Nap times and bedtime...

KingsGirl4

During the four days a week that I work, I own a home based child care, my little guy struggles a bit in the nap department. In my off days he will usually nap once in the morning and twice in the afternoon. When I work he has a hard time napping in the morning with all the activity going on, so he usually falls asleep exhausted just before or after lunch and then naps again in the afternoon around 3:45-4:00, but but usually wakes up close to 6:00pm. His bed time has been set at 8:00 for quite awhile, but when he sleeps till close to 6:00, he has a harder time settling down for bedtime at 8:00. He needs to be up between 7 and 8 in the morning, before my husband goes to work, so him going to bed after 8 really cuts into the amount of sleep he gets. Plus he seems to wake up about the same time every day regardless of when he goes to bed. Ontop of this, he just had his first tooth come in Christmas night, and I suspect a second tooth is on it's way, due to the multitude (6+) of night wakings the last two nights. Any suggestions on how to help him nap better or at better times during the day so as not to conflict with bed time? Should I adjust bed time?

*sparky*

Ooopsbaby14 said:

Lo is inconsistent with nap times. She takes a short morning nap and a couple afternoon naps. I don't let her sleep past 5:00 or 5:30. Her bedtime is 7:00. If she's late going down for that last nap and only gets a half hour or so I still wake her up. If bedtime is working for you I'd leave it and change up the naps if you can.

 

************

Same here, only I don't let her last nap end past 4 pm.  Any later than that and it takes forever to fall asleep.  Also, her morning nap is 2 hours after waking for the day and lasts about 40 minutes.  The second nap is 2.5 hours after waking from the second and lasts 1-1.5 hours (on a good day).  The third nap is around 3:30 and lasts no more than 30 minutes.

 

Occasionally we can't get the third nap in, and bedtime gets moved up to 6:30.