How to transition from 3 to 2 naps?

[SleepyMama098]

I have an almost 8 month old who currently still has 3 naps but it’s getting harder to fit 3 naps in without bedtime being pushed too late, so I’ve had to start cutting his naps short, which I feel awful for. Sometimes he’s cranky when I do. Current rough schedule is:

6.30-7am - awake
9am ish - nap 1 (wake window 2 hrs 15, nap 1 hour long - I wake him)
12.30ish - nap 2 (wake window 2.5 hrs, nap 1 hr 20-30 mins)
4pm ish - nap 3 (wake window 2.5 hrs, nap 15-30 mins depending on how late bedtime could get - so I sometimes need to wake him)
7-7.30pm - ideally bedtime (wake window 2 hrs 45) but sometimes this gets pushed closer to 8pm

i try to make sure he’s still had at least 2.5 hours of total naps throughout the day. Sometimes he can seem overtired by bedtime though but that could be because he doesn’t sleep great over night and never has done. He currently wakes 4-6 times.

My question is - during the transition, is there anyway to stop bedtime being pushed late or is it just part of what happens as wake windows get stretched? He definitely couldn’t manage a 3+ hour wake window yet, which would be needed for a 2 nap day. Is it bad that I’m having to cut all of his naps short to make sure I can fit them in without bedtime getting ridiculous?

Anyone have any tips?

My baby dropped his 3rd nap quite early at 5 months as he was resisting it and eventually stopped falling asleep for it.
We loosely followed the Little Ones sleep routine so:
Wake: 7:00
Nap 1: 9:15/9:30 - 10:00
Nap 2: 12:30 - 14:30
Nap 3: 16:30/16:45 - 17:00
Bed: 19:00

Basically the start time of the 3rd nap gets pushed later but you always wake them by 17:00. It gets to a point where they stop going to sleep at all.
You might have to bring the bedtime forward to 18:30 for a month or so until they adjust but most babies can do a longer wake period at the end of the day.

My DS is 11 months now and we're just about to drop his morning nap because even if he just has 10 mins sleep it's stopping him from going to sleep at 1pm.

@24HoursFromTulseHill Thanks! Does that mean you only did a 2 hr wake window before bed? My LO needs at least 2.5-2.75 hour wake window before bed otherwise he wakes loads in the first half of the night.

By the time he dropped his 3rd nap he was waking at 14:30 or 15:00 (depending on when he went down for his nap and if he woke up midway) and would then go to sleep for bedtime at 18:30, so he'd be awake in the afternoon for at least 3.5 hours.

As he got used to being awake for that long we pushed his bed time back to the original time of 19:00 so he's awake for at least 4 hours.

Maybe try not waking him from the first nap as that should give you more time to play with and I'd say bedtime from 6pm is fine during transition (I found dd still slept until the same time in the morning as total sleep time is same as before)

6.30-7.00 wake
Nap 1 9am-11am
Nap 2 1.30pm-3.30pm
Bed 6pm

Will only work if baby can lengthen naps though. Otherwise probably best to wait another month.

I've never had mine on a nap schedule and he dropped the third nap at 6 months, it was all very uneventful. I let him nap when he's tired and it just happened, his first two naps just kept stretching later and then there was no time for a third. Zero drama.

He's now almost 10 months and has been dropping the second nap since around 8.5 months. Still not on a schedule and some days he only has one nap and other days has two, all depends on the first nap and how late that one goes. Last two days he's gone down after 5 hours awake and only had that one nap, but today he needed that first nap after 3 hours awake, so today will be two naps. I fully recommend just following baby's lead and let him nap when he wants.