nap adjustments for a 6 mo old (3 to 2 nap switch?)

[gleek]

hi everyone,

we're just on the tail end of the 6-month growth spurt and my daughter's naps are changing. i'm wondering what i should do? here's our previous schedule:

6:30AM - wake
7:00AM - feed
8:30AM - sleep
10:00AM - wake and feed
12:15PM/12:30PM - sleep
2:00PM - wake and feed
4:15PM - sleep
5:00PM - wake and small feed
6:15PM - bath
6:30PM - last feed
7:15PM - bed (she'd be asleep by around 7:30)

this worked really well for about two months. she was sleeping through the night! the schedule has changed a little in that i've added solids but that was weeks ago and actually made her sleep better. i think that this problem with naps is A time. she is now cutting her morning nap to 45 minutes and i can't extend it. her afternoon nap still tends to be 1.5 hours, and she has kept the cat nap.

so here's her schedule for the past few days:

7:00AM - wake and feed, solids at 8:15
9:00AM - sleep
9:45AM - wake
10:15/10:30AM - feed, solids at 11:30
12:15/12:30PM - sleep
2:00PM - wake and feed
4:15PM - sleep
4:45PM - wake
5:00PM - cereal and expressed BM
6:15PM - bath
6:30PM - last feed
7:00PM - bed (asleep anywhere from right away to 7:45.. depending on how she's feeling)

the last few nights she has awoken at random times starving and i've fed her only after checking to make sure it's not something else bothering her. i think that these night feeds will go away though once she's totally through her growth spurt.

i'm curious about the nap situation though. i think that she's trying to make the transition to 2 naps, so i was wondering if i should lengthen her morning A time to 2.5 hours? she did sleep till around 7 both the past two days and that's a small miracle in and of itself. as you can see, her second A time is pretty long and she does this with little to no problem.

[*Natasha*]

This was my DD's routine at this age:

7am – Wake
7.30am – Bottle 200mls
8.30am – Breakfast
9.30am – Sleep 1.5-2hours (awake time 2.5hrs awake time)
12pm – Lunch
1pm – Bottle 150-200mls
2pm – Sleep 1.5hrs (awake time 2.5-3hrs)
5/5.15pm – Dinner
6pm – Bath
6.30pm – Bottle 200mls
7pm – Bed(awake time 3.5hrs)

[gleek]

thanks for your input! it does seem like i need to start pushing out her A times. this morning we went 2hr10min before her first nap and she slept 1.5 hours which was nice. she's now on her second A time and i know that i can get 2.5 hours out of her easy before her next nap. i'm just wondering how to work towards cutting out her cat nap? do i keep increasing her A time and decreasing her cat nap? we usually only let her sleep 30 to 40 minutes. do i cut it back to 20 until i'm able to get her A times lengthened and then cut the cat nap out all together?

[gleek]

ok, i'm at a loss as to what to do now.. for the past few days she has consistently cut one of her long naps short. today it was her second nap. she just would not extend it past 45 minutes and it wasn't because she wasn't tired. she was pretty tired when we put her down! last night she slept through so i think (fingers crossed!) she's past her growth spurt. i just don't know what to do about the naps. should i consistently cut one nap short in order to keep her on a routine? maybe cut the morning nap and leave the afternoon nap long? i can't cut out the cat nap if she doesn't have two long naps during the day.

[*Natasha*]

That was what was happening to us when we dropped the catnap. I got some great advise from the girls here. Ok first i played with awake time this didn't work so i used W2S and it worked after 3days. What was the awake time before the second nap?

[gleek]

she was doing 2.5 hours pretty comfortably and that's what she did today.. the only thing that i changed was pushing A time in the morning to 2hr10min from 2 hours.

by the way, she also totally blew her cat nap today! she was just about to go to sleep when there was a big crash in the kitchen (DH making dinner!) and it woke her up and she couldn't resettle. she was really on edge anyway from having only a 45 minute afternoon nap. i ended up putting her down early tonight and she's been having trouble staying asleep in the first two hours. i'm hoping that as the night progresses she'll sleep better.

so tomorrow i'm thinking about going again with 2hr10min in the morning and maybe pushing the second A time to 2hr40min. w2s has never worked for us. i tried it a couple of times when she was 4 and 5 months.

[*Natasha*]

so tomorrow i'm thinking about going again with 2hr10min in the morning and maybe pushing the second A time to 2hr40min. w2s has never worked for us. i tried it a couple of times when she was 4 and 5 months.

Good luck with that keeps us posted

[gleek]

so now it's been a few days and our schedule yesterday was pretty good. i'm wondering about amounts of sleep, though. i see that your schedule had about 12 hours of night sleep, no? this morning i had to wake my daughter at 7:15! she never used to be a late sleeper before her 6-month growth spurt.

yesterday's routine:

7:00AM - wake and BF
8:15AM - solids
9:10AM - sleep (1hr10min)
10:30AM - wake and BF
12:15PM - solids
1:00PM - sleep (1hr30min)
2:30PM - wake and BF
4:30PM - sleep (25min)
5:00PM - cereal and EBM
6:15PM - bath
6:30PM - last feed
7:00PM - bed (asleep within 20min)

she really has a hard problem making it past two hours awake in the morning. i just put her down for her morning nap and going just 5 minutes longer on A time was really tough. she is just very whiny and unhappy in the morning. i know that i have to push out her morning A time in order to get her to two naps, but maybe she's not ready?

[*Natasha*]

so now it's been a few days and our schedule yesterday was pretty good. i'm wondering about amounts of sleep, though. i see that your schedule had about 12 hours of night sleep, no?

Alot of babies don't do 12hrs we were just blessed with one that did.
The above routine looks great the only reason why we dropped the catnap was she always hated having it and her naps started going to 45mins. My DD also struggled to get to 2.5hrs in the morning so for a long time i had to spend the last 30mins with her distracting her.

[gleek]

ok, it looks like i've had to wake up my DD everyday around 7:15 so i'm thinking that when i'm finally able to push out her morning A time to 2.5 hours, i'll then let her sleep in till 8 and then cut out the cat nap altogether. i'm hoping that will work! right now the long day really tires her out and she sleeps through like a champ i really don't want to ruin that! thanks for all of your advice. i'll come back and update the thread when i've made some progress.

[*Natasha*]

No worries

[gleek]

i always come back and update when i have some new news. you never know who could benefit from the info!

and best wishes on your impending delivery! you must be ready to burst! 

[*Natasha*]

Thanks i sure am. Hopefully when i get out of hospital things will be all fixed for you

[gleek]

argh! i don't know what to do.. here we are another week gone by and my LO still can't handle more than 2.5 hours for her second A time and she keeps dropping her cat nap so i have to put her to bed at like 5:30PM! that's not enough A time in a day and then she does nothing but wake all night long i'm getting really frustrated!

for example, today she did 2hr10min in the morning and then 1hr20min nap. then i gave her 2hr40min awake time and she wouldn't re-settle after a 45min nap so i just got her up! UUUUGGGHHH!! i'm going to have to force another nap on her before bed and she just doesn't want to do three naps a day. it seems as if i push her morning or second A time at all she refuses to take a nap longer than 35-45 min.

what do i do? this is driving me nuts. i also work from home and when her naps are like this i can't get anything done.