Set nap and bed times

[B J]

Hello,
For those of you who do set nap and bed times, how old was your LO when you started the set times?  And do the set times help with a more consistent wake up time?

Thanks!

[babybarr]

We started with set times when DS was 8mths and it got rid of our short napper, it doesn't work for everyone though.  We still *tend* to lean towards set times due to A times making no difference to NWs or nap length.  I'm sure lots of people will feel differently though.

[grace annes mommy]

We started a set naptime with DD around 15 mos. partly bc I never quite knew when she woke up in the morning so had trouble calculating the A time anyway. She's low sleep needs and had already been on 1 nap for a couple months by then.  The set nap works really well for us bc she doesn't seem to need a "perfect" amount of A time to take her nap.  However, I still go by A time for bed.  So bed fluctuates depending on what time she's up from nap. We never set bedtime bc she is sensitive to OT for bedtime and we get NWs. This routine actually does stabilize our wakeup time, bc DD tends to even herself out to get her total sleep.  So she might take a long nap, have a shorter night, but still get up around the same time.  I know that this is not the case for a lot of LOs.  I think as they get older they can handle set times a lot better. Some even thrive on the set schedule, really depends on you LO. We like the set naptime bc it helps us plan the day.

[Tweakster]

We started set nap at 12 at around 11-11.5 mths (to prepare for daycare) and set bedtime we should have done a long time ago but only started around a month ago (14 mths).  It has helped immensely with our wake up, although he's still inconsistent, it's much much better - as you can see from PP it really depends on the LO and what works for them.  Finn tends to be like babybarr's LO.  Finn is also in the low sleep needs category, or he's average sleep needs but he THINKS he's low needs, either way we can't get too much sleep into this kid not for lack of trying...

We love the set naptime here, after 12 mths of battling naps, he finally settled into a great routine, goes down without a fuss and normally knocks off 2-3 hours.  He's always had short nights, occasionally we will get a 10.5 hr night but normally he's 10 hours or less.  Cutting the nap back hasn't helped for us YET, but there is always hope :-)  We will keep that in our back pocket for future.  We let him nap as long as he wants.

If he's ill or what not we always have the flexibility to adjust our times, but we stick to set times as much as possible even if he's tired, because it's the only thing that seems to work in our house at the moment.  An earlier bedtime is now causing an earlier wake up for us and with a chronic EW you don't want to go there.