Sorry for the long post, there’s lots of timings to explain!
I’m not sure what to do with my DSs nap schedule now he’s getting a bit older. He pretty much always wakes up at 6:30am. So his previous nap schedule was a nap about 7:30am (he has a very short wake window in the morning and gets tired again quickly). Wakes about 8:30/9am. Second nap 11:30/12pm until 1pm. Third nap 4pm to 5pm. In his crib at 7:30pm (sometimes he’ll be asleep at 7:30pm on the dot, sometimes he’s a bit late and it’s getting on for 8pm by the time he falls asleep).
I think the 5pm to bedtime wake window is far too short. I’m not putting him to bed any later though because no matter what he will still wake up at half 6, so all it will do is mean he will lose sleep.
Early last week we had about 3 days of him waking at 7:30am which was brilliant. It means he got more sleep overnight, had a longer first wake window and I could drop him to 2 naps a day. This lasted about 3 days and then he went back to 6:30am wake ups! This morning I said I’d try to keep him awake as long as possible in the morning but honestly I was too tired to commit to it as I hate these half 6 wake ups, and DS was yawning and rubbing his eyes by half 7 anyway. So then he slept til 9am, which makes his next nap 12-1pm, and then the next one ends up as 4-5pm again!
So I don’t know what to do, in an ideal world I want him to have that extra hour til half 7, and then have 2 naps a day. When he wakes up at half 6, it’s really hard to squeeze 3 naps in before 4pm (so no sleep after 4pm) or drag his wake windows out to fit just 2 naps in.
I suppose he could just do 4-4:30 for his third nap if it ended up working out that way. Or stretch out his first wake window so that he has 2 naps completed by 3/3:30pm, and then he’s in bed at 7pm? I feel bad that I let him have so much sleep first thing in the morning, I don’t know if that is the cause of the early wake ups. But I’m just so tired and it’s so easy for us both to go back to sleep after an hour of milk and cuddles. Honestly that one hour between waking up at half 6 and half 7 makes all the difference to both of us!
Weirdly, the handful of times we’ve put him to bed really early (like if he’s missed a nap for some reason or woke up really early from his last one) are the times he’s slept longer. For example a couple of weeks ago he missed his last nap because his gums were hurting so he was upset, and then he was sick so by the time we’d cleaned him up it was far too late for a nap to start. So he ended up in bed asleep at quarter to 7, then woke up at quarter past 7, so he slept 12.5 hours!! Mad that he can do that, but then when he goes to bed at normal time he does 10.5/11 hours. I know 11 hours overnight is brilliant but it would be great if it could be any 11 hour stretch. But no matter how late he goes to bed, his little internal alarm clock wakes him up at 6:30am, so it’s not like he could do 8-7 or 8:30-7:30. He has a blackout curtain so his room is totally dark, and there’s no noises waking him up.
I could put him down 11-12 today instead of 12-1, but 2 hours is quite a short wake window for his age. I’ve just spotted him rubbing his eyes though so I might do 11:30 to 12:30 and then he could do 3:30 to 4:30, bed at 7:30 as normal. So he gets two lots of 3 hour stretches awake. But then that’s 3.5 hours worth of naps in a day which seems like too much? So maybe just do 3:30-4pm and then bed at 7pm and see what difference that makes to tomorrow’s wake up? It’s so difficult to know what’s best to do!