When to drop late afternoon catnap?

[kellyhushhh]

Hello, Jude is 5.5 months.  I was just wondering when babies in general stop the late afternoon catnap, or when did your baby stop?  The last two evenings Jude has been going to bed at 6.30pm having not had a catnap. Yesterday he was awake from 1pm and lasted until bedtime.  Today he woke up from his 1pm nap at 1.45pm and i have just tried putting him down for a nap at 5pm and he just blew rasberries and cried when i left him, he is happily playing under his gym at the moment.

His day generally starts between 6am and 6.30am.

He always has his morning sleep which is anything from 1.5hr to 2 hrs, he used to have a long afternoon sleep as well but recently he has been happy to have only 45mins-hour and wakes up happy so i guess he just doesnt need as much sleep anymore. 

So his daytime sleep is on average only 2.5-3hrs.

Do you think he is still too young to drop the catnap?

Any advice would be great, thanks

Kelly xx

[Matthew's Mommy]

The best indicator is your child's behaviour and night sleep. If he appears fine, settled and contented, then don't worry about it. What may happen is he will shift to a morning and afternoon nap routine.  What you can do is start extending the time between the first and the second nap, to create the morning and afternoon nap.

Generally it's after 6 months that an infant drops the late afternoon nap.

[Aarismom]

What Jane said

Mine started doing what yours is doing at around that age...dropping the third nap on her own. After 2:00 I don't even bother trying, even if she's up 4 hours before bedtime. She simply won't nap, no matter how tired she is. Instead, I did as Jane suggested, shifting her wake time to closer to 3 hours, that pretty much eliminated any problems (she's at 2:45 right now).

I still give her a 3rd nap if she's had a bad nap day (at 7 months), she's usually willing to take one then. It doesn't seem to mess up bedtime unless she sleeps past 4:30 (she also has a 6-6:30 bedtime).

Hope this helps!

*HUGS*
Sonya =P

[Taylor's Mommy]

Ditto what Jane and Sonya said.  Taylor started acting the saem way around 5.5 months so I jsut went wtih it.  If she didn't get in her catnap, she usually had an earlier bedtime (around 6:30) and her last A time was around 4 hours as well.  I was a little shocked by this, but she continued to do ok.  You may find that he will resist the catnap for a week or two, then go back to it for a few days, and on and on until he is finally ready to drop it all together.  It's kind of a rocky transition, but we found just rolling with it and making minor adjustemnts when necessary the best way to handle it.

HTH!