what do you do when morning nap goes wrong?

[nello]

My 6MO will sleep for anything between 30mins to 2 hours in her cot for her morning nap. When it is 2 hours, great and the whole day pans out nicely. When it's 30minutes it messes up the whole day. There is no chance of resettling her when she wakes from a nap, have tried this, but the result is that she is knackered again by say 11am, the time for her mid morning feed and falls asleep on my boob briefly and is then in no fit state for her new solid lunch at 12 and exhausted by 1 when she would normally have her second nap. Any experience of this and top tips?

I remember finding with both my DDs that just as soon as I thought I knew what I was doing re feeding and naps something would change and it would all be up in the air again, grrr! It was like some sort of baby conspiracy .

I tried dropping the late nap at around 6 months with dd2 but she just wasn't ready so kept it going until about 8/9 months i think. The one thing I did do was get the baby up at the same time each morning, even if it meant gently waking them up. It meant no lie ins but also meant that we didn't flit between starting the day at 6.30 or 8.30 as she seemed to get used to getting up at 7.30.

Hope things settle down for you soon.

nello That is fab! DD seems worse than ever at night, really clingy. Crying (even when fed) until I put her next to me. (She is in a bedside cot so hardly far away!) Hopefully just a short phase..

Daytime naps - only thing I did differently other than the bigger dummies was keeping her up a bit longer.

Today she woke at 7.30, nap at 9.45 - 11.00 then afternoon nap 2.00 - 2.45 with bed at half 6. The afternoon nap was cut short as she had a dirty nappy. Hopefully tomorrow it will be a bit longer.

hmmmm. i think i may have spoke too soon, last night she had to sleep in bed with me (DP away so lots of room!). She just wouldn't go down in her cot, and seemed to just want me but not for feeding (even though we haven't slept in the same bed for ages) though once in bed with me at 11 she slept with only one wake at 3am. Mindst, we both have colds so hopefully it is just that

p.s. haloflo - your naps are starting to look really great, well done! Small steps, so congratulate yourself on that, and I am sure night time WILL improve soon!!