8 month old, Long A and S times, can' t fit afternoon nap

[VnessMorris]

Hi ladies,

Our DD has been on EASY since 3 months old and has been a great sleeper overnight. She just tuned 8 months on Sunday.

In the past few days, her A times are stretching to 3.5-4 hours (!) and she still naps 2 hours in the morning! We have to wake her up from her 2 hour naps. This pushes everything and we are not sure what to do in the late afternoon as it's too late for CN? This is resulting in very early bedtimes (5-5:30pm) or an OT baby! Do we limit her morning naps to only 1 hour??

Here's what happened in the past few days:

7am - E breastfeed
8 - 8:30a - solids
11 - 11:30am - morning nap
1 - 1:30pm - E breastfeed
2 - 2:30pm - solids
5 - 5:30pm - solid dinner
5:30 - 6pm bedtime (OT)

Thanks!
V.

[newkidontheblock]

Sounds about right, hun. You're just moving to a long nap+ CN routine. It was the same with us. I let morning nap go on for as long as she slept and then capped the pm at 30 mins. Then I gradually cut the pm more and more until we moved to a one nap routine. Be careful of 5.30 BTs. I really messed up DD's internal clock with it and it led to 3 months of EW hell. It worked beautifully in the beginning and she was doing 13/14 hour nights. Then she went to bed at 5.30 for 3 days in a row and decided that normal WU time would be 4.30/5am. Ugh! Please be careful.

Stick to doing a catnap and push BT a bit if needed. DD could only handle being awake 1.5 hours after a CN.

[VnessMorris]

Hi Newkidontheblock!

Thank you so much for the reply! Just as you experienced, DD did wake up at 4:30am today after her 6pm BT last night.

Question: when should the CN be? Eg., no later than 5pm?  I just remember a post in the past that indicated that CN's should not be too late or it robs them of their night time sleep?

V.

[newkidontheblock]

I did the CN after her normal A time. At 7/8 months, she could only handle 1.5 hours after that or she would be OT at BT. Don't be worried about a late CN, you need to be quite flexible during this transition.

What I would advise is this -- Stick to a fixed WU time and BT. I don't know about you but I used EBT quite a lot after the transition to 2 naps, and I found that once the EWs started, EBT simply added to the issues. I decided to stick to a fixed BT and to keep a CN to get to it. So on days when the nap ended 2 or later, I would go for a one nap day. Otherwise CN (10 mins) and then bed at 7.