Implementing a nap schedule

[hannamarin]

I bought the Ferber book and it stresses the importance of routine (not just at bedtime but all day) so I think I should implement a nap schedule for my child who seems to be different every day.
For the last 3 days she has consistently slept at around noon so I can work from there. However, she only sleeps for 45 minutes at a time. Always. 3-4 naps a day.
Any tips? I dont want to force her into bed at noon when she isnt close to being tired. That seems counter productive to sleep training.

She often wakes at 7am but has been known to wake at 550am. I would prefer 7am waking time.
I ama SaHM. She is 7mths old
I will also be working to cut her night feedings soon. I think the daytime routine will help her night time routine.

[Deleted]

daycare implemented the schedule for me, and I tried to follow it (very loosely) on the weekends.

[Deleted]

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

[bunch]

I followed her cues and noticed that she needed a nap about an hour after she got up, then another about 3 hrs later and then a final quick nap around 5. She just dropped that third nap so I'm working to push up the morning and afternoon ones. On a good day she wakes for the day at 7, takes a nap 9-10 and another from 1-3. So pretty much what tokenhoser said.

[egishere]

May 31, 2012 16:02:16 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

Yep this is pretty much what we do now. Wake and eating around 7, nap at 9, up at 11 to eat, nap at 2 then up to eat at 3:30-4, last bottle at 6:30. I think you need to try and get her to eat every 4 hours and then the naps are easy to work in.

[karinothing]

May 31, 2012 16:10:47 GMT -5 egishere said:

May 31, 2012 16:02:16 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

Yep this is pretty much what we do now. Wake and eating around 7, nap at 9, up at 11 to eat, nap at 2 then up to eat at 3:30-4, last bottle at 6:30. I think you need to try and get her to eat every 4 hours and then the naps are easy to work in.

This is pretty much what we do. It was kind of happening naturally and then daycare solidified it. He does not take long naps though (30-60 minutes on average). When we first started daycare he was taking 4 hour naps on the weekend! It was glorious

Anyway, I decided to stop worrying about nap length because i find it stressful. DS is doesn't get cranky even when he only takes a 30 minute nap, so I think that is just what works for him.

[hannamarin]

Thanks. Stealing this routine. But she usually only lasts an hour most mornings. I think it is related to her night wakings and getting up too early.
Now she does up at 7am, down 8-845,
Down again at noon -1245, then again at 3.
Sometimes an extra 30 min around 5. But she seems to be getting past that one.

[karinothing]

I think it is pretty common for babies to want to take an early morning nap, regardless of their night sleep.

[sarahbear]

Your child sounds normal. I'm no expert, as I only have one child to compare, but my son had a similar routine at that age. As he got older he slowly went to 2 naps and then to 1 nap. He's 23 month and doing the long afternoon nap thing.

[baconista]

DS is close in age to your DD and we are currently on a loose 2-3-4 schedule. I find this works really well but I still go by his cues and sometimes need to push a nap early or can take it a bit late. Some days the early afternoon nap is bad so we squeeze in a third nap around 4-4:30.
He goes to bed around 6:30-7pm and sttn to around 6am. I wish he would sleep later but I can't complain since he sttn!

[dcrunnergirl]

May 31, 2012 16:10:47 GMT -5 egishere said:

May 31, 2012 16:02:16 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

Yep this is pretty much what we do now. Wake and eating around 7, nap at 9, up at 11 to eat, nap at 2 then up to eat at 3:30-4, last bottle at 6:30. I think you need to try and get her to eat every 4 hours and then the naps are easy to work in.

This was our schedule at 7m too. We started getting two 2-hour naps at this point by doing this schedule and early bedtime at 6:30pm.

[hannamarin]

How do I make the nap longer than 45 minutes! In the stroller, the crib, on my chest, in the carrier, in the car...always 45 min. And then wide awake often screaming if not attended to immediately.

[tardyfortheparty]

May 31, 2012 16:02:16 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

This exactly. DD is 8 mos and this schedule works like a charm.

[Deleted]

May 31, 2012 20:15:33 GMT -5 @hannamarin said:

How do I make the nap longer than 45 minutes! In the stroller, the crib, on my chest, in the carrier, in the car...always 45 min. And then wide awake often screaming if not attended to immediately.

I had to attend to him immediately. If I got him right away, I'd nurse him back to sleep and get another 30-45 min. After a week or two of that, he started taking longer naps.

Or you can just chill out and roll with it. Eventually you end up in the same place (2 naps at reasonably predictable times) whether you try or not.

[lala]

May 31, 2012 16:02:16 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

This is more or less what we do. Sometimes she doesn't make it the full 3 hours before the 2nd nap - and it's never 4 hours before bedtime, so it's more 2-2.5-3. But she generally takes hour+ naps.

I think with 3-4 naps a day, that's why they aren't long. Ideally she'd be down to 2 naps.

[biscoffcookies]

We had some success getting DD to take longer naps by extending her waketimes a bit (from 1.75 hours to 2.25-2.5) at around 6 months. (Of course, then we sent her to daycare and she sleeps maybe an hour ALL DAY).

However, I understand that taking long naps is a developmental thing and that it is not uncommon for babies in the 5-6 month range to take consistent, short naps. I know your DD is slightly older, but perhaps she is just taking a bit longer?

[IrishBelle]

May 31, 2012 16:01:56 GMT -5 @iheartcosmos said:

daycare implemented the schedule for me, and I tried to follow it (very loosely) on the weekends.

Same here. When DD went at 12 months she would still have a morning nap about 2 hours after she got up. Now the typical schedule is up at 7, a nap at noon and bed at 7:30. Usually the nap lasts 2 hours but some days she will sleep for 4 hours.

Today was horrible though. She was up at 5 am, nap at 1:30 for 1.5 hours and bed at 8. I'm exhausted so I don't know how she isn't.

[bananahannah]

I have lots of good handouts from a pediatric sleep specialist we visited.

For age 4-8 months most will need 3 naps a day. The first nap of the day becomes quite predictable occurring about 1.5 hours after the regular morning rise time. The second nap begins about 2-3 hours after the first nap ends but often no earlier than 11:00 am. The third nap stars between 3:30-5:30 pm after your child has been awake for at least 2 hours. Around 8 months, your child gradually transitions to 2 naps a day.

9-14 months: (for future reference)
The first nap remains the most predictable nap and occurs about 2-2.5 hours after the regular morning rise time, most often 9-9:30 am. The second nap begins about 2.5-3 hours after the first nap ends, but usually no earlier than noon. The naps together total about 2-4 hours.

I am not usually a very "scheduled" person and wanted to just follow my baby's cues, but following this guideline really helped us.

[hannamarin]

Thanks banana
Quesition. Did the specialist or the pamphlets suggest putting your baby to nap every day tired or not? I just put Layla down and all she did was play and twist for 20 minutes and then cry for 15 min. I took her out and she is still awake 1 hour later.

[bananahannah]

Yes, in the beginning, when you're trying to implement a nap schedule you do have to try for a nap when they are not necessarily looking sleepy. Often when babies are overtired they may look alert, overactive and resist falling asleep (not saying your child is sleep deprived, just making a point that behavior when tired isn't always what you would expect). My child never gave me sleep cues. As a newborn he was colicky and then when that was over he was generally just fussy all the time. Even if they do give you cues, specialist emphasized putting them down before they're showing signs because once they are overtired it is more difficult for them to fall asleep.

Obviously I am no expert but I would try and time the naps perfectly for a week or so (using the guidelines I listed above) and see if that results in her falling asleep quicker and more easily. If a nap is skipped (because she just cried or wouldn't fall asleep) ensure that you don't let her fall asleep until the next nap time. Once naps are going well, it is no longer necessary to be rigid about timing. Specialist also emphasized that crying for long periods of time day after day indicated that there is usually a problem and to contact her to revise the training.

[bananahannah]

Also, in regards to the 45 minute nap, we had the same exact issue because my son is such a light sleeper. I literally could time his naps to the minute because once he transitioned into a lighter sleep stage he was up. The key here is having her develop the skill of her putting herself to sleep unaided so that when she wakes at the 45 minute mark she can put herself back to sleep. Expert advice differs on this. Dr. Sears and the No-Cry sleep lady advise to help them out at that point whether it is popping a binky in or whatever. No Cry lady actually advised to listen outside the door and jump in when you think they are waking. This works for some people, I believe TokenHoser said she nursed her little one to help him go back to sleep. Hopefully their naps with lengthen that way. However, this did not work at all for my little one because when he would wake he would expect help each time and never learned to put himself to sleep. What worked for us was for me to not react to every little sound and wiggle. Often, my little guy would wake at the 45 minute mark and cry for a few minutes then fall back asleep. I had to train myself to just leave him be and give him a few minutes to work it out himself.

[hannamarin]

Tx.
I think cry it out at night is helping. Maybe she is more tired? But I am hoping she is learning. Yesterday after day 2 of cry it out, she napped for over an hour twice. Crossing fingers

[shell403b]

May 31, 2012 16:02:16 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Around that age, I started following the 2-3-4 advice. Up for 2 hours, nap, up for 3, nap, up for 4, bed. It only works once your kid starts napping for over an hour, but then it's gold.

This is exactly what we use: He gets up between 7-8 (if he's crying to get up earlier, we usually let him CIO--he'll usually settle down in 5 or so minutes), goes down for his nap btw 9-10. Gets up usually around 11, 11:30. Goes back down at 2:30 for about an hour, hour and a half. Then gets up, plays, has snack, we go to the park or other activities, has dinner, then goes down btw 7-8. Works pretty much on point on the weekends. Try that, hanna.

ETA: Oh yeah, our pedi told us that we should put him down even if he's not looking/sounding/acting all that sleepy. That he had to learn how to self-soothe and fall asleep on his own. Not during a bottle, not being rocked, etc. Sounded kind of cruel to me at first, but I get what the peds were saying. That they didn't want him to use those things as a crutch and never be able to get to sleep on his own.

[hannamarin]

Today, I put her down after 3 hrs. She was cranky but not sleepy. She was cranky all morning. My H kept saying it was too early for a nap, but I insisted we wait. 15 min of crying off and on...nap. However, only 25 min. But she has a cold which is bothering her

[oukapu]

I give her a paci if she wakes up early before she gets too worked up. We haven't done a nap schedule yet. I cut out the night feedings a month ago and it was not hard. We cut them out cold turkey...she wasn't eating that much anyway.

[livinitup]

DD really benefitted (still does) from a "nap time". I noticed that it wasn't as much about noticing her daily sleep-clues and MORE about setting a time to relax/nap. On several occasions, DD is awake but pleasant. It is SO VERY IMPORTANT to designate that thime is crib/bed time - it doesn't have to be 'sleep' time. Sleep may or may not happen, but the time to rest and relax and usually sleep is such an important routine to instill.