struggling with cat nap

[torontotwinmom]

Hi folks, hoping you lovely ladies can help me out (again!)

My LOs are just over 6 months (adjusted).  We're slowly getting longer A times out of them, but they're starting to really struggle with the last cat nap.  They cry and fuss and will eventually fall asleep (SOMETIMES) after about half an hour.  But honestly, it's really stressful for both them and I!  I don't think they're ready to just drop it, as they wake from their afternoon nap around 2:30 and they seem quite tired by 4:30ish.  Of course, if they finally fall asleep around 5, it ends up pushing our bedtime back from 7 to 7:30 (or later!) as they are so 'revitalised' from that nap!

SO - I know eventually they'll be able to stay up for 3 hours and won't need that cat nap - but what do I do in the meantime?

(as an example, this is what our schedule looked like today)
Wake: ~6:30
Eat: 7:15 (milk + solids)
Sleep: 8:50 - 10:30
Eat: 11:00 (milk + solids)
Sleep: 12:45 - 2:10
Eat: 2:30 (milk + solids)
Sleep ATTEMPT (unsuccessful) 4:35
Now I will start their milk/bath/bed routine and hope to have them in bed early (~6:30)

Thanks!

[Colin Macs Mom]

I know not everyone will necessarily agree with me on this, but I wouldn't push it too much. The CN is a freebie so to speak, so IMO it's not worth that much stress. If they won't have it, then I would go with an earlier bedtime those days. Colin completely refused to have anything to do with the CN when he was 5.5 mo. He wasn't at all ready to drop it, but what can you do - can't force them to sleep! So, we just did a super early bedtime until he was ready for the A time.

[torontotwinmom]

thanks for the reply!  that's sort of where my head is - it seems crazy to spend all this time trying to get them to sleep when it's at the very end of the day...

How early was your bedtime on those days?   How long did he sleep at night when he went to bed 'super early'?

[Colin Macs Mom]

We did an 8 - 8 EASY rather than the normal 7 - 7, so for us in that phase bedtime was 7 at the very, very latest or even 6:30 if he was really worn out. He would usually wake earlier than 8 the next morning though! Sounds like a lot of night sleep, but he had reflux and lots of NWs so it wasn't as heavenly as it may sound