Where do you cut back on A time?

[lpperry]

My 7 1/2 month old takes 2 naps a day that are 2 hours each or 2 hours for one and 1 1/2 hours for the next. If she is supposed to have an awake time of 3-4 hours, how does this even fit into the day?

Our routine:
wake: 7:30
nap: 10:30-12:30
nap: 3:30-5/5:30
bedtime 7:30

This is working out great for us even with only 2 hours of awake time before bed. She goes to bed with no problem and usually sleeps until at least 7:15-7:30.  I am asking because I posted about how to cut out nightfeeds on the night waking board and one of the responses was that there was not enough A time before bedtime which could be causing a night waking.

I could move her bedtime back to 8:00 (which we do sometimes), but my 2 year old goes to bed at 7:30 and I really like that nice early bedtime after being with the kids all day long.

So, what do people tend to do? Is it better to cut one of the other A times back in the day? 2 1/2 hours of A time after getting up or after a long nap just doesn't feel right to me...

We are going to have this issue as long as she is on 2 naps, so I want to figure out the best way to do it now.

With my 2 year old, I think I had an 8:00 bedtime while he was on the morning and afternoon nap and then bumped bedtime up to 7:30 once he switched to one nap (1-4).

[~Karen~]

I'd try cutting the first A time back if that's what you want to do.  However you may end up with UT naps.  What you'll probably need to look at doing is cutting back naps, not A times.  For now I'd try the cutting first A time and see how that goes.  As she gets older though then you'll either have the choice of cutting back the morning nap or having the shorter nap as the afternoon one.  That's personal choice and people do it differently for different reasons.  Personally I've tried both and find the cutting the am nap works out better.

[lpperry]

Okay that makes sense. When I cut A time, I get an hour nap.  I do this when we go to the pool on Monday and Fridays so that Claudia gets a short nap before we have to leave. Otherwise she sleeps in the sling at the pool and misses all the fun!


I don't actually think the short A time before bed is causing the night wakings right now, so I am going to leave well-enough alone. If she starts resisting bedtime, then I'll do something.

 

[~Karen~]

Sounds good.  We used to get away with short A time before bed and he'd still sttn so like you said it may not be causing the nw's anyway and if she's napping really well then prob best leave things be!