need routine and activity time advice

[ishkin]

Hello all,
I think my LOs routine need adjustment, here is the story:

DS is 8.5 months old. Since he was 3 months old we started having short naps, and haven't overcome this problem till now (have been struggling with overtiredness and irregular naps, which we have overcome, but he still have only short naps)

His current routine is something like this,give or take half hour:
05:45-6 wake
06:30 milk
08:00 solids
09:00 or 09:30 morning nap for mostly 40 mins

10:00 wake
11:00 milk
12:30 or 13:00 afternoon nap for mostly 1 hour

13:30 wake
14:00 lunch
16:00 milk
16:30 catnap for 30 till 50 mins

17:00ish dinner
18:00 bedtime routine
18:30 or 18:45 bed

As you can see, he naps for 40 mins in the morning, 1 hour in afternoon (if I do W2S, otherwise wakes after 40 mins or so) and he still has catnap going on.
He is also very tired between the second and third nap, he can't hold it till the bedtime which is why we still have catnap.

I'm wondering if gradually prolonging his activity time after the morning nap and removing the catnap at some point might lengthen his morning and afternoon naps and if this is the correct way to go - I don't want to do anything he is not ready for, but it seems to me at this age it is already high time to transition to 2 naps.
I have seen that before his morning nap his activity time of 3 -3.5 hours is ok for him - not too long, so perhaps 2.5 hours activity time between naps is too little for his age?

On the other hand, he sleeps so little during the day I don't want to get him overtired, as it is with 3 naps he sleeps mostly 2 hours at day.

What do you think - need advise before starting to tweak with his schedule...

[MJMom]

Giving this a bump.  Hopefully someone will be able to help. 

Just a couple of thoughts, if the current schedule is working, i.e. DS is happy with the sleep as is?  I would not worry about the extra cat nap at the end of the day.  Especially if he needs it and his earlier naps are shorter.  There is nothing wrong with him still having the cat nap.

Your plan does sound reasonably OK though with increasing the A time in the morning. 

[ishkin]

Hi and thanks for the reply.

The reasoning behind my wish to update the schedule is the possibility that DS short-napping precisely because he has one extra sleep and if we phased it out perhaps his other two naps would lengthen.

He is rarely in good mood after his afternoon nap because he is still tired.
He is also overworked by his catnap and its really hard to get him to settle down, mostly we do it while taking a walk outside in his stroller.
And his afternoon nap is 1 hour long only because I do W2S - otherwise he wakes after 40 min or so.

On the other hand, I absolutely do not want to do anything that might disturb this gentle balance we worked on so long 

So I'm really not sure what to do and need advice 

[MJMom]

If he is cranky after that afternoon nap, then it does sound like you'll want to work on nap extension.

So, he normally sleeps 11 at night and 3 hrs for the naps? 

I think what you suggest sounds good.  Keeping him up longer in the a.m. to shift the am nap, thus shifting the afternoon nap.

Let me know how it goes. 

Incidentally, we were just working on the same with our DD.  Took about a week to work out the kinks to finally get 2 good days in a row with good nap spacing.  She also started sleeping better the last 2 nights as well.

HTH.

[ishkin]

Normally he sleeps 11 hours at night (now he is waking a lot because he is teething) and around 2+ hours for the naps (40 mins+1 hour+30 mins)

He is very very active child, I think on one hand he does need his sleep, but on the other it seems he doesn't want to "miss out" on anything, so he doesn't want to waste time on sleeping

I think I will wait until the teeth which is currently bugs him is out (because his night sleep is disturbed and therefore he is more tired at days) and then will start shifting his afternoon nap.

I think I'll also post in the sleep forum,ask the girls there what they think.

Thanks a lot!

[MJMom]

I hear you!  My LO doesn't want to "miss" out on anything either!  But sleep is important.

13 hrs seems kind of light.  Has he always been this way? or has that been recent? 

[ishkin]

He has slept real good till around 2.5 months (11 hours at night ,3 naps of 2 hours and catnap) and then he started shortening his naps.

In the beginning I could put him right back to sleep by pat/shhing him, but it gradually progressed from light steering to complete waking after 40 mins of sleep or so.

We worked at extending those naps doing all I could think of (pat/shhing,PU/PD at later stage, W2S ,even rocking) - but if he is awake he is awake, I cannot force him back to sleep.

He sometimes (rarely) sleeps more than 40 mins on his own, for his afternoon nap I still do W2S. I know short naps is a common problem, but it usually phases out on its own around the age of 6 months
Not in our case.

So to sum up and answer your question - he has been as he is now from around 2.5 months.

[MJMom]

that is when you see a dip in sleep.  If he seems happy most of the time and is waking up rested, then he's probably fine!  You're the mommy!  You know best!