Naps for v early waking babies - stick to normal times?

[jumpjockey]

DD is 10 months (today ) and used to sleep from 7ish til about 6am - sometimes one waking up but usually able to get her back to sleep ok. Would then be ready for a nap at about 9.30, usually fed her to super-doziness then into the cot, would do about an hour if we were lucky. Then another nap at about 2-3ish, usually in the pushchair on the way back from baby group/town etc. So staying awake for 3-4 hours between sleeps.

The last few days she's waking up at 5, or as this morning, 4.30 [yawn] So I tried to get her to nap at about 8.30 because she looked ready, but no luck. In these situations is it best to stick with the usual sorts of nap times (not that she goes down that easily...!) and ignore her looking knackered, or give her a really early nap and then the rest of the day be all off kilter?

Today she refused to sleep at all until 1.30 and fell asleep in the pushchair just as I arrived at our front door (double ).

Around one and a bit they stop the 2 naps for one nap during lunch time/early afternoon (2 or 3 hours are normal) she might just be a bit early, that will be your normal routine now on till she stop napping.

If she's waking at 4.30 or 5, I would first feed her and put her straight back to bed (treat as a night waking). If she doesn't go back to sleep and is really up for the day, I'd put her back down for her first 'nap' about an hour and a half later - as she'd woken up so early, I think she'd need a smaller than usual interval of wakefulness.

You might find then that she'd sleep, for example, from 6.30 till 7.30 and you could get back on a normal-ish sort of routine for the day.

I think she's staying awake too long before naps, which might be why she doesn't go down easily (overtirdness which leads to night-waking, or too early waking in the morning). If this carries on, I'd work on trying to get her napping in her cot if possible at 9am, then again 2.5-3 hours after waking up from the 9am nap. (So if she sleeps till 10, then have the second nap at 12.30 or 1).

I'd never recommend ignoring her looking tired and trying to keep her up! Think that'd cause more trouble than it's worth.

Good luck!

Hi from Dec 08 thread Jump.

Same exact situation here. We had a number of 4:00, 4:30, 4:45, and the last 3 days 5:10 (I was actually excited about these!).

I have been stretching him AM wake time to about 4 hours, and then about 3 hrs after that first nap. So he is napping around 9:30 and 1:30.

Someone recommended cutting short the first nap as day sleep starts taking away from night sleep at this age? I am trying this...so not letting him sleep for more than 1 hr in the AM, and then hoping he sleeps for 1.5 hrs in the PM.

But if your DD is not sleeping until 1:30 then maybe she is already ready to drop straight to 1 nap like mamaloco says?

Check this link too:
www.babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=95670.0

...stretching his AM awake time, I meant. Bad typing. Must be the early starts!

Thanks for the suggestions. I think part of her problem is that even though she may be looking very tired, she resists napping earlier in the day - she looked definitely ready for a nap much earlier than 1.30, and I was walking with her in the pushchair which normally sends her off quite easily but she just wouldn't do it.

viennese will keep the ideas in mind about trying to get her to nap after a shorter interval if she's had an early start. She did have an almost-nap at about 9 on the boob but never properly dropped off.

MoM hi will take a look at that link later on, thanks.

mamaloco - I don't think she's ready for just one nap yet, as she was getting quite grumpy quite early on in the day and just refusing to nap for some reason. It's as if she knew she 'should' be asleep but just thought there was too much going on to let it pass!

Just one thing to watch. Ds used to specialise in waking around 4am, then being ready for a little nap around 8.30. For him, this was fine. For us, in the longer run, it was killing. I eventually cracked when he was about 3 and refused to allow him his 8.30 nap. He was grizzly, fed up and a real pain. But the next morning he slept through until 7am, and did so thereafter. I wished I had been firm a lot earlier!
I know that your little one is well under 3, but worth at least a thought, because the 8.30 nap started at about that age.