trying to find the right A time with 6 mo old

[puregrace]

My lo is 6 1/2 mos old. We started EASY about 6 weeks ago and things were going fantastic for about a month. Her wake time was 2 hours, eating every 4, and she would nap 1 1/2 hours in the a.m and take two 45 min. naps in the p.m. with bed time around 7 and wake around 7. She was falling asleep well by herself after 20 mins in bed and a wind down routine (changing, setting scene, rocking for 5 mins).

So lately, afternoon naps have become a nightmare. She will go down like a dream in the morning still and take a good nap. But, try to have the same routine in the afternoon and she will immediately start screaming in panic as soon as we begin rocking and won't be able to fall asleep. I don't think she's overstimulated. We try to keep it very low key before naps. I read some of the other posts on nap woes and tried keeping her up longer this morning ( for 20 mins). The result was same behavior as in the afternoon and 40 mins of lots of crying before sleep. Any advice?

Very confused mommy

[KathrynK]

She might be able to handle longer A time. Alex is the same age and in the last month he has gone from just over 2hrs A time to 3hrs no probs. This completely threw me as he kept doing 45min naps and eventually I realised he wasn't tired enough.

[Analu]

Hi,
I posted my situation above, but was reading here-- Kathryn, your baby is nearly the same age as mine, b-day 9-12-08, and I've been struggling with 45 min naps as well.  Could it be she's not having enough activity?  i was thinking the opposite, that she was overtired so I've been putting her down earlier and earlier, but still, only 45 min naps.  Any further thoughts?  Is your son doing longer naps now?  Thanks in advance for any info!

[KathrynK]

Analu
happy to try to help...!
Suggest you start a new thread and post your usual routine and me & other will have a look and see if we can suggest some tweaks xxx

[puregrace]

Okay, that's helpful. Just to clarify, 3 hours wake time for your lo includes wind down and falling asleep time?

[KathrynK]

Yes, 3 hrs total from waking to sleep again.
Don't jump to 3hrs from 2hrs in one go- for many babies, small increases of 5-10 mins a day are needed.
Both of my two, however, would take massive leaps all of a sudden so for us 10mins would make no difference. I would have to go an extra 30 mins to get that longer nap. What I do is to get to his previous usual limit (say your 2hrs) and then keep things really low key (difficult with a 3yo  ) and just watch him like a hawk for any tired signs. At the first sign I then tka him up to bed
hth