Let me just start with saying that Lukah has never been a “stellar” napper. He was always consistently inconsistent.
That means we had great nap days and not great nap days. But his night sleep was always pretty solid, so really, short naps just don’t bother me.
Being the third kid, I don’t have the brain capacity to constantly try to analyze his sleep and it just wasn’t a priority.
He was happy (for the most part, as happy as a non-mobile kid can be who wants desperately to be a part of the action with his siblings) and we made it through his awake times just fine.
He always woke up happy-ish from his naps and was happy to chill in there for 10-15 minutes, getting us through the day to bedtime.
Shortly after turning 6 months, he began sleeping 11-12 hours straight at night without a feeding. He had been on one feeding since 3.5/4ish months (I lose track) and when he started to wake up in the middle of the night, he was just noisy. Not really crying, kinda fussing like he was annoyed.
And I started to just wait a little longer to see what happened. Lo and behold, he would go back to sleep! Once he did that consistently, I considered him night weaned and haven’t looked back.
**We always responded in the middle of the night and still do if he wakes and cries (rare). But our rule from day 1 is to always offer comfort first over a feeding and my kids have all dropped their night feedings without me having to formally night wean them.**
When he started sleeping through the night, his naps started to lengthen and he started to tolerate awake times that were a tad bit longer.
That meant more sleep pressure was building up and he was able to take longer naps!
Our first 2 nap day was February 7th or 8th… I only remember this because we were in Oklahoma for a little family getaway.
I had just said that I was holding onto 3 naps for dear life because it worked best for our school pick up schedule (hahahahah at me and our current quarantine life).
But then he took an almost 2 hour morning nap (I’m not waking a baby if I don’t absolutely have to!) and we said okay, 2 naps it is today.
He did just fine, took a long afternoon nap, went to bed and slept through the night again.
We alternated 2 and 3 nap days for about 3 weeks. 2 naps if the morning nap was long and 3 naps if the morning nap was short.
This looked like:
7:00am wake up/out of crib (I also accept 6:30/6:45 if I have to)
9:00/9:15am nap (if this was longer than an hour, we did 2)
12:45/1:00pm nap if nap 1 was short, 1:30/2:00pm nap if nap 1 was long
4:00pm cat nap if it’s a 3 nap day
6-6:30pm bedtime on 2 naps and 7-7:30pm bedtime on 3 naps.
Once we settled at a 9:30am nap 1, I pushed through to 2 naps!
7:00am wake up/out of crib
9:30-11/11:30am nap 1
2/2:30-4:00pm nap 2
7:00pm bedtime
Sometimes nap 2 is wonky. This is also common! He has refused it entirely, he has taken 30-45 mins to fall asleep, the nap has been 30-45 minutes long…
So here’s what we do!
We hold him if we can/need to if he’s refused the nap.
We move bedtime 15-30 minutes earlier if we need to
We wake him by 4:30pm so bedtime is early enough
We hold steady with our nap times. I do not move nap 2 earlier than 2pm or later than 2:30pm.
When will I change things?
When it isn’t working anymore! He sometimes sleeps a little past 7 so I’ll move the nap to 9:45am. Once that nap shortens, I’ll consistently move it 15 minutes later.
This is also exactly what we did with Hannah and I love the by the clock schedule. It really stabilizes and makes their sleep so predictable.
That doesn’t mean we aren’t without issues (obviously) but it has worked best for us. I don’t have to constantly count awake times (although they are there, in the back of my head– they serve a purpose!).
Remember if you’re struggling through a nap transition— this is normal! It can take weeks for it to feel like you’ve settled into a transition. But if you’re just really unsure about how to navigate it, check out the schedules and transitions package!
