6mo nightmare evenings

[Sleepfortheweekend]

My 6mo has a loose schedule - 3 naps a day roughly 2-3 hours apart. The naps vary in length but generally total between 2-3 hours each day. Our issue is that he just can’t cope between nap 3 and bedtime, no matter what his day sleep looks like he gets incredibly upset. It’s made more difficult by the fact that I do my toddlers bedtime so the baby is with my partner - this has always been fine in the past and he would be easily bounced to sleep but now he just screams and screams.

Anyone got any ideas? I just don’t know why he can’t cope with the final wake window.

Today has looked like this:
Awake 7am
nap 1: 9-9:40
nap 2: 12:15-1:45
nap 3: 4:45-5:15
screaming started by 6:30. My partner put him in the sling and he crashed within 5 minutes so was only awake 1hr 25 and asleep by 6:40pm 😵‍💫. We’ve already had two wakes..

Where am I going wrong?

No expert but 5.15 too close to bed time, doesn't give enough time for tea, bath, cuddle, bed

I don't have any advice (sorry) but my six month old is the same. I can't seem to find the sweet spot between letting her sleep late enough that she's not an overtired mess come 6pm and leaving enough of a wake window that she goes down easily at 7ish. It also doesn't help that the only way she'll nap now is in the pram or car, whereas she used to put herself to sleep in the Moses basket with no issue. It's very tricky, especially with another child in the picture!

I think we’d hope that if he woke at 5:15 bedtime would be 8ish which would give enough time. Fit the bedtime routine.

Would you stop sleep earlier? What if this meant no time for nap 3?

Sorry to hear you’re going through similar, ikea such a juggling act isn’t it?!