can anyone please advise me on my nap routine?

[sweetuphoria]

Hi
My DD is 18w.o. I think there is a little 4mo sleep regression happening atm but I also suspect she may be getting too much sleep in the day robbing her night time sleep.

Up til a few weeks ago she was doing approx:
630 - 700 wake up
830 (nap for 1.5-2hrs)
1200 (nap for 1.5-2hrs)
4pm (nap for 45 mins)
7pm bed

A few weeks ago she started being more difficult to settle at night and waking up at 5am ready to start the day. I'm thinking she may be ready to cut down her naps ??

I would be grateful for any suggestions?
:)

I think at that age mine tended to have 45 minutes in the morning, 2ish hours in the afternoon (I would feed back to sleep after 45 minutes) and then 45 minutes in the late afternoon.

Will try cutting morning nap tomorrow and see if it helps. Thanks :)

I don't think you should cut the morning nap but move it back a bit, to say 9.15am. Then again at about 1.15pm.

I would try and move her bedtime earlier, early waking can be caused by a late bedtime according to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Marc Weissbluth) he also says that most babies need the 3 naps a day until 9 months and it's the late afternoon one that is dropped first.

His book makes a lot of sense, explains the different day and night sleep schedules for different ages, also a lot about how important sleep is for babies and how damaging sleep deprivation can be.

I think your DDs timetable sounds really good apart from I would start winding down for bed at 6pm, sleep for 6.30pm.. maybe try this for a week and see if it helps the 5am wakings.

Thanks all and mrsgubbins I am going to get that book, it sounds great.

I have had some success with tweaking the routine and she now has a shorter nap in the morning which seems to help for the afternoon nap as she is more tired for it. I have tried pushing them back slightly as well but she gets very overtired so I will just keep them at the same times for a bit longer. Because she's having slightly less sleep in the day she is sleeping a bit later in the mornings so fingers crossed we will stay this way.

Thanks again