Help with my 6 month old's naps please!

[KellyC]

Hi

Zander is now 6.5 months old and we still haven't got his naps figured out.  He went through that really bad phase at around 3 or 4 months when all his naps were 45 minutes but he's now perfectly capable of sleeping past the 45 minute mark but only if I put him down at exactly the right time.  I used to be able to get him back to sleep using PU/PD but now he's older and more alert once he's properly awake that's it, PU/PD no longer does anything except make him scream and as soon as I stop he's happy and smiley and copes very well for the next 2-3 hours.  Any kind of wake to sleep is a definite no no as I can't even go into his room to check on him at night as it wakes him!

A few weeks ago I decided to concentrate on getting one good nap out of him each day and we got into a really good routine of 45 minutes in the am and 2-2.5 hours in the pm.  Now he's decided he'll take a long nap in the morning (1.5-2 hours) but has the short nap in the pm.  This makes the afternoon for him very long as it's such a long time period since he last had a decent nap.  He now refuses to take an early evening catnap but if we're out in the car will fall asleep which helps us make it through until his bedtime.

I've tried increasing his second A time as I know he can cope with more now.  So far this week I've tried 2.5 hours, 2.75 hours and 3 hours each ending in a 45 minute nap, should I pick an A time and stick to it for a few days rather than try something new each day?  I wonder whether letting him take any 45 minute naps means I've been reinforcing that it's ok to wake up at that point.  Something that's worked in the recent past is using PU/PD for the rest of his nap time and then the next day he's taken a long nap but I'd rather not do this as it seems unnecessary when he's quite happy to get up.

He's just started sleeping through the night again after a couple of months requiring night feeds and his schedule today was this;

E 7am BF
   8am Solids

S 9am - 10.30am

E 11am BF
   12pm Solids

S 1.30pm - 2.15pm (he woke with a fright and cried and also struggled to go down which is very unusual, definitely not looking at a longer A time!)

E 3pm BF
  4pm Solids

S 5.30pm - 5.50pm (in car)

E 6pm

S 7pm

I'd really appreciate any advice anyone can offer to get a second good nap out of him.  I find it so frustrating as I know he can make it past the 45 minute mark.  By the way I don't go straight to him when he wakes and on a couple of occassions he has put himself back to sleep.  I don't go into him until he's 'properly' crying!  He goes to sleep completely independently and these days usually shouts to himself for 5 minutes or so before he goes off to sleep.

Thanks as always
Kelly x

[*Natasha*]

Sounds like he is ready for a longer awake time. At 6 months my DD's awake time was: 2.5hrs before AM nap, 3hrs before PM nap and 3.5hrs before bed.

[Mom to M&M]

Hi Kelly. You've gotten some very good advice already here! I recently went through this with my DD (now 7.5 months).

I think Natasha has a good point with A times. At 6 months we pushed DD to 2.5 hours in the am and between 2-3 in the pm (depending on length and quality of first nap). Of course you'll need to extend A times slowly so you don't get Zander too overtired - I find stroller walks, a bit of TV, cuddles, stories, etc help with this. We extended 15 minutes every 3-4 days and are now at about 2.75-3 before am nap and 3-3.25 before pm nap.

Perhaps you could try the following:

E 7am BF
   8:30 am Solids

S 9:30-11

E 11:30 am BF (unless he's crying for feed you don't need to stick with strict 4 hour feeds once you are on solids)
   12:45/1 Solids

S 2-3:30

E 3:30 BF
   5pm Solids

E 6:30 pm BF
S - 7pm Bedtime

This way you can also try to cut out the catnap. If you can get Zander to get in two good naps during the day (or at least one long one) and until at least 3 or 3:30 pm, you may be able to start dropping the catnap. You may have days/weeks where this goes back and forth - some days with catnap, some days without...

HTH. Let us know what you think.

[KellyC]

Thanks for all your advice.  We were doing 30-40 minutes am and then getting a long 2 - 2.5 hour pm nap but he started taking a 30-40 minute am nap and then a 30-40 minute pm nap too so I'm letting him stick with the 1.5 hour am nap in case it's the last good sleep he has all day! 

I agree he's ready to extend his A times and was so convinced the 3 hour pm A time would result in a long nap but alas it wasn't to be!  I think your suggestion of extending the am A time to 2.5 hours is a good idea Marisa's mom.  He is still pretty content when he goes down at 9am and I'm sure he could last a little longer but I'm nervous about playing with it as he's currently having a long nap.
 
He rarely has a catnap now, even if he's only had 2 short naps.  When we were having a short am and a long pm nap he went through to bedtime no problem. 

I'll start moving towards Marisa's Mom's suggestion tomorrow.  We were up for about an hour with him in the night and he was inconsolable, finally he threw up everywhere then started smiling!  Today he also seems to have some sort of eye infection and falls asleep whenever I put him in his carseat to go somewhere so today we have no routine at all!!

I'll let you know how we get on in a couple of days.

Kelly x

[Mom to M&M]

Sounds good Kelly. The other reason it should help to push out his morning A time is so that nap and the PM one end later. Since he usually refuses the catnap anyway, it will help make that second nap end later so it's not such a long stretch until bedtime.

Of course,it's all a bit moot when he's not feeling well! Hope he feels better soon - let us know if you have other questions.