help with transition for 6 mo old

[sophiems]

What are some of the signs that a baby is no longer needing the evening catnap?  My lo is 6 mo old and on 4 hr. easy.  He's just staring to take longer naps, as we've had to get rid of some bad habits.  However it seems he is waking earlier and earlier in the morning, and can't seem to take longer than 1-1.5 hr naps.  He always seems quite tired around 5pm but I think often it's because his morning and afternoon naps haven't been long enough. 
Next question is how do I transition to dropping the catnap.  Then when do I give solids for evening meal?  He nurses at 3pm and 7pm. 
He's angel/textbook baby.  Started on solids about 3-4 weeks ago and it's going very well. 

[*Natasha*]

We have just done this a month ago and it sounds like you DS is ready to start transitioning to 2 naps. Could you post your routine for the day so i can help you work out a new one with the 2 naps. Also does he fall asleep independently and does he use a dummy? Does he also sleep through the night?

[Intransit]

Hi there,
I will try to remember what I did when DS was 6 months. I remember @ about 6 -7 months was when we cut out the cat nap. I believe he was "telling us" that he was getting too much sleep by waking up around 5 am thinking it was time to get up. So, we'd go in..pat/shh back to sleep and by 8 he'd be up. So, we stopped the cat nap..and eventually the waking early stopped. How long does your LO go between naps?In the morning, my son tends to manage 2 hours, sometimes 2.5....3 is pushing it. Whereas...in the afternoon he can go until 3:30 before he sleeps. I don't care for it all that much...the 4 hour stint..but it works for now.  

As for the solids....I feed him his bottle at around 3i-3:30--and then solids approx 1 hour later. However, if he naps later than Id like (as I mentioned above) then after the nap--usually lasts about an hour--I give solids. I do not let him sleep any later than 5pm, so not to interfere with bed time routine.
HTH!

[sophiems]

Currently here's the routine

7am:  Awake and breastfeed (lately this has been more like 6am or 6:30 am but usually I try not to feed him until 7)
8am:  solids
9-10:30am:  nap [usually though, if he's woken earlier then I have to put him down around 8:30 so he doesn't get so overtired]
11am:  breastfeed
12pm:  solids
1pm:  nap until 2:15 or so
3pm:  breastfeed
4:30:  solids? 
5pm:  nap
6pm:  solids if he hasn't had any before the catnap
6:45:  bath
7pm:  breastfeed
7:30:  in bed asleep!
11pm:  dreamfeed

He can usually go 2 hours between naps.  Much more than that and he has a hard time going down.  He doesn't use a pacifier [dummy?] but he sucks his thumb, often to get to sleep but sometimes not.  He goes down at bedtime completely on his own, just put him in say goodnight and leave and he goes to sleep quickly I guess because he's quiet.  Naptimes are much better now.  We were doing pu/pd frequently to get out of some accidental parenting with rocking, walking, etc.  Now as long as he's tired enough but not overtired, he can go down without much help, just sometimes my hand on his chest for a minute or so. 
In the last 2 days, we've been making sure he's awake by 6pm from his catnap, and both nights he's slept until 6:56am!  We also started pushing back the nap to 5:15 instead of 5.   He's quite tired by then but it's usually not a fight to get him down.  And this evening he woke up on his own at 5:56!  That's my angel baby, I guess!  I think we're doing the right thing, just not sure how the schedule should go from here on out.  Thankfully he has been sleeping through the night since about 3 months, although now he has a cold and I think his top teeth are coming in, or at least bothering him.  He's been up several times tonight already and pretty grumpy.  But unless it's really bad, he'll likely sleep until morning after the dreamfeed. 

So I guess I really just need some advice on how to transition away from the catnap, or maybe should I just shorten it for a while and see if it solves the problem? 

Thanks!

[corrina01]

This routine I could have written with my DD, she doesn't take a catnap anymore, so she is awake from about 2pm -2.30pm,  . I try to put her down, but she is having none of it.

You should probably extend the awake time, by 5-10mins but do it with the winddown routine, see how it goes from there. This will move the rest of the times up.

I would shorten the catnap to 30mins max.

You will want to aim at 3hrs awake time before they drop the catnap, but my DD has a difference of opinion.

HTH