4 month old routine/dropping a nap?

[Lauren5976]

My 4 month old is currently in a good routine shes 18 weeks now and I'm wondering how do we drop the last nap and just put her to bed earlier? Will she start waking alot earlier in the morning if we do?
We currently have this routine..
6.45am Awake
7am Bottle
845am Nap
945Am Awake
11Am bottle
1145am Nap
1pm Awake
230pm bottle
3pm Nap
4pm Awake
530pm bottle
6pm Nap
630pm Awake
Bath/bedtime routine
8pm bottle
830pm asleep

How can we fit in the 5 feeds in the day if we take away one of the naps she won't have 2 feeds in one wake window?

I would keep that routine for a few more months. By 6 months old baby can start spending early evenings alone, ratger than the same room as you.

The way to shift bedtime earlier is to do Bath/bedtime routine in an earlier awake window. But u would say 4pm-6pm is too early, hense why I wouldn't change it just yet.

When you do change it, the idea is you do a dream feed in place of your final feed. So feed baby in the night, but no awake time with this feed.

She has started taking longer to settle for naps so not sure if I may need to drop one and try extended her awake windows abit, I don't really want to do a dream feed she has her last bottle at 8pm and goes until 7am when will I know when to drop the nap? Would she not managed to go through night until she's on solids maybe introduce earlier bed time then?

If she's sleeping through the night, I wouldn't change anything. A couple of weeks ago ours (19 weeks tomorrow) had a nap routine that invariably meant bedtime at 6.30pm. She proceeded to wake every morning at 5pm... We've now managed to get one final nap around 5pm in and she goes down at 8pm and wakes at 6.30 (still has one feed at 3pm).

Our routine is almost the same as yours except i give a bottle at 7am/10am/1pm/4pm and then she has another bottle at 6 and a top up just before bed. Her morning feeds are very small, so she tanks up in the afternoon and evening (also she's on expressed breastmilk rather than formula which I think can affect how long they stay full and how much they take each feed so prob not entirely comparable if yours is formula fed.)

So I wonder if you can offer a bottle after she wakes at 10am and see how that goes?

I think a 8pm bedtime is good really, means later wake time imo. Our 5 year old has always gone down at 8 or 8.30pm and never wakes before 7 thank god!

I honestly think you've got a good routine going for a 4 month old so wouldn't try and fix what isn't broken!

Our sleep for my 6 month old has been rubbish (I've recently done a post on this) but she's naturally decided she wants an earlier bedtime and I'm just going with it. I've been expecting her to wake up for a 5th bottle for this past week but she has been sleeping from 7pm now (with a couple of wake ups some nights but not every night) and it just came out of the blue!

You're getting a full night from bed time and a pretty decent wake up time so honestly from experience just go with it for now 😂

Jesus, apologies for all the typos. Supposed to say she was waking at 5am (not pm) and that she wakes for a feed at 3am not pm!

Okay thanks everyone ☺ we will stick with it for now then, would we drop that last nap as and when it gets later inevitably as her wake windows increase?
Shes been going with the exact same routine for the last 6 weeks I was expecting her windows of being awake to increase a little by now or could she be at 2 hours for a whole yet?

Use naps getting longer for the trigger for awake windows getting longer.

So as baby's sleep matures, 1h naps might turn into 90 minute naps and 2h plus naps.

I would not go longer than 2h awake window unless the previous nap was 90 minutes at least. It will come, don't worry.

My daughter is 8.5 months and we have only just moved off 2.5hour awake windows, so, yes, the 2 hour won’t be far wrong for you atm. I struggled with routine as she cat napped so it had to be bang on otherwise bed was thrown out. Now she is longer napping (started at 8 months but still not guaranteed) it’s making it easier to get to the 2 naps rather than 3. I love the naps but also won’t miss the stress of a schedule!

My 5 month old was on 3 naps at 4 months her schedule was:

7 wake and feed
9.30 nap
10.30 wake and feed
12.30 feed
1 nap
2 wake
3.30 feed
4 nap
5 wake
6.30 feed
7 bed

So 5 feeds, two within one waking period. The rest approx 3 hours apart. And 3 naps.

She's 6 months now and have just transitioned her to 2 naps. I'll aim to move to 1 nap around 11 months same as her sister. I think I drop naps earlier than most as it has worked better for me and my DDs. Generally if the naps get a bit longer you can increase the awake time and lose a nap. My DDs had 4 naps at 2/3 months, 3 naps at 4 months and 2 naps at 5.5 months.

Just to continue on from above my DD now has 2x 1.5 hour naps. So she's still having the same amount of day sleep (3 hours) but just over 2 naps instead of 3.

@Lostmyway86

Just to continue on from above my DD now has 2x 1.5 hour naps. So she's still having the same amount of day sleep (3 hours) but just over 2 naps instead of 3.

I think she could easily have 2 longer naps I usually almost always wake her up gently to keep her on track with feeds etc ive tried to feed twice in the same window but she won't. I could definitely extend the morning and the lunch nap and have the 3rd nap later and make the the last nap instead but would mean completing changing her routine to do that and I'm not sure how that will effect her 🤔

In that case definately leave baby to sleep longer for the first 2 naps, moving to 3- nap days.

7am wake & FEED 1
(reoffer what is left in bottle 1 just before 9an nap)
9am - 11am nap
11am FEED 2
(reoffer what is left in bottle 2 just before 1pm nap)
1pm-3pm nap
3pm FEED 3
(reoffer what is left in bottle 3 just before 5pm nap)
5pm-5.30 nap (wake after 30 mins)
6pm FEED 4
8pm FEED 5
8.30 bed

So should I still aim for an 8ish bed time for now? But consolidate her day time nap hours into 3 instead? I'll give this a go tomorrow what's the worste that can happen 😂

11h over night is the expected amount at this age (although anything in the range of 10-12h would be considered normal).

So if you're happy with a 7-7.30am ish wake up, I would keep an 8-8.30pm ish bedtime.

Bedtime tends to get earlier as you drop the third nap.

@Lauren5976

So should I still aim for an 8ish bed time for now? But consolidate her day time nap hours into 3 instead? I'll give this a go tomorrow what's the worste that can happen 😂

I'd give it a go. But then I'm a bit selfish in that I work out what suits me best and structure the routines around that. I have a 22 month old also so trying to do 4 naps with DD2 was really hard work. I found 3 ok, but 2 much better! I've made sure DD1s nap is the same time as DD2s 2nd one...my greatest life achievement . I really wouldn't worry about changing the routine, the first 6 months is all about change...as soon as one routine is established you're on to the next. I find once you get to the magic 2 naps and 7pm bedtime thay sticks for a good few months and you finally feel like you've got the hang of it! That's why I've rushed to get there and made sure by 6 months they were on 2 (using the 2, 3, 4 nap schedule - have a look on google). It does mean you'll have to fit 2 feeds into one waking hour, I did it betweem 11-1 and another poster suggested 6pm-8pm so see what works best. It might be that that second feed is shorter but as long as they get some. Good luck, the first couple of days may be a bit hit and miss but I reckon if you stick with it you'll find 3 naps much more manageable.

Thank you for this advise I decided to try it and it worked yesterday she had about 100mls less of milk in total but still slept through but this time from 730-645 hoping to do the same today 😁