DS naps gone wrong today - help

[newmum234]

DS (7 months) wouldn’t settle for ages for his usual morning nap so things have gone a bit off track today. He woke from his second nap at 2.30pm and has been awake since then. The earliest I could put him down for another nap would be now (5pm) as his wake windows are about 2.5 hours, but I don’t want to do that as he will then have a really late bedtime (he normally goes to bed at 7). Should I keep him up for another two hours, so 4.5 hours in total? I don’t want to go for a walk in the pram because it’s dark outside now. WWYD?

Please please stop worrying. About this age they start to nap less, and some days it will be different to others. Give his evening meal a little earlier, then do the bedtime routine. Mine napped at different times depending on what we were doing and it didn't do them any harm. Babies are so much more adaptable than authors of baby books make out!

Relax; either give a short nap then a slightly later bed time, or no nap and an earlier bedtime.

Ok thanks all - I will go for an earlier bedtime of 6.30pm. Does that mean he’s likely to wake up earlier than usual tomorrow morning though?

Unfortunately it's a case of wait and see in the morning! My DS doesn't wake any earlier if he has an early night to catch up on sleep after a bad nap day though.

Put him to bed late, however, and he'll be up by 5. Babies are just weirdos sometimes!

Seems like it might be time to stretch the wake window a bit and transition to 2 naps

My 7mo has been doing this too the last few days. I think he's ready to drop his naps to twice a day. I thought it'd make a difference to his night sleep but nope, still waking regularly lol. Think it's quite normal as this stage to start sleeping less in the day

DS went to bed at 6.30, woke at 4 for a feed and is still asleep now. So all worked out well!

I started moving bedtimes earlier at this age.

Interesting @Nonamesavail - why was that?

They naturally didn't seem to need the afternoon nap so late so I just stopped naps after 3pm and moved bedtime to 5.30-7pm

Mine is 8mo tomorrow and this week has decided to drop to two naps. Go with the flow, if you can.