Naps

[Kaz4755]

Hi

I just wondered what you all regarding naps. My daughter is 10.5 months old and until about 8 months sleep was dreadful. Things have improved since then (touch wood!) and I'm wondering what to do about her naps. She usually wakes up about 6am and then goes back down about 2.5-3 hours later. She at the moment seems to have about an hour and a half to two hours sleep, which is brilliant. Her afternoon naps are a bit more hit and miss. I was wondering if I should limit her morning nap so wake her up after say an hour in the hope she sleeps better in the afternoon. Is that something you would do? Also I have been very regimented putting her in her cot to the point that if she needs a sleep and we are meant to be at a baby class i think it is more important for her to have her sleep so we miss the class. I feel bad if she doesn't get her sleep. Is this being stupid? Most of my friends children have to fit in around them but this is my first baby and I feel I should work around her. What would you do? I feel stressed if she is due a sleep and we are out and about and she doesn't sleep, she rarely falls asleep in her pram when I'm out. Xx

Give her an hour in the morning, hour in the afternoon. Sometime in the next couple of months she'll probably go down to just one nap a day lasting a couple of hours or so.

She might even be ready to drop down to one long nap now - you could try keeping her awake until say 11am then putting her down.

Don't worry about missing baby groups, enjoy the time you have to yourself whilst she's napping!

I do limit my ds2 to 40 mins in the morning and then allow up to 2hrs in the afternoon. He is nicely refreshed after 40-50 mins in the morning but still has a decent nap in the pm (which coincides with my older two having an hour's downtime). It also makes the last hour of the day much more pleasant.

I'd reduce to an hour first of all and then if it seems to help and increase pm sleep then you could reduce it a bit more.

With DS1 he would sleep anywhere, we could move him and settle him easily so he just fitted in with whatever we were doing.

DS2 is totally different, he needs his sleep and it's really difficult to get him to sleep anywhere apart from at home. I try to work round his naps as much as possible or he just ends up an overtired mess. I don't wake him but you could try it and see if it makes any difference.