Nap Question

hushpuppy201

I have a quick question about my LO's first nap of the day. He has been waking up between 5:15 and 6:00 in the morning. I go ahead and feed him and by 7:00 (if he wakes up at 6:00) he is ready to go down for a nap. He can only be awake about an hour during the day before he is ready for a nap.

When he goes down for a nap at 7:00, he usually sleeps for 2 hours. Is this normal? It just seems odd to me that he would sleep for 10 hours at night, be awake for an hour and then sleep another 2 hours. This is by far his best nap of the day. The rest of the day, he only naps for about 30 minutes.

Does him sleeping for 2 hours first thing in the morning indicate that he is waking up too early? He does move and fidget a lot during the night so I'm concerned that he is not getting the quality sleep that he should. I have read that if they wake up between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning to treat it like a dream feed, put them back to bed and then wake them up at whatever time you have set to be their wake-up time. Any ideas?

flcl

Congrats on the 2 hour nap!  That sounds awesome!  My guy is a cat-napper but like your LO, needs to take his first nap about an hour after he first wakes up (He gets up between 5:45-6:45).  After that, he's up for 75-90mins and then a longer 2 hour stretch in the late afternoon.  You can try treating it like a dream feed to see if he would go back down but it seems pretty common to me that younger babies need to take their first nap after being up for only an hour.  GL!

savedgracie

We have very similar babies!  My LO's first waketime is also short, and his first nap is his only long one 1.5-2 hrs then all the rest are 30 to 45 min.

Anytime my babe wakes before 6:30 I treat it as a night feed and put him down again, and I let him wake up on his own.

roo1oo

Totally normal, also a completely normal wake time. If you'd like LO to sleep a bit later you can try blackout curtains. I found that a later bedtime equals a cranky baby who still wakes up early. Some people advocate an earlier bedtime but I found that equals an earlier wake time. 

TeacherVicky

Totally normal. Count yourself lucky that you can get a 2h nap in the morning!

The wake time between the morning wake up and first nap is usually the shortest window of the day. Also, the morning nap is often the first nap to consolidate into a good nap. 

We've dealt with early wake ups with both LO's. I've noticed that a later bedtime = earlier wake up. DS's bedtime is 6:30pm. 

JenW1029

Our LO does the same thing. And if he gets over stimulated in the morning it turns into a complete meltdown.