Help with 8 month old sleep!!

[Ilovemycat13]

Help!

Our nearly 8 month old (this week) still struggles with naps and wake windows.

He currently naps around 3 times a day, these are short at only 40 mins. His wake windows are still quite short around 2-3 hours and it’s a struggle to push anymore.

He maps in the morning between 8-9, again around midday - 1, and again at around 3. He goes to bed at around 630pm, it was 7 but it was brought forward a while ago. He sleeps through more often than not till at least 5. Sometimes he needs resettling, sometimes not.

The thing is, I think he is overtired ALL the time. We’ve tried to extend his naps but it hasn’t worked. We’ve tried shortening wake windows, lengthening wake windows. We’ve tried more naps. Less naps. Motion naps. Contact naps. Earlier bedtime and later bedtime. Nothing works! I want to get him to 2 naps to see if they lengthen but that seems IMPOSSIBLE with his wake windows and nap times.

Any ideas cause I’m out of them?

When our oldest DC (now 3) was dropping a nap, we found that taking him out for a change of scene (eg for a walk in the pushchair to the shops/park) would stretch his wake window longer than would have been possible at home. The fresh air would ‘reset’ him a bit and he’d last a bit longer. You’ve probably already tried this though!

I would try 2 naps a day. Normal by about 12 months they’re on 1 nap a day. Morning wake time will be the shortest so work on keeping him awake longer after the first nap.

2 naps would mean keeping him awake for around 5/6 hours post his first nap though? This is the problem we have. The first nap being around 40 mins, if it ends say 0930 and then next (2nd nap) is around 2/3 that’s such a long time. It feels like such a chicken and egg situation of what to do first and what will be worse or better

It maybe that bed time also has to come earlier. I always found with a new nap pattern you just have to power through it for 2 weeks and then they settle into it.

For the afternoon nap you could try cosleeping and mean actually going to sleep yourself if you can manage it.

Hi second nap needs to be around 1pm just after lunch though.

I wouldn't let the first nap happen until 9am and up by 10am. If you stick to this you should be able to get rid of the early wakings.

Then if up by 10am he should manage to stay awake for 3 hours til 1pm. Then up by 3pm latest and then aim for a 7pm bedtime. You may end up with quite short lunch naps for a bit but stick with it and stick with the 7pm bed time and that should also start prolonging the lunchtime nap.

So the wake windows should be 2 hrs, 3 hrs then 4 hrs (this is pretty standard).