4 Naps?

Last week I tried to put the girls on a nap schedule - 9 am, 12 noon, and 3 pm, with an early bedtime of 6 pm. They sleep about an hour so that gave them 2 hours awake time in between naps.

They will take the first morning nap with usually no or very little crying. It is still short, usually 45 minutes to an hour, but at least I can count on that nap. It varies in time, depending on when they wake up, but it is usually around 9:00. The second nap around 12 is a little less dependable. Candace will go to sleep 90% of the time with minimal fussing. She sleeps at least an hour, sometimes 2! Cassidy, OTOH, will take this second nap only 75% of the time, and usually with some fussing. The third nap around 3 ... well, this is when all h*** breaks loose! Candace will sleep for less than an hour about 50% of the time, usually with quite a bit of fussing. Cassidy took this third nap only twice all week and it was very short, about 30 minutes! If I let Cassidy cry for this nap, she gets herself so worked up there is no way she will sleep. That girl can throw a tantrum!

The sleep expert, Dr. Weissbluth, says that if they are fussy and hard to get to sleep as the day progresses, it is because they are getting overtired. So maybe they need less time awake between naps? I am considering going to 4 naps so they are only awake for 90 minutes at a time. They just may not be old enough and developmentally ready to be awake for those 2 hour stretches. This whole thing is so confusing and has really become trial and error!

What do you guys think of going to 4 naps? If they wake at 7:30, then they'd nap at 9, 11:30, 2, 4:30 and then still go to bed at 6. Of course all times are flexible.....

Any advice or wisdom is welcome.

 

QUOTE
am considering going to 4 naps so they are only awake for 90 minutes at a time.


At that age, 90 min was the absolute maximum mine could stay awake! Most days we had 4 naps. I think you're on the right track!

 

That is exactly what we do! Over the past week, the naps have been combining and we have 2 three hour naps w/ a 30-45 min nap around 4. Our bedtime is 7 though.

 

We were definitely still doing 4 naps at that age!

 

I actually changed to napping at 9, 12, and 3 after speaking with you and a few others last week. I was having a REALLY tough time getting the girls down for that 4th nap, most of the time it was just a lot of crying. I am having much better luck with only 3.

Have you tried letting them fuss a bit when they wake up 'too early' from their nap (like after 30mins)? Someone advised me of this and I have found that 75% of the time they will go back to sleep within a few minutes.
Also I have been putting them down 15mins before I want them to go to sleep so they have a few mins to wind down and start their fussing. So they are getting up at 730, and I have them back in the crib by 845 and they are USUALLY asleep by 9 and will sleep till anywhere between 950-1015, then back down about 1145, etc.
The longest they usually stay up is the last stretch after 3rd nap but it is only slightly more than 2hrs.

So far it has been working out and these past 2 nights the girls have gotten up less than they have in weeks! (Of course now that I said that we will have an awful night tonight!)

I dont know if you want to take advice from me though, I am the crazy lady that boycotted the time change and totally screwed up their naps today when I did pay attention to the time! ardon:

 

Here's what we did today... For some miracle-it worked very well! I stick to the 1.5-2hr awake time. Most days one is up long before the other except today. It was great today! Now if only I could sleep when they did...

The boys were up at 7am...Down for nap at 9am. They both got up at 11:30am from their nap. Both down again at 1pm. Up at 3:30. They would NEVER last until bedtime...so we do another catnap. They slept from about 5:15p-6p. Then we did oatmeal and bottle and then bed. My boys do the 1.5-2 hour awake time then back to sleep. And today-there was minimal fussing when they went to sleep. It was great!

FYI-they still sleep in their swings at naptime. One of these days-when they sleep longer than 20 minutes in the crib-I will transition them there. They do sleep in their cribs at night.

 

We were doing 4 naps a day at that point and still doing alot of waking at night too.