When to start increasing wake times?

[CourtneyCox2021]

Sooooo me again..... 🤔

Just after a bit of input as don't want to be caught out with sleep like I have been since she was born. I was told babies sleep all the time and go off magically.... Pfffttt and I want a magical unicorn as its more believable.

Anyways. She's 6 months in a week or so. I have an excellent little routine given to me by someone on mumsnet.

I wondered when do u start increasing awake times for your LO when they start increasing their naps? Do you just go for the whole whack or increasing to 3 hours? (plan to follow the 2 3 4 type method) or do you increase slowly?

Then if you go for whole whack is there a transition period of overtiredness till they adjust?

Thank you in advance ☺️

Follow your baby's lead.

Always try to resettle at the end of every nap (every one, every day, always). This helps baby learn to link sleep cycles - so gets you longer naps.

Always resettle and sometimes it will work, mostly it won't. Then the times it works get more frequent, but it might be labour intensive at first (say, you need to keep perpetual motion going after the first cycle to maintain the second ).

Then the amount of input you need to give to link sleep cycles reduces, maybe only a quick back-and-forth 5 second jiggle to get to next sleep cycle, with all the rest of the sleep stationary. Then eventually you don't need to do anything - your baby has made that developmental leap to linking daytime sleep cycles (and it's time to move naps into the cot).

Throughout all of this ^ you are best keeping to wake windows of WW is double nap length plus or minus 15min and never more than 2h.

So your number of naps per day reduces as sleep cycles are joined and so naps are longer.

Once you get to 90 minute naps, with your 2h max awake time, you naturally get to3 naps per day. As an example
7am wake
9am-10.30 nap
12.30-2.30 nap
4.30 - 6.00 nap
8pm bedtime

Then you are at your 3 naps per day (Just by following baby's lead) and so can start stretching awake times in the afternoons, and at the same time limiting the teatime nap until you end up on just 2 naps per day, at 234.

Great thanks 👍

shes having 3 naps on majority of days now, unless we go out may be more. not long ones at end of day, so her last nap finishes about 4/5 ish then she's going bed 6pm to 7pm as she's knackered.

Should i put her down for a nap rather then bed then? As she sleeps from this time till 4/5 in morning 😴 has a feed (a new thing she didn't usually have this feed and has dreamfeed at 11pm) and usually drifts off after being awake 1hour to 1.5hours for 45 mins or so.

Is she thinking 4am is wake up time? 😂 😂

She probably is thinking it's morning, or at least she's on the verge of waking for the day but not quite ready, but hunger waking her.

Bottom line is, do what works for you. If you prefer an uninterrupted evening and don't mind interrupted early mornings, carry on as you are. If you would prefer a solid later morning wake up, push bedtime later.

Can I have both please 😁 😂 😂

Always follow baby/ toddler. It's important that they take naps / learn to recognise when they're tired and sleep, as well as communicating that. You need to help them by watching and learning their over tired cues.

They have growth spurts regularly when they may sleep more.

I personally think that they're better with emotional regulation the longer they have natural naps for although it's highly annoying when they stay up later! But from observing my two, there's less tantrums and better social communication, which is the main thing we are aiming for.

Thank you @FATEdestiny and @warriorN x

I remembered later that as much daylight and outdoor fresh air as possible is really important too, especially mornings. (Also really important for us too!)

It helps to set their circadian rhythm, increase melatonin and minimise awake time in the night (where they're actually partying. Waking to feed or reassurance is normal, then they should go back to sleep.)

I think that's one of the reasons they bundle them up and nap them in buggies outside in Scandinavian countries.

Thanks 😁 @warriorN.

So after dinner last night as it was windy. We went for 30 mins walk 😂 old wives tale I know 🤷🏼‍♀️ but thought bit of wind and sunlight never hurt anyone 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I may have dreamed it. But I felt like I did it. I woke at 3.55am, went to her stroked her cheek and popped her dummy in 🤦🏼‍♀️always loses it after her dream feed. She won't take it. Thought it could help

Guess what she woke up at 5am, I left her she drifted off till 520am 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️then that was it she wanted up...

I lost track of time for her morning nap - she loves daddy and I was whizzing around. She didn't go down till 750am 🤦🏼‍♀️and as fatedestiny suggested at her 45 mins Mark i popped my hand on her chest to keep her sleeping, I didn't want to do the movement as she got in the habit of that when she was younger, so I thought hand on chest may work. So far still sleeping 🤞🤞normally I keep her in her cot early morning and she will eventually drift off. But this morning I was like. Nope I'm getting up 😂