Help With Naps

[Rowlie]

Looking for some nap advice as not sure what to do. LO is 8m. Currently he has 2x naps a day. First one is usually 2 hours after waking. Second one 3 hours after first nap. Morning wake up time can be inconsistent, but always between 6-7am. I would like him to wake at 7am so often leave him and he will drop back to sleep. This means nap schedule looks something like this:

9-10.20am nap
1.30-2.45pm nap

Both naps are around 1hr 10/20 mins. Sometimes he’ll do 1hr30. Very occasionally 2 hours. He’s recently started waking between sleep cycles for the morning nap and making noise for 15 mins before going back to sleep for another 30/40 min sleep cycle.

Does this mean he might only need a short nap in the AM? Which then might make him have 2hours over lunch instead? As I know a lot of people who do this schedule.

is he having enough daytime sleep at just over 2 hours?

he does sleep through the night fairly consistently now (7pm-6am ish)

Personally at that age i would leave lo in morning if their happy and not crying and obviously doesn't need you when they stir. If they go back to sleep they obviously need it. But that's just my view.

@ChittyBang1987 I thought the same. He was a serial catnapper for months but now seems to be able to link his cycles better.
Often I do see him wake after 40 minutes but put himself back to sleep in a few minutes, other times it takes him longer and he makes noise for 15 mins (but not crying or distressed). I just wondered if I had him on the ‘right’ schedule, as a lot of people I know with LOs the same age do a short morning nap and a 2-3 hour lunch nap. Whereas our routine is 2x naps of just over an hour on average. This routine suits me a better so I guess I go with that and hope it’s ok for LO?

My DS was a catnapper until about 8 months then he starting napping for longer. His morning and afternoon naps were a similar length but then the morning nap got shorter and shorter, I guess this is because that's the one they actually drop when they go down to 1 nap midday/afternoon. I just followed what DS wanted to do.

I think you have to do what suits you amd lo to be honest. Think at that age I was doing about 930am to 945am till 11am then 2pm to 215pm ish till 330pm to 4pm with 730pm to 8pm bedtime.

As long as lo is not overtired and seems happy and content go with it.

The sleep overnight is great. If you find early wakr ups may need to shift bedtime later at some point. I leave my lo in morning to when she wakes at 630am too for about 30 to 45 mins

It sounds like he's getting enough sleep over the whole 24hrs. I guess if he is happy and settled in his routine I would follow his lead.

Your DC sounds just like my DD. She sleeps around 11hrs per night, wakes up a little early sometimes (i would usually wake her at 6:45) but not unhappy just plays with her comforter or makes little noises to herself.

Difference is I cannot seem to get her down to 2 naps. Ideally I want her napping 9-10:30(ish) and then 1:30-3ish with a bedtime of 7pm.

Any tips on how you dropped third nap OP? At the moment she has 3 naps at around 40mins each. Always been a bit of a cat napper. I'm thinking I should just leave her after her morning nap to resettle herself (which she's done before no problem), and then her second nap will be later.

She is 8 months in a few days so I really want to drop the last nap quite soon.

@restedbutexhausted the 3rd nap just started getting too close to bedtime. Personally I like having a 7pm bedtime to give us more of an evening. His third nap was edging towards 5pm which would be too close to 7pm bedtime so I just stopped offering it. I’m not sure I’ve cracked his daytime sleep though, I do wonder if he’s waking after 30 minutes because he’s overtired. I find it so hard knowing what to do

@ChittyBang1987 how long after waking did you offer the first nap? I guess we’re kind of on a 2-3-4 routine currently, although sometimes ends up being 2-3.5-3 . Wonder if I need to push the first nap back a bit

About 2.5 to 3 very rare it got to 3 hours - 3 to 3.5 - 3.5 to 4 hours. For us the longest gap used to be in middle of day as i had to do stuff, but its definitely at end of day now, it depends on your lo tbh, some days she needed a nap after 2 hours being awake from the morning. Sometimes 3 but that was rare especially in morning nap.

Tbh now I just go by my lo and say when she's getting grumpy i say do you want to go bed and she races for stairs 😆 🤣 so there's that yo look forward to in the future.

If your lo is only doing 45 minutes nap @restedbutexhausted I would say their not quite ready to drop to 2 naps. We weren't happily on 2 naps until 9 months and some people say a lot older then this. Depends on your lo. How does your lo get to sleep? Self soothe? Do you rock etc?

@Rowlie ahh I see so maybe i just need to wait until her last nap edges closer to bedtime. I hear you about feeling clueless. Mostly I feel it's such a guessing game!

@ChittyBang1987 that makes a lot of sense! She was past 6 months tbh when I dropped her 4th nap so maybe she will be later with the third one too. She's been very good at settling herself down since she was quite young which is such a blessing, especially as a single parent 🙌 at night I read to her for about ten minutes. Usually she goes to sleep in that time but if not I just kiss her goodnight and she'll be asleep a few minutes later. For nap times I pop her down and she's out in less than 5 minutes. Brilliant!

Sounds good to me. Be led by your lo. Which I wish I did a lot more when my lo was younger. Basically yes once the third nap starts at 5pm or 530pm that's when I started adjusting it.