Hellobee Boards

@Musicmomma82: wow that's a super short awake time for the first nap? That's about the age my LO started refusing his third nap so we went to a 2 3 4 schedule.

@scg00387: what's a 2 3 4?

@Musicmomma82: have you ever tried keeping him up longer? It might get you a longer first nap and eliminate the need for a third nap.

@Foodnerd81: I think that is normal for a younger baby!

@Mrs. Polish: first nap 2 hours after wake, second nap 3 hours after waking from first nap, bedtime 4 hours after waking from second nap

@scg00387: huh. That's naturally what he's been doing. Interesting.

@scg00387: agree with the 234 schedule. It's been magical for us.

Also, 9-10 hours of nighttime sleep is probably not enough. At 5.5 months you should be aiming for 11-12. Maybe he's OT during the day and it's making naps hard?

We pretty much don't do a third nap anymore since we started 234 (DD will be 6 months in a week), but when we did it was the toughest one. I've read that that's the one nap for which you should do anything you can to achieve a nap. We went for a lot of walks and drives to get her to sleep for a third nap!

@Musicmomma82:We were really struggling at 5.5 months with naps. Now at 6 months we seem to have hit some kind of groove. Exactly like you I was finding it really hard to get her to take that last nap and some days she wouldn't and she was just feral. It also meant early to bed and early to rise. What I did was extend her awake time to between 2 and 2.5 hours to get her to go to bed later. Our days look like this atm

6am - wake up
8:15/8:30 - 10:30 - nap
1pm - 2pm - nap
4pm - 5pm - nap (sometimes this nap is only 30 mins, I always wake her for 5)
7pm - bed

Some days we are out in the am so she has a shorter nap then but will have a 2hr one in the afternoon. I moved her bedtime from 6/6:30 till 7 and it took about a week. I found this chart really helpful when setting the routine. http://www.mybabysleepguide.com/2013/02/average-sleep-charts-by-age.html

Also when the 2nd nap would run over I would wake her at the time she needed to be able to go back down. If your LO is having 2 2 hour naps he may not need anymore day sleep. So either increase the awake time between those naps so it's closer to bed time when he wakes or wake him from the nap so he can get the third in. I chose the later because my LO was a proper grouch on 2 naps.