Help 6mo old short naps

[cbeaup]

Our DS recently turned 6mo and is going through a transitional period.  On most days he resists the cat nap, no longer needs a dream feed, Has been sleeping through the night. That's the good news! The bad news is his daytime naps have gone from bad to worse. We've slowly tried to increase his awake time to 3 hrs and at first that helped but everyday is different. The last few days he sleeps for 30 min tops! Luckily he's still a happy baby but it's frustrating to figure out. DS is also teething so not sure if that has anything to do with it.  DS is my 3rd child and we've been working hard to get to the  7-7 routine our Girls followed.  Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.   
This is how today went:
Wake up: initially woke up at 5:30 and put himself back to sleep
7:00-
e- 7:30 Bottle 8 oz
8:30 solids
s-10 (awake at 10:30 ) played  and fussed in crib but eventually put himself back to sleep until 11:10
e-12:30 Bottle 8oz
s- 2:30 seemed exhausted so tried putting him down a bit early.  Screamed!!! Got him up and
tried to put him down again at 3:00. fussed for a bit but fell asleep till 3:30 
e- 4:30 solids
5:15 bottle 6oz
5:40 was so tired  fell asleep sitting up against my lap on the couch
decided to let him sleep till 6
6:30 -  bath, bottle 4 oz, (top off)
s- 7, fussed till 7:30 , my guess is that he was ut from late cat nap,

[katiebee18]

No help here! I am in a similar boat - naps range right around 30m these days, used to be 45 which is still not good but boy am I missing those days!

Does he wake up after bedtime often or does he stay asleep most of the night? My LO continues to wake up in like 30 hour increments after he is down for bed for a few hours. I am exhausted and know he must be too.

Oh and he is my 3rd child too, wouldn't you think we would be pros by now?!

[Scottishmummy]

Hi there!

You said you're trying to increase A time to 3hrs? Is that because you were getting short naps on a shorter A time?  What did his routine look like before the increase to 3hrs? How long has he been on 2 naps?
Just asking as sometimes 30min naps are because baby is overtired (OT) & 3hrs is higher end of average for his age. Your description of him getting more & more tired during the day makes me wonder whether he is getting OT on that A time.

Does he self settle to sleep or do you need to help him go to sleep?

More questions, rather than answers for now, but it helps to get a better idea of what might be going on.  STTN is great though!

[cbeaup]

Hi , We started increasing his activity time after naps strarted to be 30-45 min. He started to really fight the cat nap a few weeks ago so we just let it go.  I think part of the problem is not knowing exactly when he wakes up.  He's pretty happy  to play in his crib and doesn't complain. I think he's waking closer to 6:30 rather than 7. That was probably throwing things off.    Today he went down really easily at 9:30, woke up at 10:00.  Never complained so let him go to see what would happen, he put himself back to sleep till 11. He went down for his next nap at 2.  Went down really easy but wokeup after 45 min.

He self settles easily and has been making it to his bedtime of 7 with little fussing. Hes also doing well through the night. He is actually 6 1/2 months .  Do you think I should decrease activity time or just ride it out?  He also just started sitting up on his own and is definitely teething. 

Thanks for the reply.  Sometimes it's just nice to know other people are in the same boat. 

[Scottishmummy]

I'm going to be honest and say I'm not sure ...but let me check a couple of things with you:

Is he doing around a 12hr night - sleeping through?

And one 1.5hr nap (including self resettling time) and one 45min nap- so 2hrs total day sleep

And he's quite happy in the day & settling easily at BT?

If the answer to all of the above is yes- then it sounds like he's getting an average & appropriate amount of total sleep for his age across naps and nights and that might be all he needs.  His nights are so good that nap pattern might be sufficient for him.

At this age my DS would only ever do a short (30-45min) first nap then a 1.5-2hr 2nd nap and that was enough for him. Your DS is doing a similar pattern, just the other way around.

If he's ok on this routine, I'd stick with it for now.