Duration of naps?

[hulababysmommy]

Hi!

My LO is 3.5 months and since a couple of days I tried the 3.5 hour EASY with her since she didn't want to eat much at the 3 hour mark. So far, so good, she seems to be much more interested in BF again. I can also tell that she is trying to organize her day sleep. Her naps aren't 45 minutes all the time anymore. She takes longer naps more and more (yeah!)

My question has to do with nap #2. DD will fall asleep and wake up after 45 minutes. I try to get her back to sleep by offering her pacifier again and sometimes this works. What happens sometimes though is that she will sleep 1.5 hours or longer after the 45 minutes she already napped. I know I am not supposed to let her sleep through a feeding, but up until that point, do I just let her sleep even though she is taking a nap that is way longer than 1.5 or 2 hours? Of course I don't mind a good long nap at all   but I'm curious if it might not be a good idea for future routine purposes. I think it might affect her third nap a little bit also because that's only 45 minutes to an hour after this long nap. But, if it doesn't affect night sleep, should I just let her sleep?

Curious what you think.....
Thanks!

Ankie

[_newmom_]

Hi Ankie

My LO is 4 months this week, and I was going through the same thing as you when my DD was about 3 months.  The mods can probably help give you advise on an appropriate standard EASY routine, but this is what I did at the time, and still do now:

- Moved to a EASYA...EASYA routine with the following things fixed:
wake 6.45/7.15
E 7/7.30
E 11
E 2.30
E 5.30/6.00
bed 6.00/6.30
df 11 (currently moving on bringing this earlier)

This works really well, and means I don't stress about my DD waking up immediately before feed time.  I found her A time changed really fast over the last month, so her naps shift a bit every week, but I now try to do them around 8.45/9 for 1.5 hrs, 12/12.30 for 2 hrs, 3.45/4 for 45 mins.  At the beginning, I needed to be flexible with it during the times that end of A time would be close to feed time to avoid overtiredness, but I think you'd have that issue at times with a standard EASY routine, especially when nap no 2 is developing, and if you're on a 3.5 or 4 hr EASY
- If naps started overlapping with feed time, be flexible with feeding by up to 30 mins.  I especially thought it was important to let my LO have as much "practice" as possible to transition across the 45 minute mark for naps 1 & 2 if that makes sense...?  So, sometimes, I just let her do that, and then wake her, although I find she wakes in a better mood if she is woken up at the end of a sleep cycle, ie after 45 mins, 1h30mins or 2h15mins
- Don't let naps 1 & 2 go more than 2 hrs.  At the start, my LO started doing 2 x 2 hr naps (I had to wake her after 2 hrs for both these naps!) + 1 x 45 minutes.  After a week or so of that, she started waking after 45 minutes into nap 2, so I extended A time, and shortened nap 1 to 1.5hrs, and then nap 2 became 2 hrs again.  Now she's starting to wake after 45 mins into nap 2 again, so I'm working on extending A time, and if that doesn't work, I'll try to cut nap 1 down to 1 hr.  I found my DD is happiest if nap 2 is the longest/uninterrupted nap of the day, so this is what I'm trying to do with her routine, aiming to have her do 2 hrs for nap 2.
- My LO sleeps more soundly at night if she's had 3.5-4 hrs of sleep during the day.  If she sleeps more than that during the day, I hear her stirring more in the early evening, sometimes talking to herself for 20 mins, but she just falls asleep again.  If we have a crappy day for naps, I aim for a minimum of 3 hrs sleep during the day - anything less, and bedtime falls apart.

Sorry for rambling, hope some of this helps!
anita

[malialeanne]

Hi Ankie,

I agree with Anita--many babies are happiest if nap 2 is the longest, best nap of the day. The midday nap is the one you keep after your baby drops other naps between 12-18 months, so it's important to preserve that nap, even if as Anita says it means cutting down on nap 1. However the need to cut down on nap 1 to preserve nap 2 usually happens in the second half of the first year, so you're probably a ways away from that.

If night sleep is unaffected I say congrats on the good napper. However, some find that naps longer than 2 hours cut into night sleep (that's the case here). Also, you may find that it's tough to get a catnap in with a super long p.m. nap, leaving you with an extra-long A time and an overtired baby before bedtime. If you experience that it's probably worthwhile to keep nap 2 between 1.5 and 2 hours.

HTH!
Malia

[hulababysmommy]

Thank you Anita and Malia for replying! I appreciate it!
I have a feeling we might be struggling with the naps for a little while longer. Probably until we are ready for 4 hour EASY, which doesn't seem to be anytime soon, because today DD couldn't even stick with the 3.5 hour EASY. Not a day seems to be the same around here!
Last night, DD woke up at 1:30 am, 4 am and 5:30 am! The first two wake ups, she did not want to go back to sleep without BF, the 5:30 am wake up, she was okay with the pacifier until her 6:30 wake up. I think there might be a growth spurt going on, because she wanted to BF more frequent during the day as well. But I'm sure the long napping during nap #2 didn't help either...... I am going to stick with your advice and not have DD sleep any longer than 2 hours during her naps.
Thanks again!
Ankie