6 month old Resisting her 3rd nap - help!

[G and G]

My daughter is a little over 6 months old and won't take her third nap of the day - other than that she does great. Her third nap comes around 4:00pm. She just babbles. She has been awake since 2pm, so 4pm-ish is the next time for a nap. Otherwise I have to put her to bed at 5pm? Seriously! What can I do?

I have tried playing around with her schedule, and for the most part if I put her down for a nap later than 3:30pm, she does not nap.
I admit, I take her in the car sometimes, or put her to bed at 6pm, and she is overtired at that point.

Here is her EASY routine for the most part:

6:00a - wake
6:15a - E (some solids too)
6:40a - A
8:00a - S
10:00a - wake
10:15a - E
10:40a - A
12:15p - S
2:00p - wake
2:15p - E
2:40p - A
4:00p - supposed to be sleep! I have to admit either me, my husband or my mom will take her for a car ride for a 30 minute nap on a lot of days. AP!!!!
5:30p - home from car ride
6:00p - bath
6:20p - final feed
6:45p - asleep for the night

Not sure what I can do?

P.S. By some chance of luck today, she babbled for 30 min, and then slept for 25 min.

[preciousb]

At about 6 months was when my dd dropped the third cat nap - we increased her am and pm activity times gradually before her 1st and second naps and when she had 2 good sleeps of 1.5 -2 hours in those naps she didn't need her catnap and we put here down earlier at 6pm.  She was managing on 2.5 hours or more A time then.

Admittedly she see-sawed between needing the catnap and not for a few weeks before she stabilised on 2 naps a day.  We basically made our decision on whether her am and pm naps were long enough.  Sometimes we would put her down for the catnap and she would resist - if she didn't look like she was going to take it after 15- 20 mins we got her up and straight into the bedtime routine.

Early put downs at night did not lead to EW. 

Hope that helps! 

[brenda2]

preciousb has given you fantastic advice!!

it sounds like she is gearing up for the 3 to 2 nap switch.  but like pp said it may take a few weeks or a month, so in the mean time you will have 3 naps some days and 2 naps some days.  start by extending your 1st A time by 10 min every few days to push the naps later.  if you get a 30 min nap you know you pushed it too long and she got OT.  on days with 2 naps go for an early bedtime of 5:45 to avoid OT.

to really do well with 2 naps they need to be able to do closer to 3 hours of A time with 1.5 hour naps, if she takes 2 hour naps you may get away with less A time iykwim.

oh, and AP for the last nap of the day is totally ok!

[jennandsophie]

This is great info.  I'm going through this now.  DD rubs her eyes like she's tired but then just moans, cries and fusses for an hour unless I get her up.  Going in to calm her makes her more hysterical.  Car rides and walks just stimulate her more and wake her right up. 

She ends up doing an insane amount of A time before bed, like 3.5hrs, so of course, she's OT and has NWings.  I had been waiting for her to do 3hrs A time to drop the catnap, but I realize she's now fighting it every day now, so I have no choice.  I think it'll be 5:45 bedtime tomorrow...

[preciousb]

When we were juggling the 3 to 2 nap switch we found instead of being able to do 3hours for each A time the amount she needed differed between A times.  She used to be a little clock: 2 hours each A time then down for sleep and out to it.

Now she is 7 months she does about 3 to 3.5 hours on waking, sleeps a 1 to 1.5hours then 4 hour A time and sleeps 1 to 1.5 hours then 3 to 3.5 before bed.  One nap is always shorter than the other but it differs each day. 

It took us ages to figured it out - getting the balance between UT and OT for each A time.  We got down to two 45 min naps and really OT before bed until figured it out!

[brenda2]

my LO has slightly different A times for each of her A times too.  it's usually 3 hours 10 min awake, then 1.5 hours nap, then 3 hours 40 min awake, then 1.5 to 2 hours nap then 3 hours  awake before bed.  she's almost 9 months.

i think they all are going to be slightly different so you have to fiddle around with it to get the ideal naps without getting OT by bed.

truette - if she skips her catnap, early to bed is the right thing to do!

[emz1907]

I think this is where I am at, as brenda knows I have been struggling with nw and ew and to remedy that Ive been trying to get him to bed a little later as he was going down as early as 5.30pm some days! That 3rd nap has been a struggle for a while now for us so I have been putting him in the stroller and going for a long walk each afternoon and that gets another nap out of him which enables him to have the later bedtime. Slowly but surely the overnight problems are getting better BUT im now worrying Im creating a problem of him needing a stroller ride each afternoon. He can only manage just over 2hrs A time, 2.20 at the most before needing a nap. He normally had 2 decent naps for at least 1.5hrs but it still doesnt work out long enough over the day to get him to bed at a reasonable time. I am reluctant to go back to early bed times incase the nw/ew get worse too.

[G and G]

Yes, same thing! We often use a car ride. Yesterday she needed an early bedtime b/c of a missed nap, and she was up at 4:45a to bed fed. UGH. How old is your LO? Mine is 6 months and can STILL barely be awake for more than 2 hours. I am exhausted from feeding her, introducing solids, and putting her down for nap after nap, and a car ride. I never get caught up on my own sleep!

[emz1907]

My lo is just afew days off 7 months now, he can't stay up for much longer than 2 hours. Its only in the last week or so Ive managed to get him past the 2hr mark for A time. Before that I used to put him down about 10mins before the 2 hrs were up so he would be asleep dead on 2hrs that way he would nap well.

[jennandsophie]

My DD just turned 6 months two days ago (although she was a week late at birth) and she's started resisting the catnap around 2 weeks ago.  She rapidly increased her A time literally overnight to 2.5hrs and has often held out on the catnap up to 2.75 hrs.  For the past two days, she's resisting it beyond 3 hrs of A time, so I know I have to drop it.  Her A times vary a great deal so it may be a very early bedtime for a while.  Usually 2 - 2.5hr in the morning (depending on her night), 2.25 - 2.5 in the afternoon and 2.5 - 2.75 in the late afternoon.  I'll try to stretch her out but I want to prevent the dreaded OT nap.

[G and G]

THank you that is helpful. I think my LO has such a wide span of A time - from 1.75 to 2.5 hours literally depending on the day- so I have to watch her cues VERY carefully, and I only get it right 50% of the time! It is so hard!

[emz1907]

For what its worth my lo doesnt display his tired signs if any until he is crossing into ot. Its been a hard lesson to learn and took a while to grasp but now I need to act BEFORE he yawns/rubs his eyes etc. Despite helpful people telling me 'he looks wide awake theres no way he'll go to sleep' only to be silenced 15mins later when he's zzzzzz LOL

[jennandsophie]

I've tried to put her down according to the clock, but she cries and fusses if she's not tired enough.  Sometimes she looks exhausted -- her eyes glaze over and they're all red and watery, but until she rubs her eyes, she will freak out if I take her to her room.

[emz1907]

Just goes to show all babies are different

[jennandsophie]

Yes and as soon as you have them figured out for a week they go and change everything on you!  Babies!  

G and G -- I find A time varies so much too.  It seems to all depend on how good their previous sleep was.  For example, if it was a 10hr night with an EW and I managed to get her back to sleep for another 45min or 1 hr before starting her day, she can only handle 2hrs A time max to follow.  If it was a 11-12hr consolidated sleep night with a decent wake time (for me that's after 6am), she can do 2.5hrs A time.   

After a 1.5 or 2hr nap that was straight through (no stirring or extension or falling back asleep after a waking), she can do the full 2.5hrs A time, but if there was any interruption she seems to do less.  Yikes!  I've spent so much time observing these things I could write an A time manual.  LOL!