6 month old switching Nap 2 with Catnap

[Aem492]

Hi friends,

My son did this for a while around 5 months old, it corrected and he was down to 2 naps for less than a week, and now we're back. He will only sleep for 45mins - 1 hour in the afternoon, so he needs a catnap before bedtime which ends up being just as long if not longer. I read through the book again today and we will be implementing a few things over the weekend:
1 - PU/PD for nap #2 (IF he is crying. A lot of times he just wakes up early and rolls around for an hour... so not sure what to do about that)
2 - Limit that catnap to 1 hour max and as (hopefully) the afternoon nap gets longer, this can get shorter and be dropped altogether.

Any other advise? Sometimes he wakes up after only a little nap and is completely content, but the whole evening is thrown off.

Here's what his days have been looking like:
Morning:
06:30am. Milk
07:30am. Cereal
08:30am. Down for a nap
08:45am - 11:00am: Nap 1 (2-ish hours)
Late-morning:
11:15am. Milk
12:30pm. "Lunch" (fruit/veggie)
01:00pm. Down for a nap
01:15pm - 2:15pm: Nap 2 (45 mins - 1 hr)
Afternoon
03:00pm. Milk
04:15pm. Down for catnap
04:30pm - 05:30pm: Catnap
Evening
05:45pm. "Dinner" (cereal & fruit/veggie)
06:15pm. Bath & bedtime routine
06:30pm. Nurse & Down for the night
And he wakes up once for a feeding, usually between 11pm -1am, but sometimes not until 3/4am. I've thought about dreamfeeding but I'm not sure at this point it would be good to do that since the book says to drop it by 7months.


Thanks in advance!

[becj86]

Hi

If you make his A time longer (most LOs aren't on 2 naps until A times are 3hr or almost that), he should nap longer.

I would call it a small miracle that he sleeps such a good first nap of 2:15 A time at 6 months without a long happy waking in the early hours of the morning. I'd give that A time a gentle push too, perhaps put him down at 8:45 when he normally falls asleep instead of PD at 8:30 and see how he goes.

[Aem492]

Thank you! That first nap is usually a good 2-ish hours even going down early, but that makes sense to slowly push that A time, especially in the afternoon.
So how so I do that without him getting overtired? Maybe just a gradual, 5 minute push each day?

[becj86]

So how so I do that without him getting overtired? Maybe just a gradual, 5 minute push each day?

You can push by 5mins per day but I tend to recommend increasing by 10-15mins and then holding it there for 3-4 days to watch what happens, then increase again if necessary. That way you're not changing every day and potentially walking into more problems (many people doing the 5min increase each day go too far or end up in an OT/UT loop and either one of those has them in a right mess which isn't pleasant for baby, mum or anyone else, really). Given there's nothing too broken about what you've got happening at the moment, I'd say to do that rather than a big jump to 3hr.

Shortterm overtiredness due to staying up a slight bit longer than one is used to isn't the great scary monster that chronic OT from short naps is. It usually dealt with within the day by simply resettling any OT 30min waking (you're already resettling in that nap anyway, OT is easier to resettle than UT) and letting LO sleep a full nap. That recovers that tiny bit of OT and you're good to go from there.

[Aem492]

Thanks so much! He actually took an 1.5 hr second nap and no catnap today, though he was VERY tired but bedtime. But we're getting there! If we can stretch his A time during the day he won't have as big of a stretch before bedtime. Thank you for your help!

[becj86]

That's great progress Here's hoping things continue to improve for you and LO.

[Aem492]

Thank you!!!