Morning nap getting later....how can I still make activities work??

[BotBotticelli]

Probably being daft asking this, but DS is now 9mo and has 2 naps per day, morning and after lunch.

Morning one is normally shorter (40 mins) and afternoon one is 2 hours on a good day, one hour on a bad day.

He wakes up at around 0630 most days, and for ages needed to nap at around 0830. This worked really well cos he would nap from 0830 - 0915 ish and then we could get him up, dressed, and out for morning activity (baby group, library rhyme time etc) for 10am. However, he seems to be suddenly stretching out his first awake time, and occasionally sleeping in until almost 7am (bliss!).

But this means he needs a nap at around 9am/9.15am....how on earth do you get to any morning stuff, if your LO needs a sleep at this time?? Btw, the answer can't be 'ditch the morning activities' cos DH is a stimulation hungry crazy little bean who goes mental with boredom if we spend more than half an hour in the house morning or afternoon, so i need to be able to get out in the morning for both of our sanity!!

What works for you?? Should I chill out about the cot napping and let him catch 20 mins in the buggy on the way to activities and hope that tides him over till lunch?? (Am scared of doing this, he really needs his sleep and is a misery without the cot nap he needs).

Love how your Dh is a crazy, hungry little bean!

I would definitely do the catching a quick nap in the car on the way to activities option and keep long afternoon sleep. I have always done lots if activities with my 3 and the younger two have just napped in the morning on the way to places and kept the lovely long afternoon sleep.

I'd suggest the same as GampyWabbit. My DD started dropping her morning nap around 10 months and was down to one long afternoon nap at 12months so as long as he sleeps well in the afternoon I'd go with the flow in the morning.

We had the same thing, later and later morning nap followed by later afternoon nap too. the next thing that happened was the afternoon nap started to get shorter (down from 2 hrs to 1h 15) and dd was exhausted by bedtime. to try to deal with this I am currently only letting dd sleep 20 mins in the am, it seems to be working and she's back doing longer lunchtime naps. What I'm saying is I think the later morning nap is the first step towards dropping the morning nap, so maybe don't make too many changes based round the later morning nap.

In the meantime can you find any activities at 10.30/11ish?

Thanks ladies....yes minipie, that's my impression too: I think DS is trying to tell me that he is moving towards not really needing a morning nap any more. He is only 9.5 months at the moment though so sounds a bit early to drop it altogether, but maybe I will try being more chilled out about it over the next few days and see if that works.

For example, this morning he woke up at 7am, and I put him in his cot at 9.15am for a nap....he chatted and pickled about until finally falling asleep at 9.45am. However, we have a swimming lesson at 10.30am this morning so I am going to have to wake him up to get ready when he has only had about 20 mins sleep. Normally, I would never wake DS up and have always let him have whatever length naps he likes, but I cannot start missing activities I have paid for, so am gonna give it a try and just hope that he's not too grumpy during swimming, and will hopefully then be totally knackered after lunch and will then sleep for a couple of hours.

He starts nursery in November when he is 11.5 months old and apparently they try to encourage the babies there to have one big nap after lunch so I suppose it's best if I try to enourage him to move towards that pattern!

how did it go Bot? was he grumpy? I have found dd has been a bit grumpy on being woken but then fine as soon as she's up and busy again.

today I didn't wake her after 20 min as she's coming down with a cold ... she slept for 50 min.. then wouldn't nap after lunch till nearly 2pm. I now have to decide whether I wake her for swimming at 3! so same dilemma as you in a funny way...

I tried to find earlier activities - starting at 9 ish over by 10.30 then would walk him to sleep in buggy - once asleep sit nicely In park or coffee shop with book/mn.

The later morning nap made afternoon naps tricky - so at 13 mo we are now on one 11-1 nap - which is fine but I miss my mid morning coffee shop book hour as he only naps that long at home.

Hey Minipie, he was actually fine this morning - surprised me! Woke him up after 25-30 mins at 10.10am, quickly got dressed and went swimming. He was fine through the class and loved it as usual. Screamed all the way through getting dry and dressed afterwards but that's par for the course. Got home, had a massive lunch at noon (swimming makes hims starving).

He started to get a bit grizzly at 1pm, which is when I normally put him down for his afternoon nap, so I put him down in his cot. He went to sleep after about 5 mins of babbling....and woke up 39 minutes later!!! :( And would not go back to sleep. Disaster! he has been regularly having 90 mins at 1pm, sometimes even 2 hours. I was sure he would sleep for aaaaages after swimming and a big lunch. Not sure what went wrong?? Tried to put him back in his cot for another little nap at 4pm after a trip to Morrisons but he was having none of it.

Gave up in the end and ended up putting him to bed at 18:40. So he will probably be up at 5am tomorrow now. Groooooan.

Hope you had more success mini??

And thanks andcake...that's a good idea about trying to find earlier activities. I feel like I am approaching a bit of a fork in the road...either go with the flow and possibly end up with one late morning nap like you and your LO, or try to force the issue so he has a micro-nap in the morning and then ends up with one nap after lunch laughs slightly hysterically at the idea that I might have any say in the matter

hmm well 25-30 mins is DD's usual morning nap so that wouldn't count as waking her up early here. If she had 25-30 mins (ie a full nap for her) waking at 10.10, she wouldn't be ready for her next nap till 1.45 earliest - then she would generally sleep for 1 hr 20 ish.

I seem to need to wake her after 20 mins or even less in order to get 1.5 hrs+ after lunch.

So if your ds is like my dd, maybe 1pm was a bit early to get a long nap given the quite late morning nap? But then, if you'd kept him up longer it sounds like he would have been grumpy...

sounds like you're best off keeping his new later nap times, not waking early but trying to find activities that fit...