How to get from 3 naps to 2....

[thepixie]

OK so DD has 3 naps a day ... which is OK, I guess, IF I can get her to take 3 naps before 5pm. Apart from the first nap of the day she can usually go 3 hours between naps, sometimes more, which makes it all a bit tricky....
Say she wakes at 7, and has her first nap at 9.30. She sleeps until 10, has another nap at 1, and the last nap will be 3 hours from when she woke up. The problem is it means she only has 30 min naps during the day. I would rather she had 2 longer naps and went to bed earlier at night. But if she misses the third nap, and I put her to bed earlier, she wakes up an hour later thinking it is time to play and then she doesn't get to bed until 10pm.
does anyone have any ideas how I can get her to drop the third nap and realise it's bedtime, not naptime when she goes to bed?

[Indadhanu]

Hi hun,

It sounds like she isn't sleeping though her 'sleep cycle' thingos (sorry, the real words are escaping me :-S).

Do you try to resettle after a 30 minute nap? How does she wake up, is she well and truly awake or is she kind of groggy and stirring?

[catherinemoses]

I had this problem with Flynn around the same age. The MCHN recommended that they need at least 1.5 hr naps. So if they are waking earlier try and get them to go straight back to sleep. Apparently they have 45 min sleep cycles and need to get past that 45min. It was a bit hard, but did work and we are still generally having 2 decent (at least and hr-2) naps. Try and resettle rather than getting her up. Does she get really upset if you don't go to her straight away or is it more grisling? If you can handle it, I'd try and leave her if she is a bit grisly and see if she nods off again otherwise a little cuddle and back to bed. Try a few cuddles and back to bed in a row before giving up. She should get the idea in a couple of days.
HTH GL

[thepixie]

Sometimes she does have a good 1.5 hr nap but then it screws up the whole day (especially the evening) because of the 3 nap thing.... the 3 naps only work with an 8pm bedtime if she has the 30 min naps because she is awake for 3 hours in between.
Yesterday she had a 1.5 hr nap in the morning and a 1 hour nap in the afternoon, woke up at 4pm. Which was great, until I put her to bed at 7.30 and she woke up an hour later wanting to play and I couldn't get her down until nearly 10pm. She wakes up absolutely wired to the moon and will stand up in her cot in her sleeping bag crying, singing and generally carrying on a treat. All she needs is a tin cup so she can rattle it along the bars like a prisoner. If we leave her there she will try to cruise the cot bars, usually resulting in falling over and hitting her head
But thanks for the suggestions, I'll give it a go, especially resettling rather than getting her up in the evening. Sorry if this didn't make much sense, I don't think I'm explaining myself very well!

[Indadhanu]

Hmmm, so do you mean SHE seems to want 3 naps...

Hmmmmmm......

I'm a bit stumped on this lol...

Do you do a night time routine, kind of like saying "ok this isnt NAP time its BED time"? I would try to resettle when she wakes at night. Maybe try giving her a feed in the bedroom, but keeping it really low-key and relaxed?

[Arimeh]

Ok we've just successfully gone down to two naps a day here - and I followed the same routine that worked for DS when he was that age (until he was around 14 months and went down to one nap a day)

I keep her up until 9.30am - she usually wakes between 6/6.30 - so she has a bottle, and then food an hour before going to bed - so at 8.30 she'll have some toast for breakfast and some fruit.

So then she's full (ish?) and she'll sleep for longer. I found that if I was putting her down at 8.30 - she would only sleep 30-45 mins and then woke up - and I think it was because she was hungry. So now I feed her solids and then put her to bed.

Then she'll wake up around 11 or 11.30 - so she has another bottle, then some more solids at 1.00pm - like a sanga and some more fruit, then at 2.00pm she'll have a bottle and fall asleep on it - and today she slept till 3 (but I think that was cos craig was swearing in the other room about some dumb computer crap) but usually she'll sleep till at least 3.30/4.00.

Then some solids at 5.00 - bottle at 6.00.

She'll mostly fall asleep on that bottle. If she does fall asleep, she might wake up when I put her in the cot. I wait to see if she will resettle and if she doesn't I'll just get her up. I realised she's happier hanging around us than she is with me trying to get her to sleep. So we'll wait until 9.00pm - give her another bottle which she passes out on.

I find it a lot easier to not stress about trying to get her to sleep and if she's happy to stay up - I let her and then she'll be in bed - totally exhausted by 9.30pm and sleep through till the morning.

Dunno if that will work for you and the way you have your routine... but hopefully you might be able to get something from it?

I remember DS doing exactly the same thing at this age too - he just wanted to stay up. So we brought the night feed forward (cos usually its at 10) and they just crash.

I just hate hearing her scream when WE want her to go to sleep and she's so stubborn like her mother that she don't wanna

[thepixie]

Yeah the three naps is HER rule not mine.... who knew 7 month olds could even count
yeah we have a bath, pj's books close the blind, nappy, sleeping bag, last feed, bed. I have tried the quiet feed in her room but she doesn't go back to sleep.
Unfortunately past battles of will have proven that her ability to crack it far outlasts my ability to tolerate her cracking it, especially in the evenings when the Bear and I are trying to cook/ eat dinner.
Hopefully she will transition to two naps by herself.... or maybe I'm just clutching at straws

[thepixie]

Mel I think that's what we'll do tonight ... she didn't have her 3rd nap till 5.45 and woke up at 6.30 so she won't be in bed till 9.30.... are you still doing the 10pm feed even though she is on 3 meals a day? Beth usually wakes for that (if she is not still awake at 9.30 ) so I've been thinking of reintroducing it, I read somewhere to stop it at 7 months or when they are having 3 solid meals a day.

I just hate hearing her scream when WE want her to go to sleep and she's so stubborn like her mother that she don't wanna

LOL so true.... just like madam here!