Transition from 3 to 2 day naps - advice please

I think DD may be ready to drop a nap during the day, but I have no idea how this all works.

She's had 3 daytime naps since she was about 2.5 months old - to begin with each one would be for a couple of hours at least. First she started cutting back on her last nap of the day until that was 40 minutes or so. Then she started cutting back on her 1st nap in the morning and now that is often only 40 minutes (sometimes it can be more than that - it's a bit up and down at the moment) and now she's cutting back her middle nap by heaps too so sometimes that is only 40 minutes also. So there are now days when she has only 2 hours of sleep during the day, and she's absolutely fine with that. No overtiredness, still going to bed fine.

What's more, she's taking longer and longer to settle down to sleep at night so her bedtime is pushing out (not that I mind this at all - she's not overtired, just wants to play and wriggle a lot before ready to go to sleep, more all the time), and she's also started waking up in the morning earlier and earlier in the last few weeks, especially if she has more than 40 minutes at each nap. She doesn't want to feed earlier, she's happy to have her first morning feed at the usual time and I know she's not waking because of hunger. She's always had a tendency to wake early, but she'll often just go back to sleep after a bit of a play. Now she's just up at the crack of dawn full stop. I know light affects her morning wake up time (it's stupidly light stupidly early in the morning over in the UK atm - before 5am) but I started blacking out her room completely quite a while ago.

This all makes me think that she is ready to drop a nap during the day... but I'm not really sure?? What are your thoughts about what's happening for my DD - and if it seems like she's ready for one less nap, how do I go about it, or how do babies go about it, or what happens next?? I have nooooo idea. She has a very regular feeding pattern during the day, and she does get tired settles well for naps at around the same time as always - they're just becoming shorter and shorter all the time. She is really being able to stay awake for longer all the time now - up to 3 hours and sometimes more without any real problem with tiredness.

Thanks for your help and advice - I'm a complete novice with this stuff :redface:

I remember when my little terrorist started his sleep transitions... *sigh* ah fun times. The best thing I can suggest is just to try follow your little one's tired signs.. she'll let you know when she's tired, she'll get irritable, rubbing her eyes etc, i'm sure you've got her tired signs down pat.. that's what i did with DS, as soon as i saw him getting cranky, off to bed we go, bottle and dummy at hand :P and soon he just fell into his own pattern.. he's now almost 1 and 1st sleep is around 11am, second sleep around 4pm.. soon enough your DD will let you know what times she's ready to have a nap. Hope this helped!

Hi Miss C,
its so hard when there changing so much at this age. i hope you don't mind me saying but she proberbly should still be having 3 naps a day. a 40 min nap is ok - better than being up for more than 3 hours at a time. could hunger be an issue?
saying that all babies are differant and you should just follow her lead. try a few differant things and see what works. i like to have a routine but thats just me.
i guess if you do want to get her to have 2 sleeps maybe keep her up a bit later in the morning and strech longer in the middle of the day before another nap. so then she might have 2 longer naps?
i proberbly haven't been much help sorry. i'm still trying to work all this out myself :)

Peter just went from 3 naps down to 2 about 6 weeks ago. I thought it would never happen!!

Similar to your LO, his sleeps were becoming smaller, and he was able to stay awake longer, so it just seemed to me like it was time for something to change. I started by really just taking each day at a time- there were times he would still need 3 naps, and other times 2 naps would be fine. Eventually he dropped permanently to 2 naps. I found the 2-3-4 guideline quite helpful: wake up, be up for 2 hours, have a nap, be up for 3 hours, have a nap, be up for 4 hours, go to bed. This has suited him pretty well, so I just started stretching out how long he was up for in the middle of the day, and that has worked. I did find that once he adjusted to the two naps a day, the length of his sleeps increased, and his bedtime has become a little earlier. He sleeps better now, I think.

I was pretty clueless about it all too, and I think it happens a little differently for all babies- you will know what works best for your baby. But I think it always involves stretching their awake time a bit, and (hoping) their nap time increases! (nb: this last bit was a little easier for Peter because dropping to two naps coincided with him starting to crawl around like a mad thing, so he was using more energy, so was more tired and slept longer).

Good luck! Its nice when they have two nap and sleep longer, although my whole day routine has had to change!!

you have done well.
DD was done to 1 days sleep by 10 months and none by 18 months

DS is only having 2 at 8 months now. 9-11am and 2-4 pm

try tiring her out big time in the morning - lots of activity - keep her up a little longer and she may sleep longer??

Had a similar thing with my DD, it went on until she was having three naps each day, half an hour each - so useless for getting anything baby-free done! She kind of dropped the nap herself, at about 8.5 months she changed sleeping patterns so her naps were longer but she was only having two. I didn't really have to do anything except put her to sleep when she was tired.... so I probably could have saved myself some angst by not worrying about it!

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for all your tips and advice and supportive comments.

I can come back in and now say that DD has officially dropped a nap! :lol: :doh: hehe

The 2-3-4 thing that amberj had suggested is pretty much what she's fallen into now on her own - all I did was what your suggestions were here. We were already stretching out time to get down for her morning nap, so I ended up just stretching and seeing how long she could go for at lunchtime before I put her down. This actually turned out to be up to an hour later than what I had got used to her needing, and since having her lunchtime nap later now she has started sleeping much better and longer at lunch again.

So now she's having about an hour in the morning starting anywhere from around 9 - 10, depending on how early she has woken up, and then a two hour nap going down anywhere from 1 - 1.30. After this she is able to stay up comfortably until her normal bedtime. Some days if she doesn't sleep well in the morning or at lunch she needs her 3rd nap again, but more and more often she is now getting through with the two naps fine.

Only problem is she's not sleeping early in the morning quite often, but I attribute that back to the dawn chorus currently at 4.30am over here in the UK... :wall: I spent winter craving the long days back when she was born and it was pitch black at 8.00am and 4.30pm over here LOL how I miss the dark in the morning now!

Anyway, even though she's still waking very early in the morning, she's generally sleeping so much better especially during the day now, so thanks very much for all your advice and tips. Very much appreciated!!

Miss C :)