Can anyone help me with my baby's nap schedule?

[2021Already]

Can anyone offer advice or wisdom of experience to help me with my LO's naps please?

He is 5.5 months and of late his day naps have become really short - only 30 minutes each. And he hates going down for day naps and fights sleep. Luckily, he does sleep well at night, for 12-13 hours. However day naps are very short. Also I'm never quite sure if I've got his nap schedule right.

Example- wake at 7.30
Nap 1 at 9.30-10
Nap 2 12.30-1
Nap 3 at 3.30-4
Bed around 6.30-6.45

I used to give him 90 minute awake windows but extended those as he got older. He used to nap for longer at lunch, for around 1.5 hours. At one stage I thought he might even be ready to drop the afternoon nap, but not now.

Should I go back to a 4 nap day with shorter awake windows or is that counter productive?

I am just about to start weaning him in January if that makes any difference.

He maybe ready to go to 2 naps. Is he sleeping through? If yes, that’s amazing .

Thanks @Thatwentbadly

No he doesn't sleep through. (He did once but sadly not repeated!) He usually feeds just before I go to bed and then once in the small hours...

However he sleeps well and for a decent duration.

He is sleeping much better than my 18 months old.

I’d do two naps with about 3 hours wake up time, i might also go for 12 hours at night. I’m total he’s having a good amount of sleep and so it’s no wonder he’s only napping for 30 mins each time

Thanks. Do you think 3 hours is ok for his age? I'd be worried he'd be overtired- or is that how you move them into the dropping of the last nap?

We never had three naps for either of ours. After they were put the sleepy napping all the time phase we went to two as found it more manageable. I’d say the fact they are only sleeping 30 mins shows they are not too tired. Also I read, I don’t know if it’s true that a nap should be at least 45 mins tonbe restorative. At 5.5 months we were doing 1 2 hour and 1 1 hour nap, but night sleep was pretty shite as b feeding and waking quite a bit still. He’s 10 months now and sleeps through about 12 hours. Currently still on two naps.

Our, not put!

T

I could have written this at exactly the same stage you’re at now OP. My DD is now 9 months old and I’ll be honest - I tried everything with minimal success and a lot of stress. About 7 months, her naps slowly increased in length and then finally at 7.5 months she dropped the third nap and we got into our stride.

Things that I found were moderately successful were:
Waking her slightly and resettling just before she would normally wake (but sometimes this just made her grumpier)
Going for long walks in the pushchair and letting her nap
Prioritising the second nap as I found she could cope with 30 mins in the morning but needed longer in the afternoon

In the end I just tried to go with the flow a bit more as I got a bit obsessed with her naps haha. Sometimes if she was grumpy I would just sit with her in the sofa and she would fall asleep, but getting out in the fresh air was the best remedy for us, even if she didn’t nap she would generally be less grumpy when we were out walking so it reduced my stress!

By all means try adjusting his wake times, it might just do the trick! Since we hit 7.5 months and 2 naps per day she still only has around 30 minutes in the morning but usually has an hour or 90 minutes in the afternoon. When we moved to two naps on guidance from here we tried the 2-3-4 routine (2 hours from waking to first nap, 3 hours from waking to second nap then 4 hours from waking to bed) but it didn’t quite work for us, but it gave us a base to start from.

Since 7.5 months our rough routine has been:
7:30/8am wake
10:30/11am first nap (usually 30 mins)
2:30/3pm second nap (Usually at least an hour)
7:30/8pm bed (depending on wake time from last nap)

I hope that helps!

He sleeps better than my 8 month old!!

Following as my 5 month old is like this (minus the sleeping well at night, sadly).

Hello

My advice would be to follow your baby’s lead.

I had the exact same issue with my son. He was sleeping 45-50 minutes and the bang, he went to 30 minute naps. Nothing had changed, he just changed himself.

All you can do it ride it out and go with it. I would say he is “too young” for two naps, not that I believe there is ever a thing, but going 4-5 hours between naps for such a small baby seems a lot.

I’d keep doing what you’re doing every two hours and just work with it the best you can. It isn’t forever, I can’t remember when my boy grew out of it but he moved to two naps on his own accord and has recently moved to one nap (14 months old now).

Sorry I can’t help with any magic advice. You’re doing great, keep it up and listen to your baby and you’ll do fine ☺️

Ok great, thanks everyone. I really appreciate the advice!

@LunaNova your post particularly resonated and I have digested what you've said- thank you!