https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Mon, 08 Jun 2026 23:35:01 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1353694 Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:36:29 +0000 littleveesmommy 1353694@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DD was a late nap dropper as well! At 11 months old she was still doing three naps a day - 1st and 2nd at 1-1.5 hours each and 3rd at .5-1 hour. She still went to bed around 730 and woke up around 7 but was just a sleepy baby. She didn't drop to two naps until around 1 year old and then dropped to one nap around 15 months old. Her wake-up and bedtimes never changed. I just waited for her to show she wanted to drop naps even though she was a good 2-4 months behind my friends kids in terms of dropping naps. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351666 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:54:47 +0000 Elderberrygin 1351666@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Sammyfab: I'll try pushing her wake time on the weekend. I know during the week she won't go down for a nap at daycare in the morning if she's had anything more than about 15 minutes sleep in the car, so I'm not sure how that's going to effect things.</p> <p>I was also thinking that I could get some kind of toy - a mirror or a toy arch - to try to distract her in the car to see if that will help keep her awake. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351643 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:35:11 +0000 Sammyfab 1351643@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Elderberrygin: haha, your husband is like me! I always sleep in the car if it's longer than a 30-minute ride. </p> <p>I'll help you troubleshoot the best I can :happy: . Since her nights aren't totally wacky, I would definitely try pushing the 2nd nap a little later even with the short morning car nap (since that's hard to prevent). Eventually she will get used to being awake for a longer amount of time in the middle of the day and hopefully it will make her less tired in the late afternoon. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351612 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:03:30 +0000 Elderberrygin 1351612@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Sammyfab: She sure does love motion sleep! We've been vigilant about having her take the majority of naps in her crib, and she does really well sleeping in it. But if she gets a whiff of a car or carrier within half an hour of naptime she falls asleep. Her dad is exactly the same. He'll fall asleep on my shoulder on a ten minute bus ride. </p> <p>She's okay at night unless she's sick. Or teething. Or working on a milestone. Puts herself to sleep every night after going into her crib wide awake. Sleeps through about half the time or wakes up once to nurse and then goes back down. (I'm still nursing at night because she's tiny and its been a struggle to get her to gain weight, so I assume she's hungry as she -can- sleep through.) So, I guess I may be stuck with three naps until she puts on a bit more weight.</p> <p>Thanks for talking through it with me. I really appreciate the suggestions. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351600 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 22:54:21 +0000 Sammyfab 1351600@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Elderberrygin: your girl LOVES her motion sleep!!! Honestly, trying to keep my LO awake in the car is one of my least favourite things to do!</p> <p>I think that if you want to try to get her on a 2-nap schedule where she wouldn't be as inclined to want a 3rd nap or to fall asleep in the late evening, you should try stretching the time between the 2 naps. You could try and add 15-30 minutes before the 2nd nap. It may be an easier time to distract her since lunch falls right in the middle?</p> <p>Is she waking a lot at night? Once she starts sleeping through, you can definitely stretch the time before her first nap as she will be better rested. I don't really know your night sleep situation, but maybe consider tackling that before tackling naps? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351543 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 22:26:06 +0000 Elderberrygin 1351543@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Sammyfab: Weekends we go by maximum wake times rather than the clock because her wake-up time is variable. We put her down after ~3 hours wake time. A usual weekend day will be:</p> <p>5(ugh) to 6am wake up</p> <p>8 to 9am - put down for first nap. She usually naps for between 45 mins and an hour</p> <p>11 to 12 - put her down for her second nap which last 1hr 15 to 2hr.</p> <p>If she takes a third nap its around 4/4.30. The last few weeks we've been heading out after her second nap to try to keep her distracted and the majority of the time she'll fall asleep in the Beco or in her car seat if she's in either anywhere between 3.30pm and 5pm. </p> <p>Bedtime is 7pm. Slightly earlier if she naps poorly or doesn't take the third nap.</p> <p>By the time she gets picked up from daycare she's been awake for 3 or 4 hours. She's on a very similar schedule at daycare, except that nap one often happens in the car and is short. And nap three happens in the car at 5pm. </p> <p>Daycare has been really great about working with us to get her on a schedule, but they've had very little luck getting her to nap at the same time as the other babies, so we're all still doing a very loose routine following her lead. </p> <p>Honestly, I don't know if there's anything I can or should do about the situation. Its just really difficult to make any plans around her crazy lack-of-a-schedule on the weekends, and her unpredictable night sleep is starting to take a toll, especially as she's not consistently sleeping through yet. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351445 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 21:38:41 +0000 Sammyfab 1351445@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Elderberrygin: well, the sleep begets sleep thing only really applies to newborns. I'd say around 6 months babies need a max amount of sleep per day and then too much day sleep (or a wonky schedule) starts to affect night sleep (through either serious mucking at bedtime, early wake ups or nightwakings).</p> <p>Your daycare situation does make it difficult but it definitely seems like that late nap directly affects her night sleep. How long is she awake for by the time you pick her up? Does daycare just put her down whenever she seems tired or do they have set naptimes?</p> <p>What kind of schedule do you guys have at home on the weekends? </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1351327 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 20:56:01 +0000 Elderberrygin 1351327@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Sammyfab: Whether she takes the third nap on the weekend depends on how long her midday nap goes. If she finishes up around 2pm or 2.30pm I can usually stretch her out and put her down early. The problem is during the week she'll generally refuse a third nap at daycare because she's distracted and then fall asleep in the car, which can mean she's finishing her third nap as late as 6.15pm depending on traffic.</p> <p>I feel like I'm limited in what I can do to get her on a good schedule because the commute to daycare messes with her naps. She usually naps on the way in as well, so she has a super short morning car nap, a long midday nap and then falls asleep coming home. </p> <p>It mainly bothers me because I think the wonky napping is making her night sleep really unpredictable. Her bedtime is normally pretty predictable, but if she's napped too close to bedtime, she gets up super early. I don't know why. Sleep does not beget sleep in our house.</p> <p>*sigh* Sorry for the novel. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1350954 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:36:18 +0000 Sammyfab 1350954@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Oh, and personally, if the 3rd nap always affects bedtime then I would drop it. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1350952 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 18:35:39 +0000 Sammyfab 1350952@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>How does she sleep at night? Does she take 3 naps on the weekend?</p> <p>Every kid is so different so it's hard to say if she just needs more sleep than others. Sometimes it just takes some extra distraction and some adult-led scheduling to get her on 2 naps (if that's what you want). </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-naps-late#post-1350593 Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:12:12 +0000 Elderberrygin 1350593@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Anyone else have experience with their baby dropping naps significantly later than average? LO is 11 months old and still on three naps. She was on five to six half hour naps per day until she was six months old (yeah, that was fun), four naps until 7 months and then down to three. Where she has stayed. We get raised eyebrows at every well baby visit about her wonky sleep, though the pediatrician is pretty chill and just reassures us that all babies are different.</p> <p>We asked daycare to stop putting her down for her last nap of the day, figuring that if she was super tired she'd catnap in the car. Yesterday she napped for an hour in the car on the way home (DH got caught in traffic) and consequently refused to go to sleep until way after her bedtime. </p> <p>I'm trying to figure out if I need to ask daycare to add the third nap back in to her schedule so she naps earlier and it doesn't mess with bedtime. But it seems so ridiculous to keep up the third nap at this stage, especially as she fights it so hard half the time. </p> <p>Any thoughts? </p>