NJ isn't an early bird anymore. I guess it was a phase? He usually goes to bed around 7:30/8:00pm and wakes up at 7:30/8:00am now. He usually is able to stay up for 2.5 hrs at a time, except first thing in the morning. So his routine goes something like this:
7:30- up, breastfed
8:15- solids
9:30- nap#1
11:00- up, breastfed
11:45- solids
1:30- nap#2 (this nap tends to be longer than nap#1)
3:00- up, breastfed
3:45-solids
5:30- nap#3
6:00- up
7:00- breastfed
7:30/8:00- bedtime
(He still wakes up once in the night to eat, usually anytime between 2-5 am. If it's closer to 5, I feed him 1/2 a boob and top him off when he wakes up.)
My question is about his final nap. I try to keep this a catnap. It is usually a struggle to wake him up from this nap. I can tell that he wants to keep sleeping. 5:30 also seems a bit late for a naptime. But if I try to keep him up even to 6:00, he is a wreck. And 6:00 to me is a bit early for a bedtime. What should I do? I try to keep him up longer during the day (to 3 hrs) to stretch out his day and phase out his 3rd nap, but he ends up getting overtired and not napping well at all. Thoughts?
1 comment:
Your schedule is actually fairly common and is similar to what Dr. Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child) recommends. My friends and I with kiddos of the same age pretty much all went through that phase of kid needing but parent not wanting the 3rd nap. You're not too far away in terms of NJ naturally dropping off that last nap. Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll see that all of a sudden on day, he'll just drop the 3rd nap altogether. The transition period is the hardest.
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