6 months nap questions

[sarahb1983]

how much sleep should my almost 6 mth old be getting?  At the minute she's waking once a night and taking bout 40 minutes to resettle and is early waking about 6pm, she is having 2 naps and cat nap most of the time but often refuses the cat nap.  How will i know where and when to increase activity time and reduce naps?
My easy
w+E BF 6.15
8am solids
8.30-09.15 S woke on and off for 40 minutes slept till 11 so approx 2 hrs sleep in total
11 BF
12 Solids
13.30 S till 3 - 3.30
17.30 cat nap sometimes refuses
19.00 feed 19.30 bed

Do u think i should make bed time a bit earlier and try to cut out the cat nap, she would quite happily sleep longer in a morning i have to wake her most of the time how much sleep in total should i be allowing her and when should i reduce this to prevent night wakings and early waking how do i drop the cat nap so she is ready for bed

[sarahb1983]

if follow routine as much as i can but there are inevitably times when i have to leave the house not all of which i can control, if little ones nap times have to change or have short nap how do people manage without them getting overtired

[~Sara~]

If I knew that DS was going to have to sleep while out and about, I just tried to get him to sleep at about his regular naptime.  Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't.  He would never sleep for more than about 30-40 minutes while out, so I knew that his next nap would need to be sooner, normally about 20 minutes shorter A time than he normally did.  I fed when I could.  That didn't mean that I could guarantee he wasn't OT or OS, but I just did the best I could.  Normally, I would then spend the next day at home to help him have a non-OT day.

HTH a bit

ETA: When I first posted, I did not see your first post...only the second one.  Sorry for any confusion!

With naps, I always found that an indication that DS needed an A time increase was when his naps suddenly got shorter, like around 45min-1h.  Next day, I'd tack on 10-15 more minutes to that A time, and see if that did the trick and got us a long nap again.  That might help with your LO's first nap and help push the day out.  I also capped DS's naps to 1.5h each plus a 30 minute catnap...that helped fit everything in.

[~Karen~]

Here are some sample routines for around the same age:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164029.0

On days she's refusing catnap then do early bedtime and maybe try for catnap the next day to try and keep on top of OT while she's going through the dropping the catnap stage. 

[sarahb1983]

At the minute i think i've got the activity time right, she's had 2hrs 15 mins activity time this morning and 2 hrs 30 mins this afternoon, she was asleep in 5 minutes with both with no intervention which is fab, my problem is she's waking after 30-45 minutes and is really upset, i have to go to her and use shh pat, it took me 30 minutes this morning to get her to sleep, did shh pat till eyes closing and went to sleep with my hand on her back, but i'm having to leave her longer so she'll get a decent nap after the waking, it's meant today she's only had 2 naps which i'm fine with but i don't know why she's doing it, she also have a night waking and can take up to 2 hrs to get her back down.  I don't think she's overstimulated cos i try to stay in to keep the schedule, for her last nap she woke after 30 minutes and i tried leaving her to see if she could settle herself but she became very upset, picked her up to initially settle her, tried shh pat and went to sleep but as soon as i too my hand away she stared to cry, after 40 minutes i came down for a break wondering what to do cos she's obviously still tired and needs that extra sleep, and she settled herself as soon as i left.  My question is should i try not going to her? and how long do people normally wake cos she can obviously settle herself, it's so frustrating feel trapped in the house, naps lasting ages cos of these wakings and me and oh seriously not getting enough sleep!
my easy today, 05-6.10 awake tried shh pat eventually rocked cos hysterical and shh pat not working
07.10 woke feed, 09.30-10.20 woke settled back to sleep at 11.00 left another 45 minutes and i woke her at 11.45 and fed, 2.30 asleep, woke at 3, took till 3.45 to settle back to sleep woke at 4.30 and fed, bedtime will be 7 so should make it till bedtime now, appreciate any feedback, she wakes with such a start, and screams

[~Karen~]

Hopefully you'll find that things will start coming together soon.  I know a lot of people hit the 6 month sort of age and things start improving.  If she's mantra crying then try leaving her and see if she manages to put herself back to sleep.  Of course go straight into her if it turns into proper crying.