7 MO with long A times

[goldmom]

I have a pre-2-1 question.

If the A times start to get too long and stretches the second nap to end under 3/3.25 hours from BT, should I start cutting the second nap short (say no later than 4pm for a 7pm BT) or should I start pushing BT later. I feel like this is pushing the 2-1 already, but DD is still so young.

What should be done for a 7/8 MO with long A times?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Don't know if this is the best thing to do but we're in this situation at the moment and I'm cutting the afternoon nap short at the moment if need be to preserve a 7pm bedtime and 12-12.5 hr day.  With my daughter I kept the naps but she woke early in the morning so i ended up having to cap at 3 hrs daytime sleep.  But we did get into a bit of an OT mess before that cos she was doing some very long days.

I'll be following with interest to see what others do / have done cos jack's A times are higher than Lily's were at this age so we're into it quicker!

[Emami]

How long are her naps at the moment?  I did exactly as you suggested and made sure the second nap ended no later than 4pm for BT at 7pm.  I didn't really think of it as the start of the 2-1 as she was getting plenty of daytime sleep still.  Her day looked like this:
WU 6:30
Nap 9:30-11:30
Nap 3-4
BT 7
I can see this wouldn't work if all your A times are up around 3.5hrs, but if the first nap is 1.5hrs instead she should still be well rested from that.

If you don't want to cap the pm nap you could move BT a bit later - the day does get longer until you drop to one nap.  I would be careful of it going above 13hrs though.  Both options are fine but I went for capping because my DD always did long nights and I would rather shorten her day sleep than night sleep.  Some babies hate to be woken though so it depends what you think is best too!

[Mandy.kamal]

I'm getting into this situation now as well and will have to make an adjustment too! His A time is now 3.5 before am and pm naps but we do 3 hours before BT. Each day is a little different though; all depending on wake up time. Wake up varies by an hour or even two, so I just take it day by day at the moment.

I'm with Emma though and try to avoid going over a 13 hour day. DS naps are about an hour and 20 mins each so we are usually good with that. But his A times are rapidly increasing so ill probably start to cap the second nap as well, when necessary.

I never wake him in the morning but I may start to if he begins to sleep to late as that always makes the day a little messy.

I'll keep following along because I'm curious as what to do next as well! I am terrified of causing a big mess like I had before. Good for you for being proactive about the 2-1 transition

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Urgh! I think jack needs an A time increase again as he's started protesting his morning nap if I pd before 3 hrs 30.  He also complains if he has an A time of less than 3 hrs 30 before bed (3 hrs 15 if he has a short pm nap). Today I woke him 50 minutes into his morning nap cos we had an appointment.  I really should wake him in 5 minutes to preserve a 7pm bedtime but he'll only have had an hour for his second nap by then so I'm going to leave him and do a later BT.

I remember that short AM, long pm nap suits lsn babies better but at what point do you start doing that?  If I'd woken jack earlier today we'd have fit in a decent pm nap but it seems so early to be cutting naps like that!  He's only just 7 months old today! But surely that's better than him having 2x1hr naps each day?

[goldmom]

With DS we eventually settled on a set 10 AM nap and kept adjusting the second nap to later and shorter, which we kept for a long time. He's very active, but even now I could put him down very early for a nap and he'll sleep the same amount and be (mostly) ok till BT. He just likes his long afternoons. But I don't think we started doing that this early. My thinking has been long morning nap (1.5 hours) and shortened afternoon nap to properly be tired for BT. We never switched to the short AM b/c it just didn't occur to me then  . Not sure at which point you switch.

With DD we still get short naps on 3.25 hours sometimes, but if I do EBT then she's ok.

She acutally does suprisingly well on short naps...But we don't want problems to start developing. So when can shorter naps start?

[TB9]

I dont know if this will help ladies, but this has been DD2s schedule (almost 7months old now) for the last several days and it seems to be working out well for her::

7am wakeup
A 4hrs
S 11am-1pm
A 3.5hrs
S 4:30pm-5:15
A 3hrs
8:15pm ish

I am doing long am because she always wakes on her own after 45min during her pm nap, and she hates when I wake her, so I dont want to muck about with short am /long pm even though she is lsn.  I never wake her in the am, so if she sleeps in past 7am I still do about 4hrs A in the am and she will either sleep less for that am nap OR sleeps long enough that I can do a 1 nap day (that usually only happens when she is teething and sleeps super late though, so I usually end up with a shorter am nap when she sleeps in).

I was reading one of the 2-1 stickies, and long am/short pm works well if lo doesnt like to be woken from naps, short am/long pm works when lo needs long A before bed.  I guess the goal should be to have the shorter cn as more of a ut nap, so dont worry about getting a full A time before the cn, regardless of where it is, then tweak the other A times to give one good nap and bedtime


I hope that helps ladies!

***I should add that this scheduke works for us because she has two bottles plus breakfast during that first A.  If you want to let LO sleep in the am you could always do set naps, you just might end up with a bit of a nap battle and shorter than 1.5 hr naps***

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I was reading one of the 2-1 stickies, and long am/short pm works well if lo doesnt like to be woken from naps, short am/long pm works when lo needs long A before bed.  I guess the goal should be to have the shorter cn as more of a ut nap, so dont worry about getting a full A time before the cn, regardless of where it is, then tweak the other A times to give one good nap and bedtime

Aah, I hadn't thought of making the second nap an UT nap.... Jack tends to fight sleep if he's put down too early but that tends to happen more often in the morning so he might go with it more in the afternoon if he's had a days worth of tiredness building up!  He definitely prefers a long / full A before bed so I guess we'll switch to short am/long pm soon.  Or we'll take it as it comes and do morning naps in the buggy or something which will naturally cap it I think. Nice to have a bit of flexibility again!