8 month old needs a nap every 2 hrs

[ngrover]

Hello,

My DD is exactly 8 months old. She still needs to sleep every 2-2.5 hrs. The first nap she can only stay up for 1.5 hrs. She gets cranky, starts to rub her eyes, suck her thumb at about 2 hrs, then I take her up, wind down, and she goes right to sleep. I was wondering whether I have to extend her A times. It would be nice if she was stay up for 3-4 hrs so we can actually go out! All her naps are about 1 hr 15 minutes. If it's loud in the house then sometimes her nap is 45 minutes, and the one after that can be about 1.5-2 hrs.

Here's her routine:

E - 6:30a - Wake and bottle
A - 7:00a - breakfast
S - 8:00a - For about 1 - 1h 15 minutes
A - 9:15a - dress and play
E - 10:30a - Bottle
A - more play
S - 11:30a
E - 12:45p - lunch (no bottle)
A - play
E - 2:30p - bottle
S - 3:00p
A - 4:00p, dinner at 5pm, bath at 6
S - 6:30p with bottle.


I'm wondering whether I should try to get her on two naps, or wait it out until she's ready? In about 4 months she'll be going to daycare where she'll be getting 1 nap.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

[sparrow]

I'm almost certain she's ready for an increase in A.  45-1 hr naps sounds like she's under tired to me.  At 8 months the average is 3-4 hours awake time.  Her first nap is after 1.5 hours am I right?  Unless your lo is a totally anomaly I think it's way too short.   I would try an increase of 10 or 15 minutes for 2 or 3 days.  Then maybe you can extend even more from there.    She will give you sleep cues, rub her eyes, seem tired, because she's used to going down then, but keep her up by just doing something low key, or holding her.  It's not till babes hit the 3h A mark that they can get by with 2 naps.  Your lo might be able to handle that but I think you've got to get there gradually.  Hope that helps!

Also, In the FAQ section for the naps board you can read "is my baby ready for an increase in A time?" (sorry I don't know how to set up links).

[ngrover]

Thanks. I will try to extend her A-time. Does anyone  know how to do this? Is it with the first wake-time and then the rest? I think I once saw a link, but can't find it anymore.

[ngrover]

Also, sometimes my DD wakes at 5:45a, but I let her play and go get her at 6:30a. So do I count her wake time from 5:45? Sometimes she goes back to sleep for 10-15 minutes.

[sparrow]

Start counting her wake time from when she opens her eyes if you can.  If she falls back asleep I'd count from when she wakes up for good, even if she's playing in her crib.  And yes, start by extending her first awake time.  If you get a decent nap (at least an hour) try the same amount of time for her 2nd A time.  After a short nap we always reduce A time a bit because she's not as rested.   

Our lo is 8 months as well, and when we came on this board and were told to extend our A time it worked wonders for us!  We went from only getting 20-30 minute naps to consistent 1.5 hour naps, sometimes longer.  She's now at around 3h30 A time.  In our experience a nap that's 50 minutes to 1 h 20 is almost always an under tired nap and we know to extend a little bit.  Let us know how it goes!

[Jiinx]

Hi there,
 Did you still need some links?
Here are a few that may help:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164253.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=84884.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=120362.0

Sparrow has given such wonderful advice, and really I do think it's time for an increase in A time. Like sparrow mentioned, focus on one A time at a time. What seems like minutes in our world, could be hours in theirs, yk?

 Does she only have two naps? What do you do from 1-bedtime? For days when naps are ending before 2 or 3..you really need a short nap afterward or your lo will be exhausted by bedtime. Does she respond to any APOP (i.e. a walk in the stroller, or a car ride)?

 Sleepy cues, as mentioned, is so unreliable at this age. They do it out of boredom and habit.

 Let us know how you do!

[ngrover]

Hi,

Such wonderful advice! Today I tried to extend her first A-time by 15 minutes, the result was a 30 minute nap for the first and 40 minutes for the 2nd! I kept the 2nd A-time to 2hr 15 min, perhaps I should have shortened it because of the short first nap?

Thanks for the links! The 3rd was the one I was thinking about.

I'll keep trying!

[Jiinx]

15 minutes may be too much..try 5 minutes and keep it to 5 over 3 days. Then add 5 more etc..until you hit 15.

This should give them plenty of time to adapt to the new time.

Yes, if the first nap is 30 minutes..the second A time needs to be cut down as they were OT to begin with ..now they're super OT. Make sense??

HTH! and good luck!

[ngrover]

Hello everyone,

Well we are able to keep our DD up for 3 hrs now. She is quite tired by the time I put her down. The issue is that her naps have not lengthened. She is taking 2 naps, each only 1 hr. When she was on 3 naps she was getting 2-3 hrs daytime sleep, but now it's only 2. Also, she's waking up at 5:45am consistently.

Could this be from OT? Will her naps lengthen?

Thanks.

[Jiinx]

May i see her EAS for the last couple of days?

[ngrover]

Sure. It's been consistent the past 3 days.


Wakes at 5:45a, but I leave her to play until 6:30 hoping she'll go back to sleep. Unless she's crying, then I'll go to her.

E:6:30a (4oz formula)
A:7:00a Play, Breakfast at 8:00a
S:9:00a (1 hr)
A:10:00a
E: 11:00a (4 oz bottle)
A: play, lunch at 12:00p
S:1:00pm (1 hr)
A: play
E: 3:00pm (4 oz bottle)
A:play, dinner at 4:30p, bath and bottle at 5:45pm
S:6:15/6:30p

[Jiinx]

hmm the routine looks good. The only areas I see that could be affecting her wake time is the late afternoon A from 2-6:30, which is quite long..

After she wakes at 1 hr does she cry or is she happy? I'm wondering whether an hour is OT or UT for her. It usually means UT and if so, we could stretch her first A by another 15 minutes and see what that could give us.

[ngrover]

Hi,

Yes, I wondered if 1 hr means still UT. The thing is, she looks really tired. She constantly is sucking her thumb and stroking her ear (which she does to sooth herself to sleep), while I'm trying to keep her awake. She even does it while feeding her breakfast, and she looks like she could fall asleep in her high chair!

She never wakes up crying, but does seem tired when she wakes up. Yawning, rubbing eyes, etc. I thought that perhaps she just likes to wake up slowly.

I also thought that 2:00-6:30p is a very long awake time, but I can't possibly put her to bed any earlier, and was hoping that her nap would be 1.5-2hrs, making her awake time 3.5-4hrs.

I've read in other sites that the first nap should occur 2 hrs the wake up time. This contradicts BW. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with that?

[Jiinx]

Yawning, rubbing eyes, etc. I thought that perhaps she just likes to wake up slowly.

My lo does this all the time. She could just wake up and still be yawning. This is a very common thing that babies do. Really. They do it when they're bored, they do it while playing..it's not a reliable sleep cue (the yawning and ear tugging..). It could just be habitual. If they're used to falling asleep 2 hours they wake up, their bodies are just preparing them for the nap ahead
Have you taken a look at this thread http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=87109.0 ? Particularly number 8.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85134.0

I've read in other sites that the first nap should occur 2 hrs the wake up time. This contradicts BW. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with that?

Surely it's age appropriate? A 4 month old having a nap 2 hours after waking up would be appropriate. An 11 month old, such as mine would just pop her eyes open shortly after I put her down. As they get older, they require less sleep, ykwim? They're slowly becoming a toddler and sleeping and eating isn't the only thing they do.

It doesn't contradict BW, if your baby has high sleep needs or is a younger baby, then putting them to sleep after 2 hours is absolutely fine. However, if they're short napping or waking up earlier and earlier every morning then they may need a gentle push in their A time.

What do you think? Ultimately, you know your daughter the best

[ngrover]

Thanks so much Jiinx. My LO seems to be getting better with the longer A time each day. Before I extended her A time when I'd put her down for a nap she'd play in her crib for 15 minutes. Now she goes out right away. Her naps seem to be deeper too (I use to have to tippy-toe around the house).

I think I just need to give her some time to get her body use to the new 3-4 hr A time. She's been on the 2hr A time for almost 5 months, so it's natural that it will take some time.

Thanks for the great advice. I see that you're from Toronto. I'm originally from there, but live in Ottawa now