By the clock for naps?

At what age did you go by the clock for naps? My twins just turned 11 mos and they got into a 9ish and 1ish nap pattern so in the last month or so we finally just starting doing 9 for hte the first nap no matter what, and 2nd nap was 1 to 130ish depending on when the first nap ended - if it was short, say 30 min, they'd definitely be down by 1, but if it went 1 to 1.5 hours they were down closer to 130ish.

 

My girls slept all night starting at 5 months so they definitely went by the clock for their naps way before the age of 1. They woke at 7...took a nap at 11 and another one at 4. The naps were about 30 min to 1 hour. When I noticed they didn't want the first nap anymore, around the 15th month maybe, I switched them to one nap at 1. Till today, they are 2yr3months they sleep from 1-3.

 

This is exactly what we did starting at about 9 months and they are still on this schedule. (9 and 1 or 1:30 like clock work, no matter what) This has been my favorite nap schedule and i am dreading the approaching sleep transition that i know is coming.

 

Mine are 6 months and we still follow their cues/watch how long they have been up. They are slowly settling into a nap routine.

 

Daisies, what is their bed time and wake time for the day? We got into a 630 ish bed time around 4-5 mos and kept it for a long time. As they dropped night feeds and slept better at night their wake up time for the day kept getting earlier and earlier...it was 630ish at 6 mos, and by the time they STTN all the way with no feeds at 10 mos, they started waking anywhere from 5-530. Just before the time change, we started moving bedtime closer to 7, but wake up time for day didn't change. Then time change came last week and we have tried not to change their schedule and shift everything with the time change... we are doing naps at 10 and 2 now and bed around 715 ish. They were sleeping til 630-7 with the time change, however DS woke at 510 this morning! He has come down with a cold so I hope this is what caused the early wake up.

 

As crazy as it sounds i would try an earlier bed time.
My LOs need to be asleep by 6:00 (so in bed by 5:45,5:50). They can have a slightly later (15 minutes) bed time for about 3 days and then they are overtired.
DS has shortened naps when he is overtired and DD wakes up earlier and earlier!.. sounds like your two!

We went through that.. trying to do a later bed time so they would sleep later. It worked in reverse (at one point DD was up at FOUR THIRTY!) Started earlier bed times and their wake time got latter... really it still does not make sense to me, but it works.
Now they get up around 6:30/6:45 and will stay mostly happy in their cribs until 7:00. We never go in before 7am.

So our sleep schedule:
6:30/6:45 wake up
9:00-10:15 nap
1:00-2:30 nap
6:00 bed


Nap are usually an hour to 1.5 hours and now i control the wake because otherwise they have trouble going down for the next sleep. This is fairly new... i use to just let them sleep whatever they did. I wouldn't start worrying about wake times unless you see them having trouble going to sleep for the next nap/bed.

there was a time when nap lengths were all over the place, 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. Things worked best when i didn't worry about it. Put them down at 9 and 1 and trust them to get the sleep they need. I did/do have a rule that i do NOT go in earlier than 1 hour for naps. DS would sometimes sleep from 9-9:30 be up for a while (quiet fussing) and then go back to sleep around 10 til 10:30. Next nap at 1:30 and he would sleep no problem.

sounds like our kids are similar in sleep.. hope this helps.

ETA- dont under estimate the havoc the time change plays on them. I think it takes a week to get things back to normal again.

 

By the clock naps starting at 3 months. It really helped with the night time sleeping and they were STTN by 6 months.

 

Went back and read your post and i had missed this statement.^^
HSHHC recommends doing your same routine with the new time. They get cues from the daylight (which is getting earlier) but also from the 'goings ons' in the home.
Last fall i tried to do a gradual change (over a couple days) but got all confused and just ended up being inconsistent.
This time I pretended nothing had changed.. just woke them up and put them down and fed them according to the new time... it was rough for a few days but in the end it was easier.

hope your DS is feeling better soon. you are getting triple whammied.. difficult sleep stage, time change, and sick. It will get better, say the course!

 

Thanks daisies, I assume you shifted your kids back to that same schedule after the time change?

 

Yes