5 month old's naps

[user666555]

Hello,

My five month old (22w6d) has always been a cat napper. Whilst I understand that it's developmentally appropriate for her to have short naps at her age. I'm not sure if I'm doing things correctly.

The below timings are the average. It can vary slightly but generally speaking the number of naps and duration is as follows:

She wakes up at 6am. She then has a nap at around 8am and then wakes up 8:40. She'll then nap again around 10-10:40. She'll then nap again around 12:00-12:40. Followed by another one around 2-2:40 and then another around between 4-4:40 and bedtime between 6-7 as it can take her a while to settle for her bedtime sleep. She'll be SO moody after waking up at 4:30 until her bedtime. She'll then be so difficult to put to sleep for her bedtime sleep.

Sometimes the routine can vary slightly and she'll have her last nap around around 5 where she'll wake up at 5:30 and be really moody. And will want to go back to sleep within the next hour?

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong? I've read that most babies are supposed to drop to 3 naps but my baby is still on 5 naps 🙈 the timings above can fluctuate. Sometimes she'll wake up at 6:30am.

Am I doing something wrong? How do I get her to drop naps as five naps is probably more for 0-2 month olds - surely? Please be kind 🙈 I'm a FTM and kind of winging it based on her sleepy cues.

My 7 month old is exactly the same whereas my first born at the same age was having 2/ 3 longer naps a day .
Babies are all different and they all get to a more regular sleep pattern eventually.

I think this is still normal at her age but will change over the next couple of months.

You'll always be winging it..
It's called surviving motherhood.

The only thing I've learned throughout bringing kids up is author's/professional people didn't base their knowledge on my two children.

Although I honestly can't remember my children's sleeping patterns now as they're in their 30's, my Granchild who's just turned a year old only ever napped in half hour segments, and at 5 months they slept as and when.

Now due to being at nursery they only have two naps a day now but its still for around the 30 minutes each time.

No two children are the same and I very much doubt parents all get the same amount of sleep hours to a feed.

Both mine did this at that age.

DC1 started having 'proper' naps around 12 months old and DC2 earlier at 9 months old. But only in their own beds at home. Everywhere else still cat napped.

Sounds pretty normal to be honest. You could always try a contact nap for her second one to see if that gets her to sleep for a longer nap, and therefore reduce the number of naps she has in a day.

Mine has only been having 30 minute naps, and only in the last couple of weeks (8 months now) he has started napping longer so we have been able to drop to 3 naps vs 4.

It's definitely a version of normal so don't worry. You can encourage longer naps by going in at the predicted end of the nap to help them to link sleep cycles (eg patting, sshhing) but it doesn't always work. We also always manage longer naps in the car or buggy.

Where are the naps happening?

My boy was doing 30m naps only, until one day he whined as soon as I settled him, and I just decided to keep on walking the pram, and he slept for 90m. Once he got the hang of doing a 90m nap first thing, he started dropping the later naps. He's easily down to three or even two now at 6.5m.

(Though as PP said, all babies are unique, and I wouldn't presume that any one method will work).

Cat napping is normal, but not all babies naturally grow out of it. My twins were catnappers from 3 months old til over 1yrs old (at least one of them was ALWAYS awake at any point in the day) when I finally sleep trained them.

How is her night sleep? When night sleep improves, normally naps fall into place.

I would suggest that her morning nap is happening too late for a 6am wake up. Around 1+ yrs old, babies commonly follow ‘2,3,4’ (wake up, 2hrs, 1st nap, 3hrs, 2nd nap, 4hrs, bedtime), but 5m old is much too little for that. I would advice her first nap to be definitely no longer than an hour after she wakes for the day.

Sleep begets sleep, so you may find earlier nap times have her sleeping longer.

@Didimum I didn't know this about the first nap of the day. I thought as she just had her night sleep that she can go longer before having a nap. Will try and put her down earlier for her first nap and see if things improve.

I'm not expecting her to miraculously sleep for 1 hour or whatever. But I do feel as though it can be a bit tedious that my whole day revolves around her naps. Yes she does nap for longer in the pram but I can't always facilitate going out around her nap time. Sometimes I've got errands, appointments, cooking etc to do so it gets a bit tricky with her having five naps.

Her night sleep is pretty normal for her age. She'll go to sleep between 6-7pm and it usually is a battle trying to get her to fall asleep as she is over tired (not sure how when her last nap is usually an hour tops 1.5 hours prior). She'll then sleep till about 9/10. Want a feed. I'll feed her (FF - CMPA baby) and then she'll wake up again between 1-2am. Another feed. She then wakes up at around 4am for another feed and then wakes up properly at 6am.

@thecatsthecats they're happening in her Next2Me crib. Some days I do put her in the pram and work aimlessly whilst thinking about all the washing/dishes/laundry/chores/cooking that needs to be done 😂 but I can't facilitate a long walk every day as usually I have a lot to do in the house and I feel as though if I don't noon an extremely long walk I'm just playing catch up when I get back - I know it's a stupid excuse but I'm just being honest. Having said that I do try and go for a long walk at least every other day or every two days tops

@TheOneWithUnagi I've tried doing this. I think it's worked twice out of all the times I've tried it. She's a very highly alert baby it's like she wants to wake up and look around and be stimulated. It's almost as though she finds sleep boring/annoyjng 😂

This is really similar to my little one (but with worse night sleep!)

Serial catnapper who won't nap in the house and doesn't follow a schedule. She's 6m and I'm 2 weeks into a kind of forced sleep.schedule where I ensure she doesn't go longer than x hours (whatever is age appropriate) without a nap, whether that means I rock her in the dark, feed her and contact nap, have a nap in the sling or take her out in the car/pram. For my LO it's 2.5-3 hours max, and though it's very regimented I am seeing some improvement!

I started by taking her for a long lunchtime walk, as I've heard this should be the longest one. She was locked in a cycle of being chronically overtired after a nasty sleep regression and I just walked for 2 hours, using a white noise machine and bobbing the pram, to stretch the nap beyond her preferred 20/30 mins. I pushed it to 60 and let her wake naturally..I now try and do this once per day, stretching that nap. I'm now finding that nearly 2 weeks in she's falling into a more relaxed sleep and I'm fighting her less (though the fight is still there!). I then let her later nap be a little cat nap. It's really hard, I don't have any real advice but it's a proper slog.

It's only ever worked a couple of times for us too tbh! But worthwhile trying if you didn't know already.
I completely know what you mean about the day revolving around naps, I'm grateful for the longer nap we are getting now to actually be able to get anything done.

I could have written this post! My LO is very similar to this and it's driving me around the bend. Hes 3.5m old

Very occasionally he'll do a longer nap and ill think we've cracked the code but no, he back to the same old!

How is yours doing now OP?