nap problems
redshoegirl
member
When I picked the boys up on Friday from my friend's house, she said she was surprised at how short their naps are. I was a little surprised since I didn't think they were unusual, but then I realized that belief was based on more or less nothing. So this afternoon I've been googling it and as it turns out, they are.
Pretty much EVERYWHERE says that at 6 months old, they should have awake times of about 3 hours with a 1.5 hour nap (three times a day). My dudes both prefer to be awake for about 1.5-2 hours, and then nap for about 30-45 min (and they generally have two naps between each meal so they're having 5-6 naps a day).
For example, they went down for a nap at 12.30pm. It's now 1.36pm and they've been awake for at least 20 minutes. They're not really fussing or anything so I've just left them in their cribs in the vague hope that they'll get bored and go back to sleep. I'm not sure if it's working, but I don't hear any fussing so I guess the worst case scenario is that they're just lying there staring at the ceiling. 
The best advice I can find is to keep them good and active for the 3 hours they're meant to be awake, but they both get pretty cranky after about 2 hours so I'm not sure how well this will work out without ending up with a total meltdown on my hands.
Ideas? Tips? I know all babies are different and it's not the end of the world if they have short sleeps (since they're still getting roughly the right amount of sleep every day), but longer naps would be really nice...
Re: nap problems
I have no advice since Kaya has pretty much always taken short naps. They are typically 45 min, with an occasional 1-1.5 hour nap. And when I say occasional, I mean like once a week. And maybe twice or 3 times ever she napped 2+ hours. I wish she would nap longer, too, so I could get more things done! Sometimes I just have to put her in her PnP and let her entertain herself so I can do things I need to do. And, btw, she's down to only 2 naps and they're still only 45 min-ish! I thought once we eliminated one she'd sleep longer, but no such luck. I can't complain anymore though, since she STTN (anywhere from 9-11 hours).
Do they both nap at the same time? And do they tend to wake each other up? Just wondering how that works.
Yup, generally - we're pretty careful to keep them on the same timetable, and since they eat and play at the same time, they're usually tired and wanting a nap at the same time too.
They don't generally wake each other up unless one of them starts crying really loudly - we have them in separate cribs so they can't kick each other, etc.
I pushed them and kept them up for 2.5 hours this afternoon, then tried going for a 1.5 hour nap - it kinda sorta worked. They slept about 45 min then woke up, but I just left them in their cribs (they were awake but not fussing or anything). They spent the rest of the time alternately napping and just lying there mulling over the secrets of the universe. So I might keep trying that and seeing if we can actually get them to sleep the entire time...but even if they don't, I've decided to just view it as "rest time" vs "sleep time" lol. (Obviously if they start fussing a lot or something then I'll try a different approach, but might as well give it a shot, right?)
Sorry, no advice. We're in a similar situation. Adrian, who's 6.5 months, definitely does not follow those recommendations. He will only nap for 1-2 hour stretches if we're out and he's in the Ergo. All his naps at home are really short -- 15 to 45 minutes -- and he'll take a handful of those throughout the day, mostly in the morning.
He's a very active baby, but it seems that he's just a light napper when he's not being rocked or carried. He usually sleeps GREAT at night, so I'm just trying to go with flow during the day, even though it totally exhausts me!
Honestly? I think all babies are different. If your guys seem to be happy with their awake/nap times then it should be okay. Libby rarely naps for longer than 1 hour. She takes 2 or 3 one-hour naps a day.
Also, I have read that "high potential" children need less sleep...so perhaps you just have two little geniuses! Again, I don't think you would stress if they seem rested and aren't super tired all the time.
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J is in the short nap group too! He will nap longer than an hour if he is in the car or in a baby carrier but if he is in his crib he won't last longer than 45mins with an average being a lot less (20-35min naps at daycare).
They consider it a great day if they can get him to take 3 naps that are in the 30 min range. They moved his crib to the back corner hoping it would be more quiet for him - didn't help. He's about the same when he is home with us. DH often just gives up says lets go run errands so he will sleep in the car/carrier - but we have been working on it.
As far as daycare goes - I peek at the other babies' daily report sheets just to see how much they eat and sleep and they are all over the board. One baby sleeps for 2 hours at a time (it also say she gets up at 5am, so that's no fun). I first looked at them to try to plan how much milk to put in the bottles and then started looking at nap time to see if they really were trying to get Jack to sleep (thinking that maybe if the other babies didn't have many naps then the teachers were slacking) but nope - some babies had long frequent naps and Jack doesn't. I'm sure they do try as hard as they say...
I found this on BabyCenter...if you consider that they take six 45 minute naps/day then they are getting the equivalent of 4.5 hours of nap time daily. Add in about 10 hours of sleep at night and they still get the total recommendation of 14.5 hours/sleep each 24 hour period.
Libby needs about 14 hours of sleep each day (24 hour period), so will her three 1 hour naps each day and 11 hours each night, she's in a good place. If she was only sleeping 8 hours at night I'd be worried that she wasn't getting enough sleep with her shorter nap times.
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Bella's a GREAT napper now on most days. However when she was little it was like she would hit a wall after a certain time and we'd put her down. We did give it a small try to stretch her awake time to see if we'd get longer naps once and then we missed her window of opportunity and she didn't nap at all! So needless to say after a few failed attempts of stretching the awake time and totally going passed her point of no return (which was about 15-20 mins after her normal nap time), she wouldn't nap at all and then she'd be a complete bear!
I wouldn't force it. I mean as long as it's working for your family then who cares! It works for the babies and they are happy little guys then why does it matter? I mean of course it'd be great if they slept longer but what if you mess the whole thing up? (Which happened to us and SUCKED!)
Now, Bella hits the wall at 8 am, she's in her crib by 815 and then sleeps 45mins-1 hr. At day care she doesn't take that nap, she's busy playing and does fine without it... at home, it's a different story, she NEEDS that nap! She then goes back down for a nap after lunch around 1230 and sleeps for about 2 hours. If she wakes before 2 hours, I give her a little time to see if she'll drift back off or if she's done napping... As for bedtime, she hits a complete wall at 6:45 and is in her crib no later than 7 and wakes around 6 for the day... So it's almost 12 hours at night, pretty much like heaven for me!
That said, my SIL watched her a couple of weeks ago for a few hours in the evening and I told her about her bedtime and she texted me at 650 and said "she's still going strong!" and I texted back "just wait!", at 710 I got a text that she was fast asleep in the pack and play and had hit her wall at 655! In 5 mins she went from full force to crabster! 
Our pedi said something like this, too. So maybe we all just have smart kids on our hands!
Advice that I found that has worked wonders for us is....Don't let your baby get too tired! At the first signs of tiredness, he's put into his jammies and put to bed. We really watch for those signs because if we miss them, then there will be hell to pay! There is a small window of opportunity when Ryan will go down to nap with pretty much no crying, it's my mission in life to not miss those windows!
Ryan sleeps from 7:30pm to 6:30am
back to sleep at 8am to about 10am
next nap at 12-12:15 pm to about 1:30
third nap from about 4pm. Sometimes he will sleep for half an hour and sometimes he will sleep until I wake him up at 6!
Mind you, this is the same child who went from 5am to 7pm with NO NAP AT ALL many times from the time he was born until he was about 3 months old. I resisted the belief that "sleep begots sleep" at first and tried to keep him up and make him tired. It didn't work for us because I believe that he was so tired that a hormone was made to help give him his "second wind"
Signs that Ryan is getting tired are that he gets a little clumsy, he still smiles but not as much, his face gets a little bit pink, and if we get to the first yawn it's almost too late.
I know it's so hard for you because you have 2 that you have to keep on the same schedule but maybe use whomever shows signs first, and then put them both down even if the other one isn't showing signs yet? IDK, but mothers of twins are AMAZING!
LMAO I think I'm going with this!
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
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