Anyone else's baby become a complete mess when switching to two naps a day? My DCP suggested it last week because she has been sleeping horribly at night lately. She said that a lot of babies go to two naps at her age. I think condensing naps around 7 months when babies don't sleep well at night is mentioned in the Healthy Sleep Habits book as well; too many naps during the day taking away from a full night's sleep. So we changed her schedule three days ago and she has been completely fussy and exhausted. And sleeping at night hasn't gotten any better at all.
So my question is, is this normal? Maybe it's just part of the adjustment period. And if you changed your baby to 2 naps a day, how did you know it was the right time to do it? I'm thinking maybe we did this too soon.
Thanks!
Re: Switching to 2 naps a day
Jacob Alexander 7/23/09
Allergic to Dairy, Eggs and Peanuts
Jameson Adam 6/1/11
Allergic to Peas...so far
Thanks. This is exactly what I suspected. Her naps are usually between 40 minutes to 1 hour. Occasionally she'll get a longer nap in, but it's not consistent. She's not sleeping any longer though, even though we took out the third nap.
We start the bedtime routine at 6:30. She's generally asleep by 7. I can't make it earlier due to work. I don't pick her up from daycare early enough. But a problem arose because she started taking her 3rd nap later and later in the day, around 4:30 or 5. So when I would go pick her up at 5:30 she would still be asleep, but not have slept long enough to refresh her. She was also getting her last daycare bottle too late. So between being too full and too tired, she wouldn't eat dinner or take all of her bedtime bottle. Then her whole nighttime routine and sleeping has been off. I think I just need to tell the DCP that we need to move all of the naps and bottle earlier. (That's what I told them in the first place, but I figured they're with her all day so maybe they see something I don't about how much sleep she needs). I should trust my mother's instinct, I guess!