How many naps a day does/ did your 5 month old take? My LO still cat naps throughout the morning and early afternoon (2-3 30 min naps) and then takes a longer (1hr plus) afternoon nap. Her ped. suggested getting her on a 2 nap schedule - 9 am and 1 pm - but if she's only sleeping for 30 mins at a time, she'd be a hot mess on that schedule!
Just wondering what every one else's kiddos did at this age?
cantaloupe / 6885 posts
At 5mo my dd was doing a 1 hr morning, 1.5 hr afternoon, and 30 minute catnap before dinner.
At 6 months she is still on 3 naps a day though the last nap has been getting shorter and shorter. 5 months seems young to go to 2 naps!
pomelo / 5469 posts
LO is 6 months and is almost but not consistently on a 2 nap schedule. From 4-6mths it has been more like nap 1 at 9am for 30mins-1.5hrs, nap 2 1-130pm for 2hrs and then a 30min catnap around 4.30-5pm.
pomelo / 5469 posts
@jetsa: Ok so this is becoming the norm ~5 days a week now... nap 1: ~9am for 1.5-2hrs, nap 2: 1-2pm for 1.5-2hrs. The other 2 days a week are 3 nap days...because the first nap wasn't long enough. She can stay awake 2.5-3hrs now.
grapefruit / 4663 posts
@illumina: ok that's about what I was guessing what time does she get up? I was figuring up at 6:30-7 down at 9 up at 10:30 (hopefully!) down at 1:30, up at 3 down at 7. 90 min maps are a stretch over here but I'm hoping dropping the 3rd nap will make it more likely.
persimmon / 1483 posts
@char54: see that sounds ideal, but I have no idea how to convince her to nap past the 30 min mark. Do I just reduce the number of naps and hope she sleeps longer?
kiwi / 689 posts
Mine was still cat napping at that age. I think she did four naps - two short in the morning, one longish around 1pm and another shortish one in the late afternoon.
I hope you can figure out a way to lengthen her naps, but don't feel discouraged if you can't. Sometimes it just takes a while for them to grow into longer naps. At around six or seven months she started taking two 1hr plus naps and one short nap in the late afternoon, but that cat napping phase drove me crazy!
grapefruit / 4066 posts
at 5 months my LO was still on 3 naps a day. I think 5 months is a little early to transition to 2? What we tried to do was a 1 1/2 nap, another 1 1/2 nap, and then a 30-45 minute catnap before bed. She wasn't consistently on 2 naps until 8ish months. what time does your LO wake up?
pomelo / 5469 posts
@jetsa: That is our schedule exactly! Though sometimes bedtime is closer to 6.15-6.30 if she wakes from the last nap around 3.
GOLD / watermelon / 14076 posts
At 5 months she was on 3/day, but moved to 2/day around 6 months.
persimmon / 1483 posts
@Elderberrygin: I'm hoping that she just needs to grow into them. Her afternoon nap gives me hope - that had been a cat nap too until last week she suddenly started sleeping for 1 1/2 - 2 hrs in the afternoon.
kiwi / 689 posts
@Madison43: If she's started lengthening out on her own I'm sure it won't be long before she falls into a good schedule in the morning as well. One and a half to two hours for an afternoon nap is great. Sleep is so variable from baby to baby and you can really make yourself crazy trying to impose schedules on them before they're ready!
cantaloupe / 6885 posts
@Madison43: Honestly I am not the person to be asking about nap lengthening...DD is all over the place , some days 2 hours, some day 45 minutes. No matter what I do it doesn't seem to matter. She can (and regularly does) survive on two 45 min and one 30 minute naps. Today is one of those days 
I think once her naps start lengthening consistently then she'll drop that last nap.
nectarine / 2504 posts
At 5 months DS was still at 3 naps a day though the third nap was often only 30-40 minutes.
persimmon / 1483 posts
@NovBaby1112: I think she'd be happier on that schedule, but she can't seem to get past the 30-45 minute mark. She wakes up for the day between 6:15 - 7 and is usually ready for a nap about 90 mins later, sometimes less.
pomelo / 5469 posts
@Madison43: @char54: the only things that I believe helped with our nap lengthening is making sure she was falling asleep on her own and if she did wake after 30-45mins to leave her for another 30mins or so, presuming she seemed content and didn't cry. Most of the time she'd fall back asleep again.
apricot / 298 posts
Lucy is just five months, and takes 3-4 naps a day. She's a cat-napper though, most naps are about 45 minutes long. On days where she manages a longer nap, she only takes 3 naps. She's down for her first nap about 2 hours after waking up, and generally up for 2-2.5 hours between naps.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
At 5 months, Xander was on 3 naps usually and two of them would be 30-45 minutes and the other one MIGHT be an hour, if we were lucky.
pineapple / 12053 posts
She took small naps all day at that age. I didn't stress it because her awake times were so short!
cantaloupe / 6800 posts
5 months here, he usually takes 3-4 naps a day. If it's 3, they're all about 1.5-2 hours. If it's a 4 nap day, they're all about 45 minutes which I don't prefer very much.
Typical day looks like this:
So he gets up between 5-6:30am.
First nap - 8:00-9:30 ish.
Second nap -11:45-1pm ish
Third nap - 2:30-4ish
Bed - 6:30
Sometimes he'll take 3 crap naps during the day and then add one more from 430-5pm.
blogger / honeydew / 7081 posts
We were doing 3 naps at 5 months. Usually around 9, 12 and 3.
cantaloupe / 6730 posts
Mine did catnaps all day at 5 months too. Around 5.5 months the naps started getting longer and I discovered that if I waited 10 min before getting her if she woke at the 35-45 mark, she would go back to sleep. So now that she's doing 1.25-2 hour morning and afternoon naps, she can get by on two.
persimmon / 1355 posts
We are still on three naps at six months. I concentrate more on awake time than number of naps. My LO gets tired around the two hour mark now. Usually, that means three naps in a day, but occasionally two if her afternoon nap is really long or four if she wakes up early and has only short naps. I do push her awake time to closer to 2.5-3 hours before bed.
honeydew / 7687 posts
@Madison43: I let my LO lead for consolidating naps after trying all the gentle methods and being frustrated. He naturally consolidated naps at 5.5 months and was on 2 naps by 6 months.
pear / 1614 posts
DS is 4.5 mos and just last week started sometimes doing longer naps. We are mostly on 2 naps a day right now but sometimes if he is doing the shorter naps he gets 3. I think they often consolidate their sleep between 4-6 mos. It sounds like you are doing a great job following LO's cues, and I would just keep doing that. Hopefully the morning nap will get longer soon!
persimmon / 1483 posts
@scg00387: @shellio: Thanks. This is encouraging. My strategy has always been to follow her lead, but our nanny keeps suggesting letting her cry when she wakes up (not happening) and now the ped suggested two naps, so I was starting to doubt myself.
honeydew / 7687 posts
@Madison43: I seriously read every sleep thread on the internet when he was that age because I was going insane with 3 short naps that were hard to come by, and tried everything. It was just a developmental thing, and he grew out of it. Some kids hold on to 3 naps for a long time anyways, or so I've heard, mine has always dropped naps early 
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