Please help with 7.5 month old nap/sleep routine

[sleeplessinyork]

Hello,

I'm after some advice regarding my 7.5 month old's sleep routine. Really struggling to figure out what to do with regards to her naps. Normally our days follow one of these two patterns, neither of which seem to be working great.

7am wake up
9:15-11:15 nap 1
13:00-13:45 nap 2
16:30-17:00 nap 3
19:30 bed (asleep more around 20.00 usually)

Following this she goes down easily for naps and relatively easily for bedtime also.

7am wake up
9:30-11.30 nap 1
14:15-15:00 nap 2
18.30 bed (asleep around 19:00)

She sometimes struggles to settle for nap 2 on this routine and also at bedtime as I think she's overtired.

She seems to have settled into a long morning nap, I usually wake her after 2 hours, but can't get the second nap to be longer than 45 minutes most days so we still need a 3rd nap then. I tried pushing back her naps so there isn't too long between last nap and bedtime but she still only does 45 minutes.

She still wakes 2-3 times at night, with one feed. Not sure why she wakes as she normally doesn't want a feed the other times, she settles with a quick shush pat. Wake up times are usually between 11pm and 3 am.

Should I shorten her morning nap in the hope that her afternoon nap will lengthen then? What is a good routine at this age?

TIA ☺️

Sorry I don't think that was very clear. The main issue is the night wakings. I have a feeling it's to do with her naps not working for her, but open to other suggestions.

She’s just in that awkward phase where she needs more than two naps but less than three naps! She will grow into routine two over the next few weeks. And then out of it again! DD1 liked a long morning nap, always had the shorter nap in the afternoon. It was just how she was. Why do you think naps are causing her to wake in the night? Does she self settle at bedtime? It all sounds fairly normal to me.

I'm in the same situation. My 7 mo is having a long morning nap 9/9:30-11ish then a short afternoon nap and it's hard to get a third in but then the awake window is crazy long. Mine wakes up 1-2 times in night too and feeds both times. She wakes in morning between 5:30-7. It's pretty random but I always wake her at 7. When she's had three naps she tends to wake early. It's such a crap phase of dropping the third nap!

Yeah, as PP said, she will grow and her sleep needs and habits will just naturally change a lot over the next few months. At that age my DS was on a 3 nap day and often only napped for 30-60 mins at a time for naps, generally preferred morning nap for the long ones though (and still does for those). He also woke up a few times a night, but usually only had 1-2 night feeds. He's 10 months now, usually sleeps all night long and only has a night feed maybe once a fortnight or so, but he does tend to wake earlier for the day in the mornings now. He is also usually down to a 2 nap day and often has 2 long naps of 1.5-2hrs long. But not always, and he doesn't have long naps if he's not at home. What all that waffle was meant to illustrate is that you don't need to do anything, it will change itself over the next few months anyway!

Thanks for the replies. Yes, you're probably right, she's just in that awkward 3 to 2 nap transition. She self settles for naps and at bedtime unless overtired so I thought maybe she's having too little / too much daytime sleep and that is what causes the night time wake ups, as some of the wake ups are definitely not caused by hunger. She often wakes around 11-midnight for a feed and then again at 1 and 2, but will settle quickly then without a feed. Then she sleeps until 6-7am.

Today she again had a two hour sleep this morning, but just woke up from her second nap after 35 minutes clearly still tired and wanting to sleep but won't go back down.

Glad to hear that it settled down and night sleep also improved for most of you. I guess it's just a question of waiting it out. Thank you!

I've been pushing my 7 month old to her max awake window 3-3.5 hours and that's helped her have longer naps.
I sleep trained for naps 2 weeks ago as she was only sleeping in sling on me up until then.
How much food is your 7.5 month old having?

@sunflowerandivy glad that's worked for you, maybe I'll try pushing her wake windows gradually longer too.

She's had quite a slow start on solids. She's not keen at all on being spoon fed so we are mostly doing baby led weaning. She's not actually swallowing very much at all yet. I normally offer her breakfast and lunch for now. How is yours doing?

Mines ok. She loved it to begin with. I give a mixture of puree and finger foods. She has porridge for breakfast with various fruits and formula. Then puree and finger foods for lunch and tea but not much at all. I hate breastfeeding so much but she doesn't take a bottle reliably enough for me to give up breastfeeding. I'm trying a straw cup everyday

@sunflowerandivy hope your dd will take milk from a straw cup soon! I've taught mine to drink water from a straw cup using the pipette method. It worked after a few weeks. She won't take milk from a bottle either, but I've given up on that now, I don't mind breastfeeding, it's easier than making up formula!

How is your DD's sleep now? Mine started to have longer afternoon naps over the last couple of days, we'll see if that lasts.

We're still struggling with 3-4 wakings in the night though. She only wants a feed once in the night and will settle quite easily the other times so I'm struggling to know what to do to reduce night wakings. She can self settle for naps and bedtime and all the sleep training advice I've come across is teaching to self settle so I don't think it would be helpful. Unless we specifically try something like controlled crying at night only?? I'm kinda just going along with it for now and hoping she'll figure it out on her own.

My DD sounds like yours. Will self settle at naps and bedtime but still wakes a random amount in the night. Sometimes we have 1 wake. Sometimes 3-4, sometimes she's awake for 1-3 hours in night, sometimes up at 5. I follow an aged based routine and she has 2-3 hours of naps a day split between two naps. Don't think sleep training is useful here either as I can put her down awake and she goes to sleep. So not sure what to do, just ride it out

@sleeplessinyork i would try 45 mins in am and then she will hopefully do 2 hours at lunch and be less overtired. That’s what I do with my LO . If I let her sleep longer in am she won’t do the afternoon one even though tired.

@Addidas I was roughly following the 8 month 2 nap schedule from huckleberry where they do 2 x 1.5 hours a day. She only slept 45 mins yesterday pm though. We were up at 5am this morning again. Argh!!!

Ah sorry to hear about your early wake up @sunflowerandivy
Sounds like we had a similar nap day to yours yesterday. She did 1h45min in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon, which happens often but then we had the best night in ages, she slept 7-7 with only one wake up around 23.30 for a feed. I think it's just random... She was very overtired in the evening and took a while to fall asleep.

@Addidas thanks, yes maybe I'll try to wake her from her morning nap after 45 minutes see what happens then.

Yes I follow huckleberry a lot too but that’s one area that I find they don’t address - most other sleep books/sites and consultants are very clear that long morning nap can lead to more night wakings and early waking. My son used to wake at 5am for a long time so I did a lot of reading back then and that was the general consensus and so this time around I’ve kept nap 1 shorter.

bear in mind can take 2 weeks to improve early wakes so keep at it….and also some babies just don’t sleep 12 hours incase ur bedtime is early! I talk from experience of my son. By keeping his bedtime 8pm and nap 1 short and removed from his wake up (so about 930 regardless of a 5am wake up) he slowly got to 7am wake up.

of course it could be purely random and you just have to ride it out! But I always felt better trying it all then if it was still 5am I knew I couldn’t do anything to improve it!

hope ur LO settles.

my current one has just started waking at 6am which isn’t bad but she was doing 7am and I think it’s because I’ve gone back to 3 naps for various reasons to do with school run so I need to go back to 2…..

Thanks for the tips @Addidas . So you still napped late in morning even if woke at 5:30? So a super long awake window?
That's what I've been doing too. Our bedtime is around 7:30. She feeds from 7:30-815 and falls asleep feeding. She can self settle well though, I can pop her in cot awake and she falls asleep in minutes if she's ready

Yeah so I used to leave my son until 7am or as close to it. I was lucky he would just roll around most days chatting in his cot . Very occasionally fall back to sleep. I sometimes would do nap earlier but I tried super hard to get him to 9/915. He was never upset just fussy towards end of that period. They say if u bring them into daylight it resets their internal clock and then it’s even harder to improve their wake time so best keep them in dark. Obviously if babe is screaming this is not possible to do.

it did eventually improve

my daughter however does sleep past 7 some days so obv is inherently different though I use same schedule

so it’s def part them!

Thanks for all the advice @Addidas .

What time would you have the second nap then? First nap around 9:30-10:15 and second around 1-3? Such a pain that all baby groups and classes seem to be around 1pm in my area 🙄

ive not sussed the 2 nap thing fully yet with my daughter But I’m working on

930-1015 and 115-330/345 and then asleep for 7….with my son I did

10-11 (was so worried about early waking so really pushed it!) and 2-4 asleep for 7. He did well on that and woke closer to 6…actually I rem I did 10-11 but then he stopped doing long nap 2 so I did 45 only in am

I think the last window being too long also makes them overtired and causes early waking but then the transition does make them tired so think some adjustment and early waking is part of the process