do you limit naps?

Seattle_JiLLn

I'm starting to wonder if I should be limiting Cooper's naps.  I was looking in some sleep book (yes I know I hate sleep books) and they say that at his age he should be getting 10-13 hours total per day.  I was surprised it was that low, and it made me feel better about his sleep.  Cooper tends to get (recently anyway) something like 8.5-9.5 hours at night, and then 3-4 during the day.  So he's getting "enough" but damn those nights are short - plus he's not sleeping through that long.  He's waking up at least once and I'm sleeping with him for 2-4 hours.  

So I'm wondering if it would make sense to limit him to 2 hour naps and see if that helps his nights?  

Has anyone done this?  I know there's some book that says "sleep begets sleep" but that just doesn't seem true for my kids.   I definitely remember Ben at this age would always cobble together 12 hours.  If he slept 10 at night, he'd take a 2 hour nap, and if he slept 9 at night he'd take a 3 hour nap, etc...

Cooper also hasn't quite made the full transition to one nap.  He often takes a quick 30 minute nap in the morning and then takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternonon.   Today I pushed him and kept him up all morning.  He's been asleep now for 1 1/2 hours and sadly I think I see him waking up now.  crap.  

ARGH I hate sleep stuff.  I can't wait to get to the other side of this crap. 

Mama_v2.0

I limit naps unless my kids are sick. I would do it slowly. If he is use to 3-4 hour naps, I would start by limiting his naps to 2.5-3 hours. 

Typically I wake up my kids no later than 3:30 (usually 3) and then they have a 7:30 bedtime then they sleep until 6ish, 7am if I am really lucky. 

kar5162

I don't unless he is sleeping really late into the afternoon and then I'll "encourage" him to wake up by opening the door, turning off his white noise machine, etc.

The transition from 2 to 1 nap was pretty hard for him though.  We're really just now almost fully on 1 nap at 19 months.  He would really need 2 every few days or else he'd be too tired to get through the day, but would not sleep nearly as much on at night on the 2 nap days.  Good luck!

kaskade

We just started along with the CIO.  K gets picked up from daycare at six pm, and DH usually let her stay asleep from the car.  She'd sleep anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half if he let her.  He decided to try to keep her awake and push through the evening with no nap.  I think it's part of the reason she's doing so well with the CIO and sleeping so long. 

Morning wise, we leave those alone because she really seems to need them.

kristalovesjared

No, I don't limit naps. Ella sleeps about 16-17 hours a day and is taking one or two naps during the day. If she needs that second nap, I just keep letting her sleep until she wakes up and then she usually goes to bed an hour or two later than her normal 7pm bedtime. I've found if I wake her up, she's cranky the rest of the day, so I've been letting her sleep and wake up so we can have a nice evening instead of tantrums over everything. With her, the more sleep she gets, the more she sleeps. Also once she learned how to fall asleep on her own (we did CIO at 9 months) she started sleeping about 4 hours more per day. I didn't realize how sleep deprived she was and I finally felt like I got enough sleep to function during the day like a normal person! She was waking up every 2-3 hours and I had to be up at 5am for work!

WatchPot

yes at that age I did.  And even now if it's late and he hasn't napped, I'll suffer the grumpiness to keep him up so he sleeps at night.  Otherwise we all suffer.