Simple Question I Often Face with Short Naps

[raquelatx]

So, when my 7 month old son decides to take a 30 minute second nap, is his A time automatically cut short and he go to bed
earlier than usual? If this is the case, he'd be going to bed at 6:30p. Sounds kinda early. He normally wakes around 4:30pm and goes to
sleep around 7:30-8:pm and this works fine. But..... when he naps from 3-3:30pm, should I put him to bed at 6:30? You would think
this would cause a very early waking the next morning. 

Thanks!

[sparrow]

Yes, you usually shorten A time after a short nap.  Some lo's can handle their full A time but most need it shortened.  It will take some experimenting to figure out how much your lo needs it shortened.  For us it's usually about 30 minutes shorter but sometimes it's tough to know.  If you don't shorten and your lo goes to bed OT then that will probably cause an early wake the next morning, and/or night wakings.  We always get EW and NW when lo is over tired.  Hope that helps!

[*Ali*]

You could also try to put him down for a 15-20 min power nap around 6pm just to help make bedtime at 8pm without getting OT. If you do decide to stretch the A time out to put him down nearer his usual bedtime you can sometimes reduce the OTness by keeping A very lowkey such as sitting quietly, reading a book etc.
Apparently 30min naps are a sign of OT so you may also wish to look at why he might sometimes take 30 min naps and try to avoid them before they happen. Do they come when he has had a long A or OS perhaps?

[raquelatx]

well, the update is that by the time I was able to get him to bed was 7:30pm. He was definitely OT and needed about an hour
of PUPD before he FINALLY fell asleep. wow!    The thing is about 5:30 he was starting to doze off in his car seat while we were
driving but was only able to sleep for about 5 minutes. I knew this 5 minute snooze was going to haunt us later!

I am not sure why the short naps happen. His night time before was fine, he had taken an hour nap in the morning, A time was 3 hours and
15 minutes, which is the norm....... I don't know why.

Well, last night, he woke up from 2:30-3:30am..... I guess that's the consequence from all of yesterday's craziness, right? And this morning, it
all continues, well I hope not. But he just work up at 8:00am, which he USUALLY wakes up between 7-7:30. It is now 10am and I couldn't
keep him awake so he went down for his first nap after only 2 hours of A time.  Let's see how the rest of the day goes.     Gosh, what to do, what to do? 

[raquelatx]

well, it's now 11:00am; his first nap was only an hour long.... This is NOT a good start!