How long should the last nap be 5mo bedtime 9pm

[Jellybabie3]

So i posted recently about my 5mo bedtime. He naturally wakes at 7 - 7.30am and sleeps about 9pm ish. Up until now thats meant 4 naps. I got some really good advice about this and then DS has stopped wanting 4 naps and instead is sleeping for 2 hours ish at lunch.....

So don't want to harbour on but how long can that last nap be? Hes due around 5ish a day now. First night he slept 4 hour chunks (unheard of) second night i pushed him for 3 hours and he woke every 2. He had had an hour at 5 as opposed to 30min the day before.

I have no idea if its related - his sleep is all over the place. BUT
Ive seen alot of people only allow a catnap and wake baby before the stint to bed ( i have never woken him from a nap!!)

Is this a good idea or not? It will obv bring bedtime forward abit. But really we are OK with 9pm bed.

I know nothing - my baby is all over the place at the moment. But what I personally do is not wake her at all and let the nap last for however long it needs to (which is never particularly long).
When I have made the error of waking her she has been totally miserable clingy and whiny and I have had to put her to bed much earlier than I wanted to/planned to.
So the last nap dictates bedtime for me.
But what do I know.... we’re in a world of sleep pain here!
This was previously working fine for us though

Yeah thats kind of what I've done. Sleep is so bad i dont want it worse.....

Never wake a sleeping baby. He’ll regulate his own routine eventually!

This won't last long as their needs change so fast but i probably wouldn't allow more than 45 mins at 5pm. My 7 month old was having a 5pm nap of about half an hour and going down at 9ish at 5 months. She now only has a half hour morning nap, 1.5-2.5 lunch time nap and goes to bed at 7.30pm.

smileygrapefruit - what time are your naps? My LO is 6.5mths and I am struggling with how to drop 3rd nap as he has a meltdown without it. Seems such a long time to bed from luncy

Don't drop number 3 then! Don't rush your babies. Mine had 3 naps until almost 1!

Stop stressing about sleep too, this too shall pass.

She's up at 7am. Naps 9.30-10am and 12.45 til anywhere between 2 and 3.15.

But I followed her lead, she started taking longer and longer to settle for 3rd nap and waking after 15 mins.

They are all different! Dc1 stops ALL naps at 11 months. Dc2 still has 2 hours at nearly 2 and a half. Dc3 somewhere between the two 😊

Dermymc - it is nice if you can work on that basis but as I have been suffering with PPD and my physical health has now also taken a turn for the worse I cannot deal with the multiple night wake ups for much longer and don't have much support. We resorted to paying a sleep consultant and although naps have lengthened her advice was to drop 3rd nap at 6mths but I can't see how he can possibly go from 3pm to 7.30pm.

smileygrapefruit - good to know. I do feel like he needs more sleep than average but it is so hard to work out as if he has more than an hour first nap and then 2hrs lunch it doesn't leave time for 3rd nap but without gap to bed is soooo long.

Jellybabie3 - sorry to have hijacked your thread there a bit. The sleep consultant we spoke to said afternoon sleep can wreak havoc with bedtime and my experience has been that night sleep has been worse with a longer afternoon nap if there is not long enough to bed. If my LO does 30mins in afternoon then he is ready for sleep after 2hrs but if he does an hour or more he needs to be up at least 2.5hrs to bed or he wakes more

Until about 6/7mo my DS would have a 45 min nap around 5pm and would go to bed around 8:30/9pm. 45 minutes is a good length of time for a late nap as that is a length of a babies sleep cycle.

Well as an ipdate...
Up 7.30am
Naps were 9.30 30mins
12.30 2 hours
5pm 30mins
7.45pm asleep

Both short naps out of my control

Despite that he still woke 30min later went back to slerp at 9pm and has just woke now. (Whoop whoop)

So he still goesfor 9pm bed.....wierd. Not stressing at all just amazing hes worked it all out himself

Chelle can you try an earlier bed time?

Night waking at 6 months is par for the course no matter what any sleep consultant tells you.

Are you co sleeping?