did you ever successfully consolidate naps?

[Anonymous]

my 7 month old is napping 3-4 times every day, but never more than 45 minutes (if he gets a 90 minute nap in, it's very rare). We've tried not getting him right away to see if he'll got back to sleep, we put him down "drowsy but awake". All that.

It wouldn't be a problem but his current napping makes it too difficult to do anything! I can't take him to story time, plan play dates, ect, because it's always almost nap time.

I'd love to get him down to 2 solid naps a day and an optional "bridge nap". Is this maybe not in the cards?

[Anonymous]

I promise you that your succesfully consolidating naps is in the cards. It is highly unlikely he or she will be napping 3 to 4 times a day by the they hit 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

By 6 months we had my DD on a nap schedule. She got up around 6 and I put her down for her nap at 9. She would sleep until 11. Then I'd put her back down at 2 and she'd sleep until 4.

I basically just stopped putting her down for the first nap that she would want around 8 by keeping her awake longer and pushing it back until we got to a solid time. Eventually that nap moved to 10-12 and an afternoon nap went from 3-5. At around 12 months I was getting ready to put her in daycare where there was only one 12-3 nap, so I started pushing it back further every few days until she was staying up until noon.

[Anonymous]

I would try planning a little more stimulation between naps (go outside in the sun especially helps) and just try pushing naps a little further apart (15 min later) until the last one is late enough to skip altogether.

[Anonymous]

Have you tried being OUT of the house for his second nap, trying to keep him alert, and then just putting him down for #3? Eventually he'll drop #2 as a consequence?

In other words, just behave as if he's already on a two-nap schedule?

[Anonymous]

I dunno - I'm not sure we got to solid, reasonable length naps until about 8 mo. Part of it was the sleep training (so she knew how to put herself back to sleep), and part of it was getting older. She would often nap longer stretches at day care than at home, so I'm just talking about weekends. But you LO may just not have gotten to that point developmentally yet.

[Anonymous]

My dd1 consolidated at 8 months when I sleep trained her to put herself to sleep at night - I had to also let her CIO at 45 mins to see if she woukd go back down - my limit was if leave her in crib until she'd been in there an hour - 99% of the time she'd go back down before an hour was up. Dd2 is a better napper but I did have to leave her to fuss about. 30 mins in to her nap a few times before she stretched to long naps

[Anonymous]

OP here - he's been sleep trained and nights aren't a problem.

Currently, he wakes up, generally/on average, at 6:15. He's back to sleep at 7:45. I try to keep him awake but he eventually gets miserable.

And he does go outside...but after a while, gets fussy if he isn't interested in sleeping in the stroller/carrier (if it's hot, for example).

I do try to leave him in the crib for an hour, but he ends up entertaining himself for 15 minutes and then still tired 2 hours later.

[Anonymous]

With my DD, it just happened on its own over time. Three short naps became two slightly longer naps became one long nap after lunch. Basically she would just stop sleeping during one of those nap times, so I'd cut it after a couple of weeks. It will happen!

[Anonymous]

What time does he go to bed? If he's struggling to stay awake from 6:15 to 7:45, the 6:15 might be a "MOTN" wakeup. But a lot of babies also are ready for nap 1 shortly after waking up from the first nap.

[Anonymous]

Bed time is 7PM. We start the routine at 6:30 - sometimes he is tired before that, so we start the routine but I drag it out with a book or two to try to get him to fall asleep between 7 and 7:30

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What time does he go to bed? If he's struggling to stay awake from 6:15 to 7:45, the 6:15 might be a "MOTN" wakeup. But a lot of babies also are ready for nap 1 shortly after waking up from the first nap.

???

[Anonymous]

I read that as "middle of the night wake up".

OP again - yes, I also think that 6:15 wake up is just an "i'm hungry and wet" wake up. He is generally still tired and goes back to sleep easily around 7:30 after nursing/cuddles before I go to work

[Anonymous]

OP, if he's sleeping well at night, I would count that as a major victory and give him a little more time to find his way nap-wise. DS went to a 2-3-4 schedule on his own at about 6 months old (awake for 2 hours, nap, awake for 3 hours, nap, awake for 4 hours, bedtime). BUT, he did not successfully or consistently sleep more than 6 hours at a stretch at night until he was almost two years old. So, you know, there's always a trade-off. I totally get that your days are jacked up by the napping schedule, but it sounds like you're doing everything "right" so I think all that's left is to give him a little more time to move into a new napping pattern.

[Anonymous]

OP -- You and I are on the exact same schedule with our kids. My DS is 6.5 months old's schedule is sometign like this:

Wake up - 6:15
Nap #1 - 8 (but we just recently pushed this from 7:45)
Sleeps 8-8:45

nap #2 - 10:30-1 and sleeps 45 mins

nap #3 - around 2:30-3

Bedtime is 7pm./ he is so exhausted by 6:45 that he sometimes falls asleep when DH is giving him his last bottle. So we are going to start nighttime bottle, bath and bedtime at 6 and try for a 6:30 bedtime.

I would do anythign for a longer am nap -- or any nap. We can depend on exactly 40 minutes for him to nap. Do ing all the same stuff as you are - thankfully he STTN 7-6:15.