nap routine for early riser - share yours & ideas please!

[lazzaroo]

My DD is nearly 9months old and has never been a nig fan of daytime sleep! she seems to think there is far more interesting stuff going on!

Just 3 weeks ago she started sleeping through the night. She typically goes to bed at 7pm, but wakes at 6am (on a good day, can be earlier on abad day!). Recently her daytime sleep has been even more all over the place than normal.

Our typical day starts like this...

6am wake and breatfeed
7am breakfast (eats well)
8am nap (usually about an hour)

it ends something ike...

4pm ish nap
5pm tea
6pm bath
6.30 breastfeed
7pm sleep

It's what goes on in-between that's a bit of a mess!

I tend to follow a cyle of allowing her to be awake no more than 2/2.5 hours. BUT, this means she sometimes goes down for a nap at 11/11.30am. This owuldn't be a problem apart from the fact that she now only sleeps 30mins! So, some days she needs another sleep at 2ish (which will again only be half an hour) = FOUR naps before bed time. I thought naps were supposed to decrease but we seem to have gone full circle!

I don't think she is waking ealry due to hunger as she will happily wait to be fed. But she isn't happy about being awake after any of her naps (apart from first one usually). She usualy cries on waking, alhtough after a few minutes seems to resign herself to the fac that she's up and is happy to play before getting tired again ma. 2 hours later. I did a bit of nap-blending a while back which worked for a while but it doesn't seem to be at the moment.

My dilemma is should I make her stay awake longer after her first nap and try giving her lunch earlier to see if that makes any difference?

I kow lots of others have eaely risers due to the many posts, and just wonder how you manage your naps as all the suggested routines are based on 7am wakes. My LO just isn't designed to wake at 7am!

I don't want a strict routine but just want to help her sleep longer etc.

Here is some info on this that I found really handy:

How much should baby sleep?

and

Solve early waking

Our day goes something like this - DS2 is 9mo

5am wakes for bf (I'm hoping to change this soon!)

7am breakfast
9am nap - used to be an hour but at the moment is 2 as he's waking an hour too early
10 snack
12 lunch
1 - 3 nap
3 snack
4:30/5 tea
6 snack whilst we all eat tea
7 bf and bed
10:30 dream feed

He can stay awake now for 3 hours, 3.5 max so I tend to use that as a yardstick. I do find he tends to dip in energy if the snacks aren't there. I give fruit so it doesn't interfere with meals too much.

I had to nap blend with him when he was younger as he would wake after about 30/45 mins. A week or two of lunchtime naps in the cot sorted it, nice and quiet and fairly dark.

Hi, if your DD is sleeping through from 7pm to 6am then that is fantastic! I think that 11 hours is an average amount of night time sleep for babies of that age.

I think at 9 months then 3 naps a day is pretty usual and I seem to remember my DD used to nap at 9am, 1pm and then at about 3pm ish.

i would love for my ds (20mths) to sleep 11 hrs, last night he slept 5 hours and thazt was with only having a 1.5hr nap yesterday

My DS went down to two naps at 9mths. Also an early riser type. Have you tried giving up the last nap of the day? This may mean moving bedtime slightly earlier on some days & of course some strange days during the transition period. I would say babe is definitely not waking due to hunger at this age so don't get caught up in wondering about that.

Thanks for all replies. I am delighted that she is sleeping through at night! IT's made such a difference. Today tried doing things alittle differently. Napped at 8am (well, 7.45am as she was awake at 5.30 today!) for just over an hour. Stayed awake until midday, which is longer than usual, and had lunch at 11amish. She still only slept for 45mins at that nap but settled much more easily and didn't wake up so grumpy. So, maybe full belly helped. Stayed awake for another 3 hours before next nap at 3.30pm. Another 45 mins and woke VERY grumpy! but got over it after half an hour or so.

She's finding it harder to get to sleep tonight, maybe overtired? but it has been amuch nicer day not feeling like we have been constantly chasing sleep!