When to drop naps?

[onesteptotheleftofme]

How do you know when to drop a nap? I follow mu baby's lead and put him down when he shows tired signs. But i see ppl talking about their baby showing that they need to drop a nap. How wdo they know this?

How old us your baby? What naps do they have each day? :)

I wondered this - the fact that DD became horribly grumpy without a nap told me she still needed it!

She started nursery school in October (2 hours in the afternoon), so she was forced to drop her nap as school starts at nap time. I'm not sure she was ready and she will still sometimes have 30-45 mins at a weekend.

They start mucking about and not sleeping or looking tired at all.

My DD dropped her first nap gradually: it just got shorter and shorter until there wasn't much point in putting her down. We stopped her second nap because bedtime was becoming a long, painful affair as she wasn't tired enough to sleep after her nap. My DS is in the process of dropping his nap at the moment - sometimes he has one and sometimes not dependent on how tired he is or what we've been doing.

How old is your baby?

Both mine napped every day Until they started school.

You can't go wrong if you follow baby's lead. Sometimes you need to restrict naps before bedtime in older (>6m) babies and sometimes pushing morning nap later also helps older babies. But aside from that, baby will show you how many naps they need

How old is your baby?

He's 5.5 months. I'm not so concerned about him, alrjo i am wondering if ge us changing his napping hanits (or maybe Christmas threw everything out!), it was as more of a general enquiry!

As an idea. At 5.5months mine would nap around 3 times a day. Around an hr or less mid morning, a longer 90min-2hr mid afternoon, and another 1hr or less late afternoon.

So typical day approx:
8am wake
10.30-11.15am nap
2-4pm nap
5.30-6.30pm nap
9pm sleep
11pm wake them and dreamfeed. Sleep until morning.

All above give or take an hour

Dc 5.5m currently wakes 7am sleeps at 9 for 45 minutes, 2 hours at 12ish and then has a cat nap about 4. I will be dropping the cat nap soon. Then by 9 months I will drop the 45 minute nap to 30 minutes and by a year drop it completely.

A clue for me was that DS simply wouldn't sleep at the usual time.

DS never slept much. Unlike his cousins.