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Oh that’s tough! I would try moving the first nap to 8:30 AM and see if maybe that lengthens the first nap for her? I know that seems opposite of what you would think. My LO2 is a similar age and she does 1.5-3-4. I have no qualms about putting her down early. I work full time but try to remind myself is quality not quantity of time together. A fussy baby is miserable! Her days vary based on first wake time but today looked like this:

6:45 Wake-up
8:15 - 9:15 Nap
12:30 - 2:30 Nap
6:30 Asleep for the night

Some of it is just age. I know that sucks to hear but the transition to 2-3-4 is miserable. We did a lot of 5 pm on the way home cat naps. About 15 minutes gave her just enough sleep to help her offset a day similar to your daughter’s and make it to at least 6:30.

One thing our nanny often does if she wakes up after 45 minutes is she will get her up then put her back down 30 minutes later. She usually happily goes back to sleep.

I think you should experiment with the times a little and see if you can find something that works better. 2-3-4 was great for my first kid but I also have a 10 mo and it just doesn’t work with him. His nap schedule is more 3-3-2 because thats just what we’ve found to be the sweet spot. (This is on the weekends, at daycare he naps like crap.)

It does sound like if you moved both naps sooner you’d more easily bbe able to get her down for a third catnap.

@mrsbubbletea: If my kid woke up at 5 and wouldn’t go back to sleep I would definitely do three naps. But then another day if she sleeps later you can try the two naps. I think that’s the hard part about the transition is each day is going to be different.

I would play with two naps since the goal is to drop the Catnap eventually. If you try puttin her down earlier at 8:30 for the first one she may actually take a longer nap. But if she doesn’t and she’s up from the first nap at 9:30 then you’ll just know you’ll need a third nap. But then if that whole day goes to crap the next day you could tray to nap at 9:15 and see if that makes any difference.

We are in the same boat! My 9 month old is going between 2 and 3 naps, and has never been a good napper. Her first couple months she wouldn't nap more than 20-30 min, then for a long time it was always 40-45, and finally in the last few weeks they're occasionally 1-1.5 hours. This is our schedule:

Wake at 6:30
First nap approx 8:30-9:30/10
Second nap 1-1:45
Bedtime around 6:30

On weekdays, she'll sometimes do a catnap on the way home around 4:30, which helps her make it til bedtime, but on the weekends, she's a mess by bedtime. It would be perfect if the second nap was 1.5 hrs, but her second one is never more than 45 min. And if we move bedtime any earlier than 6:30, she thinks it's a nap and is awake after 45 minutes and tough to get back down. If we do a 3rd nap on weekends, it's at like 4:30/5, then she's up til 8, which cuts into her total night sleep and makes her overtired the next day. It's a never-ending cycle...

Like a pp mentioned, I think I'm going to try extending the second wake time a bit - I think if we could hold off that second nap til 1:30/2, it would probably be perfect.

@mrsbubbletea: This age is tough. With my 10 month old we do a quick catnap on poor nap days. So a bad nap day for us is:

7 am wakeup
9 am - 10 am nap
1- 2 PM nap
5-5:20 cat nap
8 PM bedtime

On a good nap day he can make it from a 3:30 PM wakeup and a bedtime of 7 PM. So it varies for us based on what he does!

For both of my kids we started with the 2-3-4 schedule, but it kind of morphed into morning nap, afternoon nap, and bedtime by 7. I could always tell when they started to get grumpy in the morning it was time for nap 1. And nap 2 was immediately after lunch. I tried to prolong bedtime until 7ish, but with my 2nd she’d be screaming through dinner and I’d take her up as early as 6 or 6:30. It was easy tell when she was just flat out exhausted.

So anyways, my advice is to go by your LO’s signals. When they’re grumpy and it’s close to either 9am, 1pm or 7pm, it’s time for sleep.

@DesertDreams88: Thanks! Our LO is more like 3-3-3...We just go by his signals - there is always a narrow window where he is sufficiently tired but not too tired to nap...