9 mnths and still needs 3 naps per day...

[MyHazelnut]

Hi all,

My 9.5 month old DD still seems to need that third nap (the catnap).  When she gets that catnap, the nights are beautiful !!  But IF her daytime naps work out so that there is no time for a catnap, we'll put her down for the night at 7 to 7:30pm.  35 minutes later she's up for another awake period and it's so hard to get her back down to sleep.  The remainder of the night can be very difficult for everyone with very frequent wakings each requiring 20 minutes to settle into sleep again .  Her EASY routine looks like this:

6 am   wakes/breastfeed/activity/breakfast/activity
8:30 am   nap
10 am   wakes/breastfeed/activity/snack/activity
1 pm   nap
2 pm   wakes/breastfeed/activity/lunch/activity
6 pm   nap
6:35 pm   wakes/breastfeed/activity/supper/activity
8:30 pm   sleeps like a rock

Do I need to enforce a two nap routine or will she naturally fall into it over time?  I'd appreciate any suggestions.  She's going to be starting daycare in another 2 months where she will only be allowed ONE nap per day .  I would like to ease her into that inevitability gently, if possible.

Thank you so much.

[lilac83]

You should be aiming for a 12 hour day and a 12 hour night. Seeing that she wakes for the day at 6:00am she should then be in bed for the night at 6:00/6:30pm. So actually, your routine looks pretty good. The only suggestion I would make is possibly lengthen the second A time and see if she'll take longer than an hour nap. Try perhaps 3h 15m instead of just 3h and see how it goes. If the nap is still only an hour you could probably even increase it to 3h 30m.

[MyHazelnut]

Thank you for your comments.  I'm going to try to lengthen her A times as you suggested and see if it doesn't overly disturb her nighttime sleeps.  I'm sure it's just another transition to get through, and better sooner then later in this case. 

[lilac83]

Let me know how it goes!

[MyHazelnut]

YES!!  That was exactly the problem.  I lengthened the A time and my DD dropped her 3rd nap.  It wasn't a totally easy transition to two naps because she wanted to wake up at night... but with some persistance her nighttime wakings decreased. 

Thank you for the advice!!