... he just wasn't tired enough for three naps

[Tumtitum]

Villainous, a 7.30 wake up sounds amazing! DD had a bad night last night, woke up for 3 feeds then decided to try to start the day at 4.30 I managed to get another 45 min sleep from her and bought her into bed with me at 6.45. Not that she slept then, I just distracted her with boob and Peppa Pig on my phone until I could summon the energy to get up!!
I think I'm just gonna go for the 2 naps and see how it goes, if I give it a week and it all goes to shit then I have another week to try and right things before the Christening!!!
It's nice to hear other people's experiences and seems like a few of us are going to give the 2 nap thing a go so let's keep updating and sharing tips??

[Summerdays2014]

Tum, sorry you had a bad night. mine woke twice but straight back to sleep with dummy and slept until 6.30- very late for him.

First nap of the day was 2.5 hours after waking. It lasted 25 minutes. It's going to be a long day especially as he is grumpy already.

He fell asleep in minutes with me sitting next to the cot, when he first stirred I went in and tried to get him back to sleep. That failed miserably, so now he is miserable again...

Hope everyone else is having better luck.

[villainousbroodmare]

Swimming, outdoor play, climbing on and off the sofa, chasing games all help to happily tire DS. I think that improves sleep.

[Tumtitum]

Summer, I hope your day has got better and you've had a better second nap!!
Villainous your DS sounds way more active than my DD. We've just started swimming and we spend a lot of time outside but she's only just started sitting unaided in the last month and doesn't even roll yet so is still quite inactive from that perspective!!!
So we had a decent morning nap, I actually had to wake her up after half an hour as we had tickets to something (argh!) so that was 9-10, then we got back at 13.30 and she fell asleep feeding (which she only does when she's exhausted or during night feeds!) but only slept one sleep cycle. Very annoyingly I fed her in her dark room and she was just dropping off again when an ambulance went past and woke her up!! I'm now leaving her in her cot babbling for a bit to see if I can convince her to have another little sleep... Either way I'm just going to brave it and no more naps for today, just an earlier bedtime instead!

[Summerdays2014]

Tum, it's always the way isn't it... When you need to go sonewhere there are fast asleep! Such a shame about the ambulance as well.

Our second nap was 3 hours after the first one and 40 minutes long. So no improvement at all. Not sure I could have stretched it out anymore are he was getting grumpy(er!)

We're also going to try and push through until bedtime without another nap but going from 1.30-6.30 could be a stretch.

We are visiting friends tomorrow so naps will be in the car.

[Summerdays2014]

*somewhere they. Too tired to check thread properly!

[Cocolocos]

We've had a mixed day. Woke at 5am and eventually went back to sleep at 6.45 until 7.15am. 1st nap was 9.30-10.30 which was great. 2nd nap 2.15pm, woke after 30min but went back to sleep for another 30min after 5min of crying. So naps went better today. Might try keeping a log to see if there is a pattern to good/bad days.

[Summerdays2014]

Coco, that's great that he went back to sleep for another 30 mins. Did you go in and do anything or did he just put himself back to sleep? A log is a great idea, think I'll try it too, will be interesting to see if any patterns emerge.

We ended up having another 10 minute 'power nap' at 4 as he was getting all worked up. I'm currently trying to encourage him to tire himself out by rolling across the floor and moving in circles on his tummy!