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Babies: 3 - 6 Months
daniella2727
member
Should we cut my LO's nap short?
daniella2727
member
I have a 2.5 month old, so I am asking you all who may have gone through this phase (maybe some are still going through it). Looking for insight from those who were able to change it!
My LO is EBF. She does not go to bed until 12 am even though we start her night routine around 8:30pm.
Prior to a week ago she rarely napped. If she did nap you had to hold her, which we never did for long bc we would let her fall asleep on us, we would lay her down 15 mins later and she was awake.
Well she has for a week consistently been napping now in her swing for 2-3, sometimes 4 hours a day (1:30-5:00 pm).
My husabnd thinks we need to WAKE HER from her nap. He thinks the nap is too long and that is why she won't go down earlier. I disagree. She typically can stay awake happily for 2 hours. When she wakes from her nap at 5 she is up until 8 pm straight then she does on and off with us rocking her until midnight.
Tonight we have her sleeping by 11 pm.....I think that is progress, he still thinks she needs to be woken up form her nap.
Main question -- if your LO was a nightowl how did you change that pattern? I can deal with her awake until 930/10pm!
My Pregnancy Blog: https://waiting4tuesday.wordpress.com/
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Re: Should we cut my LO's nap short?
m/c 12/25/09 (5w5d) mm/c D&C 4/9/10 (11w1d) Take home baby 2/22/11
My boobies belong to cour10e
What do you do in your bedtime routine that it takes 3 1/2 hours?
Have you tried putting her down at 8pm when she starts falling asleep?
I personally never wake my son from a nap, no matter how long it is. If he is sleeping he needs the sleep then. Sleep begets sleep. An overly tired child can be harder to put to bed than a child who has napped well throughout the day.
Have you tried moving her bedtime up? 8:30 is kind of late to just be starting her routine...and then to not be asleep until 12 seems kind of odd.
I don't think you should wake her from her naps, but I do think she is overtired and needs to be in bed earlier at night
Good sleep brings on better sleep. So you may find that as she gets to bed earlier, she may fall into a more consistent nap scdedule.
I would try moving her bed time routine up 5 -10 minutes every few days.
Also, this website was a huge help for me.
https://www.babysleepsite.com/
You can download free information booklets. It really helped us.
A kiss he will never forget- Disney World 2014
Personally, I don't think a baby really should be awake for 2+ hours until at least 6 months old. DS is 7 months old and just barely started doing that.
At 2.5 months, I'd recommend putting her down for a nap (awake to fall asleep on her own) after about 70 minutes of awake time, and waking her after no more than 3 hrs. (We have a 3 hr nap limit in our home.)
It really should improve her overall sleep habits.
Our DD was, and still is, the exact same way as yours. She is also EBF. The only time she would go down for naps for a long period of time is when she was/is going through a growth spurt. We've tried adjusting her bedtime routine, etc, but she's just always gone to bed late, and been a cat-napper.
Waking her from a nap will just make her cranky. She's napping for a reason, there is a growth spurt around 3 months, so she might be going through that right now.
Our DD started STTN at 3 months, starting with 6 hour stretches, and she now progressed to 9-10 hour stretches, but she still goes to bed around 11pm. But that's only after nursing/napping for a couple of hours beforehand.
She's a pretty happy baby, but it is exhausting. I've just learned that if I want to get anything done without her, to do it in the mornings before everyone else is awake.