Nap consolidation

[Deleted]

DS was a 45 min napper up until around 9 months (I think? It's all so hazy). Eventually, I could go in and nurse him back down for another half hour if I caught him before he got pissed. Now, he naps a bit longer than an hour. He'll never be one of those "oh, I had to wake him after 3 hours" kids, but he's happy and rested.

Do they wake up and have a happy time, or do they wake up mad? When DS wasn't napping long enough, he woke up MAD. Then on his second wake up was happy as can be.

[pierogigirl]

Once we sleep trained at night (between 11-12 months for DS1) his naps started to improve. He went from napping a maximum of 20 minutes to taking 2 hour naps. It took a few months and starting daycare to get to the 2 hr mark. At 3 he still regularly takes 2 hour naps (although he is trying to drop them on weekends).

[Saudade]

DS did a lot of cat naps (20-30 minutes) up until 6.5-7 months and he started moving to longer naps less often. Now he'll do 2-3 naps of 45-80 minutes.

[biscoffcookies]

(}) With DD it was totally natural. She was a short napper who did a bunch of 30 minute naps. It drove me crazy, and nothing worked, and I was all stressed about her being overtired. And then one day around 5 1/2 months, she took 2 long naps (1 to 1.5 hours) and a short 30 minute nap, just like the books said. And from that point, she pretty consistently stuck to that schedule at home (daycare was a whole different enchilada) until she consolidated down to 2 naps.

It was at that point that I became far more zen about the whole sleep thing. I had been fixated on her sleep and naps for 5.5 months with no real progress. Apparently we just had to wait for the switch in her brain to flip.

Ojo, how old are your babies? It is common for babies to have the 30-45 minute naps until 6 months or even sometimes older.

[dcrunnergirl]

Dec 11, 2012 19:33:22 GMT -5 @ojo said:

They'll be 5 months next week, so their naps are still normal for their age. For right now, their 30 minute naps are at least consistent, so I'm leaving well enough alone. I was just curious because of how tired they seem to be so quickly after waking from each nap.

Not sure when you're twins were born, but mine were born at 36.5 weeks, and we experienced most normal sleep regressions about a month late. So, we went through the 4 month regression around 5 months. Sleep from months 4.5-6 was horrendous, and then it got MUCH, MUCH better. In fact, in general, months 4-6 were just all around bad--I think that's when the sleep deprivation of dealing with two babies really catches up to you.