Cat naps twice but then wants a long nap before bed??

[rachaelcole]

DD is 8 months & has been a catnapper since she was 8wo.

Recently she has been trying to take a longer 3rd nap-stars at about 16:00, but I always wake her after 45mins Max to preserve good night sleep.

Anyone else had this problem or have any advice?

Her A times are 3hrs-06:30-09:30 & 10:00-13:00...after that it's a 2hr30 A time until 16:00.

Thanks

[weaver]

Erm, I'm sorry I'm not entirely clear what your question is.  Can you try asking again? 

[rachaelcole]

Sorry - posted in a rush from my phone...

DD has been a catnapper for almost all of her life and has had 3 or 4 30 minute naps a day from 8wo. However, recently she has been trying to have a long last nap (so 2 30minute naps then a long nap). Today I let her sleep this last nap just to see what happened and she slept for 1.5hrs from 15:50-17:20 - usually I wake her after 45 minutes max to preserve her night sleep.

Just wondered if anyone else had experienced this & if so what they did? I havent seen anyone else say that they have a long late afternoon nap.  Ive always presumed that she just couldn't transition but it appears that she can - ideally I would like to bring this long nap forward by an hour - any ideas how to do that? Should I just go with it for a while so she gets used to transitioning then try & move it forward?

Her rough daily EAS is as follows:

Wake - 06:30
E - 07:00 (cereal)
A - 3hrs
E - 09:00 (6oz formula)
S - 09:30-10:00
A - 3hrs
E - 12:00 (lunch)
S - 13:00-13:30
E - 13:30 (6oz formula)
A - 2.5 hrs
S - 16:00-16:30
E - 16:30 (tea)
18:15 - bath
18:30 - 6oz formula
Asleep by 19:00

She still was asleep by 19:00 this evening even though she had a 1.5hr nap until 17:20...I'm hoping we don't have too bad a night for it.

Thanks - again sorry about garbled previous post!

[weaver]

Average A time for that age is anything from 3-4 hours, so it is possible that her A is short for her throughout the day and she could do longer A earlier and get better naps throughout the day.  If it were me, I would try upping her first A and try to get the longer nap earlier in the day. Increase by 15 mins and hold it there for 3 days, then if need be, increase again and see what happens.   

As she's 8 mos, I would suspect that a 1.5 hours nap that late in the day will set you up for trouble at BT, that's just a hunch of mine!  Do let us know what happened with BT today.

[rachaelcole]

As expected we had an unsettled night. She wasn't awful but woke at 23:00, 01:30 & 04:00 then woke up for the day at about 06:00 ( for her thats unusual) but I guess at least it was worth the experiment.

Ill hold her nap time of 09:30 which will give her a first A of 3.5 hrs. Ill probably still get a 30 minute nap!