How do you implement set times for naps?

[Little Bear's Mum]

I've read on a few posts that lo's sleep better with set times for naps. I'd love to make this happen but don't know how.

My son (5 1/2 months) is just beginning to be more regular with his wake time of around 6.30 - 7am, but nothing else is consistent on a daily basis. I'm sure if I could help him set his biological clock it would make a huge difference to everything.

Do I just select a time like 9am and no matter what time he wakes up in the morning put him down at this time? Then again at say 1pm? What if he's overtired or not tired enough?

Help, I really want to do this, but just don't know how. I've been trying for  months now to get him into a regular routine, but every day is different no matter how hard I try. :cry:

He seems to last awake for about 2 hours and sleeps for naps between 40 mins - 1 1/2 hours. But each nap is different. He usually wakes happy from his naps so I don't think I need to lengthen them. Just regulate the times he goes down!

[Richelle]

Hi Haley,

I have a set nap schedule for my lo.  She is 5 months also.  Her day goes as follows

W-Wake
E-Eat
A-Activity
S-Sleep

W-630
E-7 Bottle
A
S-9

W-1030
E-1115 Cereal
   1130 Bottle
A
S- 100

W- 230
E- 330- bottle
A-
S- Catnap 430-515

530 - Cereal 1/2 bottle
7 - Bath
715 Bottle
730 Bed (sleeps thru to 630am)

The only thing that dictates her nap times is her wake up time but that only varies by about 15 mins.  For example; she always wakes up around 630.  If she is not up by 645 I wake her up.  However this am she woke up at 620.  Her nap time is 9am but if she seems ready i will put her down at 845.

I think the key is waking them at specific times.  If she is not up by 1030 i will wake her.  Therefore her next nap will stay the same.

She is always home and in her bed for herr naps, she falls asleep totally on her own and her room is nice and dark, which i think really help the 45 minute naps.  We used to really struggle with naps all around and those are the 3 major things that have helped!  I know the schedule seems rigid but it works for us!

Hope that helps!

Richelle

[Aarismom]

Yeah, setting basic nap times is a great idea for biorhythmical reasons. As soon as your lo wakes in the am, his biorhythm is pretty much set for the day.

The first thing I would start doing is getting him up at the same time every morning, maybe within 15 mins or so. The more consistant each day is, the more he'll come to expect to go to sleep at certain times, and his little body will be ready for it. A good time would be the average time he wakes every morning.

Now what I do is keep my lo in her crib the whole nap, unless she cries out to me. If she's fussing or playing, I just leave her in there. I get her up no sooner than after 1.5 hours, and no later than 2 hours, keeping an eye on if she wakes or sleeps after 40 mins. The longer you let your lo sleep in the am, the harder it's going to be to get a good afternoon nap, so if you can, I'd limit the am nap to no more than 1.5 hours net. What I believe I'm teaching is that she needs to be sleeping during this time. Most of the time if she wakes after 40 mins she goes back to sleep (sometimes with my help) after 10-30 mins or so. She usually wakes and plays after 40 mins, but I know she's still tired from experience. If she really is rested, she lets me know. If it's a short nap, I try to push her wake time as close as I can to the next nap time, keeping things really low key, but not so much that she gets waay overtired.

As for naps times estimate them based on how long your lo can stay awake, and that will be your base time for the nap to start. You put them down within a half hour of that time depending on how long the first nap was. If the first nap is skipped completely, put him down within an hour of the afternoon time. The cat nap runs the same way if you still have it.

This doesn't guarentee that your lo will sleep as long as you need him to, but it keeps things a little more routine for you. There will be days where things will get hairy, but that's normal. As your lo can stay up longer, be sure to push the nap times up too. If the afternoon nap time is skipped, be sure to make bedtime earlier by about an hour, but not before 5:30 or so.  But bedtime should be around the same time every night.

The important thing is to keep wake time in the am and bedtime as consistant as possible, because that sets the biorhythm for the day.

Hope this helps!

*HUGS*
Sonya =P

[Little Bear's Mum]

THanks for your replies. It's strange I just can't manage to read his first morning wake up time and because we battle with getting him to sleep for his first nap, that's what mucks everything else up. I've just spent from 7.15am - 9am trying to put him down. Up, down with loads of crying in between. He's generally waking around the same time, or I'd be happy to wake him at the same time, if I could only read his cues for the next part right!

Richelle, I notice Sophie is awake for 2 1/2 hours from when she wakes. Does she show any tired signs, like eye rubs or yawns before that? This is what I've been going by for when to put Daniel down, but I'm wondering if that's happening even if he isn't tired. He lasts awake for about 2h plus 10 mins wind down in bed for his second awake time, and about 2 - 2 1/2 h for his afternoon wake time before cat nap, then again before bed, so do you think this is probably what he can do in the morning too? I've heard that normally they can't do very long in the morning, but maybe Daniel, like Richelle can.

If I can figure out the morning, then I think this would help me to set times for the rest of the day.

[Aarismom]

My lo's day looks almost exactly like Sophie's. I just noticed that =P At 5 months, my lo can only stay up about 2 hours at the most. I'm starting to push her closer to 2 hours and 10 mins, but that's pretty slow going. That's about as much as she can stay up before her afternoon nap.

*HUGS*
Sonya =P

[Little Bear's Mum]

WHat happens if she's up too long? Does this cause a short nap? Maybe that's what's going on with Daniel? I just tried wake to sleep on him, but I think he secretely woke after 40 mins then didn't cry out until about 50 mins, cos we heard noises about 40 m. He's happy once I went to him though. I think I"ll put him down at the 2 hour mark today and see what happens. Can you see I'm just all over the place and can't decide on what to do.

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Hayley, I've got Danielle on fixed nap times now regardless of wake up in the morning which can vary by 1hr.

Usually she wakes at 6.30 but can be 6.00 or 6.45.  I always put her down for her nap now at 9am.  Since she's only ever done 45mins in the morning her being overtired doesn't affect the length of the sleep.  Then she always goes down for 2nd nap at 12.30pm (after having been awake for 2.75hrs) and sleeps until 2.30-3pm.  She's then awake until her 7pm bedtime.  I've found now that she's 6mths she can handle being overtired a lot easier and can be stretched out without melting down.

HTH

[Little Bear's Mum]

Thanks Nikki, I'm beginning to think these are the times I need to go to aswell. I guess the first few days may be tricky, but he'll adapt soon I hope. It's been 2 hours now since he woke up, but although he's beginning to look tired, I think he's still okay, so going to do real quiet time with just stories and cuddles and put him down in about 15 mins. Then by the time he's asleep it will be about 12.30pm. Also, we have an air siren that goes off at 12noon so I'd really like him to be awake when that goes off. The number of times he's woken just afterwards.... grrrr to the siren!  :evil: So if he's awake until after we won't have any problems.

Here's aiming for a better afternoon than morning.

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

LOL, we have siren's here on the coast too, fortunately we don't live right next to it!  Where about's are you?  Not right in Palmy because of the sirens I wouldn't think.  I grew up there when I was a teenager - small world huh? 

I think the key is to have that quiet wind down time if you're stretching awake times - just now we've been down in her room for 15mins doing nappy off time and she's been rolling around and stuff, then I did stories with both kids and now they're both in bed.

Good luck.

[micah'smom]

sorry to butt in but i'm glad i found this thread!

i think micah is trying to transition to 2 naps. but he can't handle being overtired at all, so when i try to extend A time (even if it's lowkey) he won't settle for the next nap at all. for example today he had 2 45 min naps and would not settle for his last nap. so taking that into consideration, if he takes a short nap, for the next one should i just go by his tired cues instead of a set time?

thanks!

[Richelle]

HI

I agree with Haley that now that my dd is older she can handle be overtired.  So, answering your question about Sophie rubbing her eyes-showing sleepy signs-she sometimes does but I keep her going with just simple playing on the bed or hanging out in her swing.

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hey, guess what, we had some improvement. Daniel was awake for 2 1/2 hours and he went straight to sleep without a sound! And slept for 1 hour 10 mins. this is an improvement on what's been happening. It's not as long as I'd like and I think he needs, but we can't expect the world to change in one day! Although it would be nice. :lol: He's happy when he's up, so I guess that's what matters. He's never been a huge day sleeper so maybe that's all he needs. After all, Daniel sleeps 11 hours at night.

I think tomorrow I'll do everything in my power to stick with the plan of when I'm going to put him down. Even if it means just holding him for ages to keep him relaxed but calm and awake. There's never too many cuddles after all. I think our day will end up looking similar to your Richelle, give or take 15-30 mins. I hope so.

Micah's mum hopefully one of the other mums can help you answer your question, cos as you can see I'm the worlds worst mum when it comes to working out what my son wants when it comes to naps!

[Colesmom]

hmmm, I think I may have stumbled onto something here! Hello everyone

DS seems to be taking a 45 min. nap in the morning every day too.  Depending on his wake up time his second and third naps will either be 45 min (if he woke late) or 1:15-1:30 if he woke early.  It's as if he KNOWS his bedtime is 6pm.

I wonder then if he might be ready for 2 naps.  I had company over yesterday and due to a crazy early start to the day (5:20) I was required to stretch him to 3 hours A time for catnap and bed.  He fussed a bit, but no more than normal!  Morning A times were 1:45 and 2:00.  I think maybe this morning A time could be extended and I should start putting him down at 9am like Nikki does with Danielle.

Hmmm, let me see:

6:00-6:30 wake
9:00 sleep
10:30 wake
1:00 sleep
3:00 wake( i would hope for 2 hours given long A time )
6:00 sleep.

Nikki, did Danielle ever have a catnap?  If so, how did you get rid of it?
Today's schedule was like this:

6:45 wake (he was up for about 1.5 hour middle of night so slept in)
8:45-9:30 nap 1
11:30-12:15 nap 2
3:00-3:45 nap 3
6:15 bed

does it seem possible to just drop the catnap as I mentioned up above...since he stretched to 3 hours no problem yesterday? 

a more typical day looks like this:

6:00 wake
7:45-8:30 nap 1
10:30-11:45 nap 2
2:15-3:30 nap 3
6:00 bed 

see how he makes up for an earlier wakeup with longer pm naps?  If he does wake after 45 min. during these naps I can extend them 95% of the time.  Sometimes takes me 5, sometimes 20 minutes.

Hayley...don't be so hard on yourself...you're doing swimmingly.  These little creatures are confusing!

Any advice welcome.

Thanks

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Traci, I kind of stumbled on things when getting rid of Danielle's catnap and extending out her activity times - much the same as you yesterday when you had company.  Sometimes she just has to be up longer because of what's going on with us going out etc.  Because of this she's now just on the two.  She always has the 45min nap in the morning and a long one in the afternoon to make up for it (suits me perfectly).  If she sleeps at least until 3pm she will then make it through the rest of the afternoon fine until bedtime (it is a long stretch, but trying I was finding her resisting the catnap, so I decided to keep her up one day and it all worked out fine).

I think you're definitely going through the transition, and it may take a while for him to consistently being able to handle the longer A time, I'd definitely gently stretch him out to 2-2.5hrs activity and see how you go.

HTH

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hi, well done Traci, isn't it great when suddenly we have these  :idea: moments and they actually seem to be right! We have now had 2 days of Daniel being awake longer in the morning, and going down fine, without crying for his first nap. Thismorning Daniel woke up at 5.10am (that I know about) and stayed awake until 8.00am. Mind you, even after being awake nearly 3 hours, he still only slept for 40 mins :cry: He seemed happy so that was fine. Then he was awake 2h30m and slept for 1h 30m so this is a big improvement. But, because of his early start for the day he's now onto his 3rd nap and went down at 3pm.

I've also tried putting a radio on in his room to see if that makes any difference to noise effecting him. Especially with my parents here, there's more activity so I'm hoping the radio may block some of the noise. Personally I don't like the idea of the radio going as I'm sure it can't be as restful as silence, but if it helps, then I may as well give it a go.

Well, whatya know, just on 40mins and he's made a murmur. I'll see if he goes back to sleep though. My guess is that he won't.

Nikki - how would I know if Daniel can stay awake even longer? Do I just try it? As he doesn't really show any signs now, just gets a bit more snuggly and red around the eyes. Perhaps a little bit of a grizzle.

I haven't been able to stick to the times I wanted to do, ie Sleep at 9am & 12.30pm as Daniel's been waking around 5am! So I thought keeping him up until 9am was a little long. What do you think?

Yep, he's awake. Better go.  Good luck Traci on the longer awake time. Keep us posted.