Hi everyone. Sorry this will be an epic post. Not very good at making them short I'm afraid.
I need some advice regarding naps. DS is nearly 8 months. He self settles beautifully at bedtime, less beautifully during the day and not at all during the night!
His day is something like this:
wake 7am
25 min nap 9am
45-90 min nap 1230pm
30 min nap 4-430pm
bed 7pm
I have two problems. Firstly, I feel he still needs the afternoon nap. If he doesn't sleep for half an hour sometime around 4, he'll have been awake for nearly 5 hours by bedtime and he can be very difficult. He'll be very grumpy and inevitably fall asleep on the boob after a minute and then wake a couple of hours later, starving. But now he is finally taking longer nap at lunch time (usually 90 mins), there doesn't seem to be enough time for an afternoon nap and I find it's getting later and later - yesterday he slept 445-515. He did go down very well at bedtime though.
How and when should he go from 3 to 2 naps? Ideally I guess the morning nap would become longer, pushing the lunchtime one later. But its impossible to get him to sleep longer in the morning. I think this is due to problem number 2!:
He will only sleep for 30 mins tops in his cot during the day. So, at the moment, his morning nap is in his cot, lunchtime is in his buggy (but stationary in the hallway) and afternoon is in the buggy, out walking. Once he's asleep I can park him up indoors for the duration. I really want him to have the long nap in his bed as he won't fit in the buggy for ever, but whenever I try he wakes after just half an hour and then is grumpy all afternoon. Getting him in his cot for the 4pm nap would be a nightmare - in fact I am too scared to try. Think he'd scream the house down!
Any tips anyone?
Thanks all in advance