Nap lengths for 10 mo old

[JennasMom]

How much daytime sleep should a 10 month old be getting?

DD sleeps for 1.5 hours in the morning, and 45 mins in the afternoon.
I ALWAYS have to wake her from both naps.  (And I hate having to wake her!)

She has 3.5 hours awake time in between naps, and usually closer to 3 before bedtime.
She wakes in the night but I rarely have to go into her.  I can hear her babbling, sometimes for 20 mins or more!

And lately she's been waking at 6:30am.  Is she ready for more A time?  And therefore less nap time?  How long should she sleep at each nap?  I prefer a longer nap in the morning and shorter in the evening b/c I find she is really ready for bed this way.  She used to sleep 7:30-7:30.

When will she transition to one nap?
If we go to 3.75-4 hours of awake time, it seems to me that naps will be super short in order to get to bed at a reasonable hour.  Isn't one long consolidated nap better than 2 short ones?

Thanks!

[JennasMom]

I've just read a bunch in the FAQ and on other posts, and I'm even more confused!

DD, until this past few days, would wake at 7:30am and therefore be ready for her first nap at 11am... (3.5 hours awakes time)... this, in the "transition from 2-1 naps, bumps... etc etc" could be a time that lo's could have only one nap, and go for an ealier bedtime.  But then in other readings, it is highly recommended that one not try to make the transition too quickly, i.e. until lo is 12-18 months.

The other day I let DD sleep as long as she wanted b/c she wasn't feeling well, and she slept almost 2.5 hours!  Since we've always done 2 naps, she did have another nap later in the day, but we of course had to wake her so it wouldn't go too close to bedtime (though it was already close to bedtime...)

It is only the last few days that she's been waking earlier, though I'm not sure if this is b/c she wasnt feeling well.

Help!
I'm all for an early bedtime, but I am sure that DD isn't ready for only one nap.  But her pattern seems that she might be (i.e waking at 7:30, first nap at 11am, long nap of 2-2.5 hours, then early bedtime) - does this make sense?

[deckchariot]

When you do the transition, it does take months....we started with dd at 11 mos, and she was finally settled into just 1 nap by 14 mos, so it is a very gradual process.  Most moms go one of two ways with the switch:

1) long am nap (as long as they want), and short pm catnap
2) short am nap (wake after 45 min - 1 hr) and longer pm nap

In both cases, the A time in the am before the first nap keeps extending.  Eventually, the 2 naps meld into one.  Also, the early bedtime goes for both options if one nap is a no go or is short. 

We did option #1 with dd as she HATES being woken from a nap.  Gradually, her A time lengthened to 5 hrs, she'd take a 2.5 - 3 hr nap and go to bed at her usual time.  But it did take awhile to get there.  Based on your lo's temperament, you can see which option would work best for you.  Either way, I'd go ahead and start lengthening her A time - just do 15 min every 2 or 3 days and see how it goes.

hth
michelle

[Krissy18]

i would like to join this post..my ds is still just over 8 months but his A times are long and we are kinda in the same boat so if i may....

we have been doing option #1 as well but i wake him after 1.5 hours to get  a decent pm nap of at least 45 min. i think i may try letting him sleep as long as he wants but at time he will go over 2 hours which is pretty much all the day time sleep he seems to need. what do i do about that kinda situation? if he has more than about 2.5 hours of day sleep he EW.

here is our routine

7am wake
1030/45- 1200/15 nap 3.5-3.75 A time
4/415-5ish nap
830 bedtime

i am wondering how to handle it once he goes to 5 hours A time . If he wakes at 7, the nap would be at 12. I dont know how long he would sleep, but i know it would be still too long of a stretch to bedtime at 830. We wuold like to keep our bedtime but does that mean he has to be able to do 6 hours A time first??

[deckchariot]

8 mos is pretty young to be doing just 1 nap, so I wouldn't be in too big of a hurry yet.  If you know that 2.5 hrs is how much day sleep he needs, then by all means, wake him from one or the other nap so you don't get EWs.  Has he always been on the low end of sleep?  He gets less than my 17 mos old does.  6 hrs of A time seems exceedingly long for an 8 mos old.  Most bubs do some early bedtimes when going through the switch because their A times get a bit wonky.  I would keep with your current routine and not push him to go to 1 nap yet.

[Krissy18]

oh no..im not really pushing anything..he jumped all a once from 2 to 3 hours, then to 3.5 and how 3.75 in the morning at most. His afternoon at time is 4 hours if the AM nap is at least an hour.
he seems happy most of the day except for some teething episodes ..he gets about 10.5 hours at night and in and around 2.5 during the day and that seems to be ok for him.
he has always been on the low end and if he does more, like i said EW or NW where he just plays or chats to himself. He is a great self soother so we never have to go in ..

6 hours is a lot. i dont expect him to do this but how does it work with the one nap with our current routine..? i guess we will need to tweak it once we get there.

what i really want to know is if we keep going with option one of letting him self as long as he wants for the AM nap..he will more than likely sleep over two hours..he has done this many times and then sleeps maybe 15 min later on in the day after over 4 hours A time.

[JennasMom]

Question re: scenario 1:
If I let DD sleep as long as she wants, it's possible that it'll be so long that a second nap might be out of the question.

E.g.
1st nap 11am - sleep until, say, 1-1:30pm
2nd nap would be 4:30-5pm - getting late in my opinion if I want a 7:30 bedtime. ( This is at 3.5 hours awake time, but trying to push for 3.75 and eventually 4 hours awake time...which would mean that the second nap would be even later)...is this where it takes so much time transitioning completely to one nap b/c it depends on the length of the first nap?
Stick to one nap if it's a good, long one, but give a second if the first nap wasn't too long?

Also, if lo sleeps a good 2-2.5 hour nap, this is the same or more daytime sleep than she normally gets when I wake her from her 2 naps!  Does this mean she "needed" it?  And, would she still need an early bedtime if she's slept more in the day than "normal" if A time would be too long to wait till 7-7:30 pm???

I feel so confused!! 
Thanks for your responses so far Michelle!

[deckchariot]

Jenna's mom - with option #1 - yes, it is basically one nap if it's long enough and your lo can make it til bedtime.  When we started with Abby, I tried option #2 for a week and had a week's worth of 1 45 min nap and a majorly grumpy baby, so I switched to option #1.  She'd nap for usually 2 hrs in the am, so I'd do a 30-45 min catnap late in the day (yep, usually around 4:30), and she'd go to bed at 7:30 still.  If she didn't take the catnap, she'd go to bed at 7, or 7:30, depended on how she was doing.  If she wasn't crabby, I'd keep the regular bedtime.  Especially when she'd sleep 2.5 hrs, she'd almost always refuse the catnap, so we just worked with bedtime based on how she was doing.  Once she could do 5 hrs of A time, she did all one nap days with a regular bedtime, no problem.  Does that answer your questions?

Krissy - I'd say don't tweak your routine just yet.  Once he's ready for more A time, then you can start extending the am A time.  You can keep doing your usual wake up from the first nap (choosing option #2) to navigate the switch.   Since he's already used to being woken from that nap, that should make your transition fairly easy.  Eventually, you'll want to be waking him earlier on in the first nap, and going for a longer pm nap, and then they'll be no morning nap at all.  You can probably split his A time to 5.5 hrs in the am and 5.5 in the pm with a 2 hr anp, that should still give you a 13 hr day.  But that's probably several months down the line for you yet.

hth  - the transition is rough, but you'll make it!!!