Stuck with 3-4 naps cycling every few days

[bluesky123]

@life1114 Yes, I will try extend the first ww.

 

[bip]

@bluesky123 Is she sleeping independently?

If so, increase your first wake windows … you need sleep pressure before your earlier naps in order to encourage a longer nap. Nap 1 gets longer first, so increase that wake window to at least 2.5 hours, the later once’s should be no shorter

Many babies at 6 months are close to 2 naps

The adjustment can take a few days and she may be crankier, but you are setting up for longer naps so push through

When she wakes from nap 1, as long as she’s fallen asleep independently, give her 15 minutes after she wakes to work on falling asleep again. This requires that she has enough sleep drive … if she wakes up happy and rested from nap 1, she wasn’t tired enough. She should wake up and be trying to get back to sleep

If she’s not falling asleep independently I would still push the wake windows but then work on independently falling asleep for nap 1 first before trying to nap lengthen

 

[bluesky123]

@bip Thanks for the tip! She gets tired pretty early before nap 1, but I’ll try to push for 2.5 hour. She’s not falling asleep independently yet, does it matter if I work first on independent 1st nap or bedtime?

 

[bip]

@bluesky123 You can do either … nap training takes longer because daytime sleep pressure is lower, but nap 1 is usually the easiest nap to get and the skills will transfer easier to nights and other naps …. So if naps are causing you trouble it’s fine to start with naps. Starting with nights is good too, but in your case the poor napping will start to impact night sleep so don’t leave it too long

 

[ancientbrotherbass]

@bluesky123 Bedtime is much easier to work on, so I would start there.

My LO is 10 months old and first wake window is 2.5-3 hours. At 6 months, her wake windows were 2/2.5/2.5/1.5

Her last window was always super short.

Before we transitions to 2 naps, her third nap was capped to 10min and was just a bridge nap to get her to bedtime. We would wake from it and go right into bath time and getting ready for bedtime. We only have on child so we have the time to do a 30 minute bath with her and then read tons of books and do some quiet play. Essentially that last 1.5 hour wake window was all bedtime routine.

We cut out that last nap once bedtime started balling at 8:30/9pm. She was 8 months old.

Went to a 2 nap schedule with 3/3.5/3.5 and it was rough for the first week. She’s been on a 2 nap schedule for a month now and the wake windows currently are 2.5/3.5/4.5

She prefers a shirt first wake window and once she started being able to tolerate longer ones later in the day, we shortened the first. At first, we had to extend all of them as much as we could

 

[trivalee]

@bluesky123 You can work on schedule and extending the naps and that will consolidate the 3 naps schedule. At 6 months, 4 naps isn't giving your baby enough big chunks of time awake and that is likely to cause sleep issue.

At 6 months my suggestion is wake window from 2.5 hours.

 

[bluesky123]

@trivalee I have tried increasing wake windows and extending naps, but still short naps.

 

[trivalee]

@bluesky123 What did you do to try to extend then?

 

[bluesky123]

@trivalee I left her for 10-20min to fuss after waking up from a nap. I tried for a few times, but it hasn’t worked.

 

[trivalee]

@bluesky123 For that to work (crib hour) you need a good wake window before the nap. My suggestion for you is 2.5 hours before the first nap of the day and leave her until it's been an hour since you put her there. Do it only for the first nap of the day and it works only if she falls asleep independently for naps.

I have a guide in my profile about naps but basically I think you need to focus on extending the naps.

 

[bluesky123]

@trivalee Good to know, I’ll try that!

 

[dilynwrcrist]

@bluesky123 Just keep on with it. She’ll grow out of it soon enough.

 

[bluesky123]

@dilynwrcrist Do you mean naps consolidating? I hope so!

 

[dilynwrcrist]

@bluesky123 I mean both naps consolidating (just due to age) as well as the 4th nap dropping off. It’s how we always went about dropping a nap - giving her the flexibility to do so on her own time. It always looked like this, about a month of the occasional extra nap.

I’ll add though that we would intervene with schedule changes whenever night sleep would turn to shit.