Can anyone share their 5 month olds day time nap routines?

[katekitkat]

I have a 5 month old DD and I have terrible trouble with her sleeping, she has loads of props etc. I often wonder if one of the reasons she doesn't get herself off to sleep is beause she is over tired. Can anyone else share their 5 months old typical daytime napping pattern? Ours is hard to pin down as it has to fit around DD2 2 (3yrs) daily routine. Currently ours is that she does two cat naps in the morning which are anything from 10 mins to 45 mins and then does a longer hour and a half nap around 2pm (she wakes after 45 mins and I transition her through) then sometimes she has another 20 to 30 min nap arount 5.30/6 but often not. Is this typical/normal? Any info would be appreciated.

At this age my ds slept 9am - 9.45, then from about 12 til 2pm, and that was it - I found that if he slept after 3pm, he would be a nightmare during the evening to settle and then the whole routine was out of the window. He was in bed by 6.30 at that age though.

Maybe you could try putting her down at 1 instead of 2, and cutting out her 5pmish nap and then just try to have her in bed earlier - I found this really worked well with ds and seemed to stop him ever getting overtired.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth says most babies that age need 3 naps a day. A typical pattern would be wake at 7am, nap for 45 mins to an hour and a half at 9amish, again at 12/1pm for a couple of hours and one more in the late afternoon (usually shorter).

All the sleep books agree that a nap of less than 30 mins doesn't count as a nap. If she's napping for less than that, she'll be overtired by the time the next nap comes round. If a nap is less than 30 mins I'd make the next nap sooner.

Not being to settle herself is pretty normal for that age though and may not be anything to do with overtiredness. You could stop thinking of them as 'props' and think of her needing help with going to sleep just like she needs help with being dressed. My DS needed transitioning through his long nap till he was 14 months (and even now at 16 months sometimes needs help getting off again). He can't get himself off to sleep yet - it doesn't bother me, as I think it's still pretty normal by this age.

My DS wakes at 8, has 45-60mins at 10am in a sling, then I try for 2 hours at 1ish. He won't go to sleep by himself and I usually have to help him through the 45 mins transition as well. Past week or so he has started to miss the 4pm nap, but is very tired by bath time at 6.30. Night times are my trauma areas, waking very frequently and not always for food, so may be getting it all wrong!

baileyslover, have you tried making bedtime earlier to compensate for the loss of the last nap? Before DS dropped his third nap, bedtime was 7 or 7.30pm. When he dropped to two naps, bedtime had to be at 6. Bringing bedtime earlier those days might improve nights as he'll be overtired from the long gap between the lunchtime nap and bedtime.

From around 6-9 months when they drop to 2 naps (the exact time depends on the baby), a surprising majority of babies fall into a roughly 2-3-4 pattern: first nap (short or long) 2 hours after waking, second nap (long) 3 hours after waking, bedtime 4 hours after waking.

HTH

Thanks for your responses. I thought having DD2 would be easier and in some ways it is but in others it seems harder. I struggle to balance the sleep requiements of DD2 with DD1's daily routine. I have been aiming for the long nap at 2pm DD2 still naps from 2 till 4 but perhaps I should priortise DD2's sleep requirements and then maybe the rest of the day will fall into place better. DD2 often isn't in bed until 8pm (and wakes 45 mins later) which makes my evening pretty short as well. She is so hard to read as well because she wakes at a different time every day. Establishing a pattern was so much easier with DD1!