10 month old Always been a terrible napper, is it too late to introduce lunchtime nap?

[me23]

Everything I read says naps are the key to good sleep at night and less EW (ds is a terrible sleeper) we are trying to sort his sleep out and are currently doing cc to get him to sleep at bedtime and during the night. However since about 3 months old he has NEVER had lunctime nap, though everything I read just assumes every baby will have this nap so I have no idea what to do? Is it possible to make him have a nap, and how if he is not used to it?

his day go something like this:
5am-wake up
7am breakfast
10am nap usually 45 mins sometimes 1.5 hours either bf to sleep or if I'm working OH takes him out in car/buggy.
12:30 lunch
3pm-snack
5pm-dinner
6:30-7pm bed

he was waking during the night once or twice and would take about an hour to go back to sleep then would wake at 4:30-5am to staert the day (hence starting the cc)

Has anyone else had sucess in introducing a nap at this age? I think he would benefit him as he is quite cranky during the evening and it is a struggle to make him last until 7pm.

I would put him down for his first nap earlier than 10am. My 9 month old generally has a nap 2-3 hours after her morning waking, then she has an afternoon nap three hours after waking from her morning nap.

Agree with PP he is likely to be pretty overtired. He is actually getting towards the age where he would transition to one nap now anyway, but most babies don't do this til between 12-18months old (& the older they are the better they will handle it).

Have you actually tried to put him down for a nap in the afternoon? Will he nap in his cot?

At this stage you have 2 choices.

1. Keep the long nap in the AM but try & get him to take a short catnap at tea time. You might find the easiest way to do this is in the car. This will help prevent him going to bed overtired, which will help him lengthen his night. If his night lengthens & his wakeup time gets later you will need to gradually shift the nap out a bit later until he's napping a consistent 1.5hrs or more. OR

2. do as PP suggested & try a slightly earlier AM nap. then Cap the AM nap (he might even shorten this by himself) and put him down for a second nap after lunch.

I have tried both & found that with 1) my DS would refuse a PM nap, be overtired at bedtime & wake early. 2) is more effective at discouraging with early waking as by capping the nap you prevent them from catching up on lost nightsleep at the morning nap. Plus it encourages the bigger sleep in the afternoon, which will prevent overtiredness at bedtime.

WRT 2) The only tricky thing for you at the moment is the early waking. B/c consistently putting him down for his AM nap after just 2-3hrs at 7.30/8am is only going to encourage the EW to continue. So I think if you choose this option you initially need to do the nap no earlier than 9am & gradually shift this out towards 9.30 over the course of a couple of weeks.

If it helps, at his age my DS was doing roughly 3hrs awake in the morning, a 1hr nap, 3.5hrs awake, 1.5hr nap, 3.5-4hrs to bedtime & doing approx 11hrs overnight.

Thankyou for the suggestions, He will never be put down for naps awake or in his cot he just screams! he doesn't self settle I would love to gwet to the point where I could just put him down as it seems every other parent is able to do this with their babies, he normally starts acting tired around 9.30am and then I bf him or if I'm at work my OH will rock him to sleep or car. It would be great to be able to put him down awake at a certain time and for him to nap so I guess the only way this can happen is by using controlled crying, I'm just worried it is a bit too much as we are doing cc at night too.

He isn't very well today hence he slept until 7:45am this morning! and took his nap at 11:30 and slept for 1hr 45mins, he just isn't tired until around 4 hours from waking.

(((hugs)))

Can I ask a question? why are you using cc at night? If its to teach him to self settle then IMHO if you want to have any success with it then you need to do it for naps & at BT too, otherwise he will just be confused.
xx

Hi there

Do you try feeding him to get him back to sleep at 5am? I wouldn't worry about creating a feeding habit at this time - the ultimate goal is to have them wake at about 7am so you have some semblance of a normal day's wake up time which you can then structure the rest of the day around.

I would aim to do this, have him awake at 7am, give him a short nap in the morning (say 30 mins) and then a longer one after lunch for 2 hours. This should see him through to bedtime at 7pm.

How you actually get him to go to sleep is a diff matter - but if it needs to be in the pram or car, then go for it. What I would avoid is too much bfing to sleep as this will create a very powerful association which is quite hard to break the older they get.

Hope that helps
x

Thankyou for the advice, we are using controlled crying at bedtime and night. I think we will try it for the naps too, and see how he gets on, I just don't think he will take two naps. We are not doign cc at the moment as ds is unwell at the moment, but will resume once he is better.

we have tried feeding and many things to get him back to sleep at 5am he is just wide awake though so doesn't work. However last night he woke once at 2:30am then slept till 6:30 which is bliss!

Ah glad you got a later WU it really does help make things feel better if you can catch up on a bit of sleep.

I think if you are using cc to tackle the feeds at night then yes it would be best to use it for naps too, so you are being entirely consistent, otherwise he will still need your help. And wouldn't it be lovely to have him napping in the cot - I tell you I LOVE my LO's naptime - 2hrs of me time every day!

If your LO really won't take a second nap, then there are 2 things I would certainly recommend you try:

Firstly, I would suggest an early bedtime of about 6pm (or even 5.30pm if you dare!) whilst he's still napping at 10am ish. You may think this is crazy but if you bear in mid he is often awake by 10.45am/11.30am latest, he is going between 7-8 hours before his usual BT, after a relatively short nap.

Often people think that the only way to get LO's to sleep later in the morning is with a later bedtime, but in fact this can cause them to wake earlier if they are overtired at bedtime. Particularly during this transition, until his nap is at around lunchtime, you may find that it really helps. And even if he still gets up at 5am, he will have had an hour's more sleep IYSWIM?

Secondly, I would try to work on very gradually shifting his nap later in the morning, towards lunchtime. So put him down at 10am for a week or 2, then 10.15am for a week or 2, then 10.30am & so on. If 15min increments are too much for him you could always push it later by 5mins every 3-5 days. As the nap shifts a little later he will start to nap for longer (when on 1 nap & esp at this young age you ideally want a nap of 2hrs+). As the nap gets gradually later you can shift his bedtime back towards 7pm & eventually he will take his nap at around lunchtime.

This is a gradual process & may take some time, & you may encounter some overtiredness along the way but trust me this will help (exactly what we did to tackle EW & we now have 7am WU's!)

HTH.x