Talk to me about your 7 month olds daytime nap routine

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 has decided, eventually, that he will nap for longer than 30 mins in the day, horrah! We had a rough routine going where he'd nap for 30 mins about every 2 hrs although recently it's been more like 3 naps a day, early morning, late morning and mid afternoon. Yesterday he slept from 3 to 5, today he's still asleep at 12 after putting him down at 10.30 so he clearly wants more sleep but I'm not sure how to structure his day now and when he should be doing his longer nap. He's on 3 meals a day and 4 bottles (on waking, mid morning, mid afternoon and bedtime). Advice?

Hi Heather

I aim for two main naps (morning and afternoon) plus a shorter late afternoon powernap.

I'm very flexible and will go with what my DD wants, but generally she sleep upstairs in the cot from 9.30-11.30 and then 1.00-3.00.

She then has a downstairs powernap (bouncy chair or on the floor) for 30-45 minutes late afternoon, starting somewhere between 5pm-6pm. I wouldn't consider this nap in the cot because I don't want to encourage a long sleep, just a powernap to help her get through to bedtime.

Get up time is 7am and bedtime is somewhere between 7pm-8pm with this structure.

I do:

• Milk first thing
• Breakfast immediately before morning nap
• Lunch upon waking
• Milk just before afternoon nap
• Dinner after school run - 4.30 ish
• Milk around 5pm-6pm (when grumbling starts, working on dropping this)
• Milk at bedtime

My timings are all based around the fact that I am tied to a school run. DD would have a later and longer afternoon nap (probably 1.30/2.00 - 4.00/4.30 if I didn't need to wake her at 3pm to go to school. This would probably result in the late afternoon nap being dropped.

Hi- my 7 month old has a short morning nap of between 30mins- 1 hour at 9.30ish and then a nap after lunch of 12.30/1-3. He did have an afternoon power nap until fairly recently but just dropped that. He is in bed 6.30/7 and was sleeping through till 6 until bloody teething started!

Six and a half months here and the naps are
9-10
12.30 - 2.30 or 3
5 - 5.20

Into bed at 7pm and sleeps through til 6.30am.

Thanks guys. Today we've been back to our 30 min naps...argh...but interestingly, he didn't do an early morning nap yesterday (he goes down 90 mins after he wakes usually, so around 8am) and then did his longer nap later so I probably need to extend that nap to 9/9.30 to start off with.

What time are all your LOs awake in the morning? DS1 is usually up at 6.30am and then seems to need to go back to sleep about 8am.

I think the time change is messing with him a wee bit too.

My DD gets woken (by her siblings coming into our bedroom in the morning) so it is hard to say for certain what time she would wake up if left to her own devices. She's woken some time between 6.30 and 7.30.

She would go to sleep at 9.00 if it wasn't that we have a school run to do. But the in and out of the carseat keeps her awake.