Naps affecting night sleep? Time to drop a nap?

[Dillybear]

Hello all,

My DD is 28 weeks old/6.5 months. She settles to sleep well on her own, especially now she has decided she likes to sleep on her front. She naps well during the day, often napping for 3-3.5 hours over the course of the day. I very often wake her from these naps and I know she would sleep even longer than this if I let her. She will happily sleep 1.5 - 2 hours for a nap.

I am starting to struggle to fit in the last nap of the day (I keep this at 30 minutes or less). She now needs to be awake at least three hours to get her down and that is even though I do her last nap in the pram or the car. The other day she was still happily awake after 3 hours 40 minutes, resisting her nap in the car.

She has also started waking earlier in the morning. I would usually have to wake her at 7am but she is starting to get up at 6am, which is fine but she still wakes overnight quite a bit. Last night it was four times! But some nights only once. She goes down at 7.30 at the moment, as her last nap ends at 5 but I don’t think I could get her down to sleep for 7pm anymore as she hasn’t been up long enough.

So, my question is, is she getting too much day sleep now, to the extent that it’s affecting night sleep? Is it too early to drop the third nap? Some websites say 6 months, others say 9 months. Also, have you got any ideas of what sort of schedule should I be looking at if she only has two naps? I’ve seen the 2-3-4 schedule. Anyone tried that at 6/7 months?

Thanks so much guys!

Don't read the books websites etc, if it looks like your baby needs to drop a nap, drop a nap. DS never read the books and by that age probably only had 2 naps, down to just one by 10 mo and even then bedtime was awful if too late/ too long

Yeah I'd start dropping the 3rd nap particularly if it feels like you're having to force it. You might have to go with an earlier bedtime though!

Yep, two naps by 6mo here (and only 30 minutes a nap but that’s her default setting!) and very early bedtime. Then slept 6-6 with two brief bottles, gradually dropping to one. She always went straight back to sleep after a night feed so I think the two naps rather than three helped make her tired.

@uglyface how did your baby cope with the transition? I have been waking her up after her naps to fit the last one in, as I’m worried that she’ll be overtired and screaming by bedtime if she has to be awake that long before she goes to bed for the night. I’m also worried that an earlier bedtime will mean more night wakings. At the moment, her wake ups are quite unpredictable, often three, occasionally just one (with a 6am start) but a ‘good’ night is two wake ups and then I get her up just after 7 😬

We got rid of the afternoon nap when my son was resisting it, it was around 6m. As soon as they stop wanting it / going down easily for it (eg are obviously tired for it) then just get rid of it. Let her sleep as long as she wants in the afternoon, but I would wake her at 3:30pm latest in order to get her to bed by 7pm.

At 6m I think I let my son have 45/60mins in the morning and 2-3h in the afternoon. As soon as the lunch nap started getting shorter I made the MN shorter and shorter (by 10m each time) until we were on 20mins then eventually just dropped that and he had just the lunch nap. Easy transitions.

Id let her second nap of the day be as long as she wants then drop the nap around 5pm

@Dillybear To be honest, she hated napping with such a fiery passion that it was a a relief for both of us to not have that fight three times a day! She did get overtired and grumpy, but she suffered with that a lot anyway due to the crap napping, so I just put her to bed as early as i could to combat this. In nearly two years, an early bedtime has not once made her wake up earlier or not sleep at night; she has her internal alarm clock and that’s that.

Yours is probably having a decent enough length lunchtime nap that it shouldn’t be so bad with overtiredness.

Our daughter only really stopped being permanently overtired when she hit 12 months; she started walking confidently, dropped to one nap and started sleeping through. Made her infinitely cheerier!

Drop the nap and see what happens, try for a few days and if it feels like it’s not working, switch back. Less day sleep may help with the night wakes too if she’s just getting too much. Our kiddo has always been on the high end of the sleep ranges but others are on the low, so I think doing what it seems like your kiddo needs is the way forward. We definitely had times with nap transitions where 3 was too many and two not enough! We were on a 7:30 wake up, 9:30-11 nap, 2:30-4 nap, 7pm bed schedule for about a year (6 months to 18 months). Just move bedtime forward by 30 mins of she seems too tired.