Nap times vs. intervals

seamonkey0814

Up till now I've been following the "awake no more than 1.5-2 hours" philosophy for naps so no matter what time DS wakes, I put him down for his next nap no more than 2 hrs later. We've recently started having major night time sleep issue and the book I'm reading advocates for set nap times during the day (9 am, 12 pm and late afternoon). They assume these are 1 hour naps though and DS usually naps for 30-40 mins.

I'm a bit unsure now of what is best. Should I keep up the shorter, more frequent naps or should I set three times in the day and try to get him to sleep longer? Anyone have experience making this transition?

mfsunshine222

I don't have experience per say since I am a FTM, but my cousin a mom of 2U2 and I had this very conversation.  She is a SAHM and followed an "interval" sleep schedule for her boys because they didn't have to always wake up at the same time. She had returned to work after her first LO and followed a set nap time (for the most part) for him during those 6 months.

In talking to her DH have decided to do a structured nap schedule for our LO except the first nap of the day. DH and I work different shifts so LO does not have to have a morning routine, but needs to have a more structured afternoon/evening do to my mom having to watch DS for 4 hours in the afternoon.  So basically his morning nap (usually his longest of the day) happens about an hour after he wakes up.  Then his afternoon/evening naps (30-45min) are basically at 1:00ish, 4:00, and a quick cat nap around 6:30 with bedtime at 9:00.  Ultimately we want to drop the 6:30 nap and get an earlier bed time, but our efforts at attempting this so far have been vetoed by LO, so we aren't pushing.

poofwok

Once awake for the day, I make sure DS stays awake for 2 hours at most and put him down for a nap. Or else he gets overtired. He doesn't ever really fight it. He naps for about an hour to 2 hours at a time.

So his naps are usually at 9:30-10 am, 1:30 ish and he naps for about 45 mins in his swing around 4:30.

His longest awake stretch is from 5 - 8-8:30.

BeachM

How old is LO?  Could he be going through the 4 to 3 nap transition?  In my experience naps get very wonky during these transitions.  We didn't start going by the clock until DS1 was on 1 nap.  Before then following wake times kept him from getting overtired.

becominggold

I started having nap success when I just started watching for tired cues an hour to two hours after eating. I usually get a good morning and late afternoon nap this way. That could mean anywhere from 30 min to one hour. Afternoon nap is hit or miss because he is at daycare. Times are not exact because his wake up time us different each day. Weekends we often get four of these naps.

ekneipp

This is my first but after doing some reading and getting to know my little guy, he does better with intervals. He can only make it about 1.5 hours before getting sleepy so I capitalize on that. This was a great site I found, also has ranges for overall sleep, daytime sleep, etc: https://www.mybabysleepguide.com/2009/02/wake-time.html

This helped too: https://childsleepscience.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/common-age-by-stage-sleep-schedules/

heatherdances

I don't go by a schedule for naps because she is not consistent whatsoever.  I watch for sleep cues.  Some days she takes great naps and can stay up longer other days she takes short cat naps and can only stay awake for an hour. If I miss sleep cues we have epic meltdowns.  

caybeh

I go by cues. I'm a SAHM though, so that makes it a little easier to really have no schedule. With DS, once he got older and dropped down to one nap, then we had/have a scheduled nap time. I'll do the same with DD.

leannerivers

I keep track of how long she's been up and go by cues as well. She only lasts about an hour, hour and 15 mins. So by the time I get her down again it's been an hour and 30 up. Her last interval she lasts about 45 minutes until she starts getting hyped up but I usually have to stretch it out because it's too early to go to bed. Some days her last nap is late enough and the timing is good.