DS is 7.5 months old. Until about 6 months, his naps were consistently 45 minutes. He was generally happy and alert during the day and went down for those naps pretty easily with a pacifier. His night sleep was pretty good. He typically has a night waking during the end of the night, between 3:30 and 5:00 a.m. He gets about 11 hours at night.
Prior to 6 months, he took 4 of those 45 minute naps. As his wake times extended, his bedtime kept getting pushed back. When it was regularly at 8:00/8:30 instead of 7:00/7:30, I looked at dropping naps. At about this time (right around 6 months), he started being able to consolidate his naps. For a while, we got 1 nap longer than 45 minutes. It was generally about 2 hours, although varied from 1.5-2.5 hours. That pushed us from 3 naps per day to 2 naps per day pretty quickly, but we tended to play the day by ear regarding the 3rd nap. He was never a catnapper for the 3rd nap; in fact, sometimes the first 2 naps were 45 minutes each and the 3rd one was the long one.
There was also a time that we got 2 naps at 1.5 hours each, and at that point, we were consistently doing 2 naps per day.
However, in the last month he went through a growth spurt, we spend 10 days in Florida (a 2-hour time difference from home), he caught a cold (still recovering), and I think he may have gone through a sleep regression (although it's hard to tell with everything else going on. But by Day 7 in FL he was thinking 4:30 a.m. FL time was morning and wouldn't go back to sleep, and that's 2:30 home time.)
I can't remember if the 2 naps at 1.5 hours each were before we went to FL or since we came home. I also can't remember if the few glorious days of 7:00 a.m. wakings were before we went to FL or since we came home, but man, they were way nicer than his regular 5:45. (I don't take him out of bed before 6:00.)
Anyway, the problem is that we're having a terrible time getting back into a routine. His naps are inconsistent, but generally back to 45 minutes to 1 hour at most. His bedtime is now as early as 6:00, although I'd really like to get it back to 7:00, and he is waking up earlier (like 5:15 a.m., today). His eating is also inconsistent, but that's probably because he's ready to drop from 5 bottles to 4 and because he has a cold. I don't think he's cutting teeth 7 and 8 yet.
Our routine is something like this:
WU 5:45 (out of bed at 6:00)
E 6:15 bottle (does not finish)
A
E 7:00 breakfast (rest of bottle, if possible; cereal for breakfast)
A
S 9:00 (generally 45 min)
E: 9:45 bottle
A
E 11:45 lunch (fruits)
A
E 1:15 bottle (tends to fall asleep, but wakes up when we go upstairs to the crib)
S 1:30 (generally 45 min to 1 hour)
A 2:30
E 4:00 bottle
E 5:00 supper (veggies, meat)
A 6:00 start bedtime routine
E 6:15 bottle
S 6:30 (for the night)
These awake times are really too long for him. Depending on how well he eats breakfast, sometimes I feed him a bottle before his first nap, and he tends to fall asleep drinking that one too. (I'm going to try moving to 4 bottles per day and eliminating that problem.) He also gets really cranky a bit before the 3-hour mark.
Today he woke up at 5:15 and we did 3 naps after about 2 hours 45 minutes of A. He was happier, but all the naps were 45 minutes. Should I take the 3 short naps and run with it?
What happened to the long naps? How do I get them back? And when they come back, how do I encourage some level of predictability? I have this whole crazy "If nap #1 is short" and "If nap #2 is short" and "If both naps are short" scenarios mapped out, but then BT varies a lot because last nap's end time varies a lot! Not only is this not good for LO, it's not good for me because I can't plan my day around unknown naps.
And how can I help him sleep in a little longer? This before 6:00 a.m. is getting ridiculous.
