Hellobee Boards

When my son was that young, our problem was that I was waiting too long between naps. I kept him awake way too long and we were already at the yawning/rubbing eyes signals which is a cue for overtiredness.

To this day, we're still at 2 naps most days, with the first one 3 hours after he wakes up in the morning and the second 4 hours after he wakes up from the morning nap.

I'm having a similar problem...If I get a good nap its usually the morning (because I'm able to get her down for that first nap before she gets overtired), later naps are a little bit of a crapshoot. I started keeping a log of when she slept the longest and her sleep cues (amazingly, when LO is overtired she gets the hiccups-once she gets the hiccups I can almost guarantee she won't take a substantial nap) and have started scheduling her naps around her natural sleep cycle.

It goes against what most books will tell you (EASY, eat/play/sleep) but its helped us. I also wake up every morning and tell myself that I wont stress myself out being a nap nazi, I will accept LO in all her nap resistance and I will do my best to make sure she has enough sleep as well as enough activity (so if she takes 5 30 minute naps, so be it).

In the end, the most important thing to remember is you're doing a great job...sometimes babies just need a little time to figure out what works for them!

I'm so sorry. It's totally the age. We just had to put him down a lot, even if he would only nap for 40 minutes at a time, and basically wait him out. It got better on its own around 6 months, when he was better able to self-soothe.

@winniebee: I had the same problem with the cues, did you happen to see the schedule that's floating around, with the max awake times per age?