Dropping the cat nap...

[Ashton & Raine's Mom]

Hi, sorry if this answer is somewhere in FAQ's but I couldn't find it.  I'm wondering when to drop my 7 month old's cat nap.  She has 3 naps a day (morning, afternoon, and cat nap).  She doesn't wake up until 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and I still dreamfeed her at 10:30 or 11.  She used to go to sleep anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 and stay asleep but now she treats that like her catnap and wakes up and stays up for 1-2 hours.  I was wondering if the cat nap was the problem but I'm afraid of making her overtired.  She usually wakes up from her second nap around 4:30 or 5.  Thanks!!! 

[L76]

Hi

How much A time can your LO handle?

If around 2 hours and she is waking from the afternoon nap at 4.30/5 then I would put her to bed for the night at around 6.30/7pm and drop the catnap.

x

[Ashton & Raine's Mom]

She can handle a lot of A time - sometimes 2 1/2, 3 hours...  When I try to put her down at 7 she usually wakes up at 8 or so and won't go back to sleep - she's wide awake then sometimes until 10. 

[Katw]

Hi there,

I am going thru the process of dropping the catnap as well with my 6.5mth old. I have a post going too as it doesn't seem as easy as I think it could be!!??

If she's waking after a short while of being a sleep I would imagine it is time for the catnap to go and if she can handle 3hrs A time then it should work for you to drop it without her becoming too OT. My DS can only do 2.5hrs at the moment so I'm going to stretch him slowly and hope to drop by 7mths.....

Hope it goes well, Good Luck,

[L76]

Hi there

It took us ages, and I mean, ages to manage to drop the catnap and we had to be really creative with feeding times etc in order to do it! And we've only just suceeded now and she's 9 months today! And some days, like today, when I have something on in the afternoon, she still has 3 naps to get her through the day. 2 naps are great but they do mean that you are more restricted to going out and about morning or afternoon (especially if you have a LO like mine who loves to nap at home and isn't that great in the buggy - far too nosy!).

How long are her naps? Can you post your actual day with nap and wake up times so we can see if there is anything you could do differently so she stays asleep when you put her down for the night.

P.S - Hi Kat - keep meaning to PM you but was back to work this week so been really snowed under! Day off today so will try again today!

x

[Katw]

Had a really bad night last night, for DS that is - DD was like it often - he kept waking all evening ( making me miss I'm a celebrity..how dare he..

I'm thinking teething so have decided to stop stretching A times today so he catches up abit....

Hope its going well for you?

Leanne - hi ...yes PM me and we can catch up, hows work??? X

[Moniquers]

If this helps...when we were dropping the catnap, I would wake the twins from their pm nap to make sure they were tired enough for a cat nap until they could manage 3 hours A time.  It seemed to have worked for us and I got the idea from this blog!

Monique

[Katw]

Hi Monique,

If you woke them from 2nd nap, how long did you let them have? I am abit worried that if I shorten his nap too much he won't go back to sleeping 1.5hrs when I do drop the catnap!?

Thanks!