Ugh,
DS has short naps to begin with, so he essentially can only stay awake for 11/2 to 2 hours before it is time to nap. But then he only naps for 30 minutes at a time.
We don't have a sleep schedule per se, but I am starting to wonder if I should put him on one for the sake of trying to give him more consistency that may lead to better nap lengths. This also leads me to ask you ladies:
when is your last nap of the day and for how long... And when is your bed time? Also, what is a typical awake time for your LOs?
currently, ours is happening right now, and he will probably go to bed between 7 and 8. But to me this feels like a very late nap for the last nap of the day and I am looking for comparisons.
Re: Last nap/wake times and bedtimes
~I have a baby in heaven 3-20-12~
For whatever reason, DS will not go down for a nap past 5:00. If it's later than that, he will fuss awhile and then eventually lay quietly in his swing, but will not fall asleep, even if I intervene and try to rock/shush. So because of that, lately bedtime has to start around 6 with DS down by 6:30. He wakes up anytime between 3 and 4 from what has become his last nap, so 6:00 is 2 or sometimes almost 3 hours from his last wake-up, which is beyond the scope of how long he is supposed to be up. But so far it hasn't proven difficult to get him to bed for the night when that happens.
Today he treated us to waking at 4:30 from his last nap, so I was able to start our routine a little later and get him down closer to 7, which I like a little better because he will sleep a little later in the morning. The length of the naps are still a crap shoot. In the last two weeks, I can usually get one long nap out of him (90 mins.), typically in the mid to late morning.The rest are all 30 minutes. Even with the long one, he will wake up after 30 minutes and I have to wait 10-15 minutes to see if he will fall back asleep. The naps all used to be 30 minutes, so I'll take what I can get!
Naps in our house are usually 45 mins but we are 3 weeks into sleep training so eventually they should get longer. Awake time is between 1.5 and 2 hrs.
The last nap of the day is a tough one for us b/c we can't just put LO in her crib to see if she will sleep. With the sleep training, if she doesn't go to sleep then she has to be in there crying it out for 30 to 45 mins. Normally I won't even try to put her down after 4:30 sometimes even 4. Which means that last stretch of the day is a long time to be awake for her but it does help her go down easier at night.
Bedtime is usually between 6:30 and 7.
he is 16 weeks. I have tried to keep his schedule to be more like a routine of eat, play, sleep... So at least there is that. But this really gives me some peace of mind that his wake times are pretty standard. So throughout his day he really should be getting 4 naps, especially with how short they are. I had been reading in places he should be getting 3 long ones. So the last nap of the day is a true conundrum for me because then I think we should hold out until bedtime, but then that is far too long for him to be napping. Essentially, we wake him up from his last nap because that one he will sleep too long and push back his bedtime.
My baby is 12 weeks. We follow eat-play-sleep for the most part. We don't have a schedule per se, but we do have that routine of eat-play-sleep, and he's fairly consistent from day to day. His last nap of the day is usually 5-6. Then we start the bedtime routine around 7:30 and he's asleep by 8-8:30.
His waketimes- if we're just at home- are about 1.5-2 hours. If we're out and about or there are people at the house, he'll stay awake for up to 4 hours (terrible mother, I know) because this child does NOT sleep if there's something to see.