Do they slowly need to nap less?

Hello everyone! For a few months, naptime has been a dream, 9am to 11am (usually 1 and half hours, sometimes 2 hours) and 1pm to 3pm (again usually 1 and half hours, sometimes 2 hours).

Now the girls are still doing their first nap great but they are fussing A LOT for their second nap - Chloe was talking for 40 minutes before it went quiet (presumably asleep!). Same thing happened yesterday and yesterday they only slept for around 30 minutes!

They are 9 months this coming Thursday, does this mean they need to nap less?

They sleep through at night 7pm to 6~6:20am.

TIA!

 

I found that around 9 mos., it took more activity(since they were so mobile) to get sleepy for the second nap. So I always tried to get in some kind of outing(nothing big...park, walk, play outside) after lunch to get them ready for a good afternoon nap. Or maybe you could try adjusting their schedule a little bit, like morning nap at 8:30 instead of 9 or afternoon nap at 1:30 instead of 2...just a thought. My boys still needed the 2 2hr. naps at that age, but it just took more coaxing to make them realize that they did, KWIM??

 

Nine months was rough for us too. Their naps were all of a sudden messed up, they started whining more than ever and things just seemed out of control again. Fortunately, it didn't last long. I would say a couple of weeks at the most. After that, my girls went back to their good naps. I didn't really change anything in that timeframe, just kept them on their normal schedule and things just fell back into place.

 

I don't think they need less nap time, but they are probably going thorugh some big developmental changes, so you'll definitely see disruptions in sleep. These are usually short lived -- you can try and put them down earlier for their after noon nap for a few weeks to see if that helps. My kids ran into the same thing and we shift naps earlier for a few weeks and then things got back to normal

Teri

 

Thanks so much! I will persevere with their schedules, I was just being a worried mom!

 

My only thought is maybe they are not ready for that 2nd nap so soon after waking from their 1st nap. Maybe it would be better to have them nap 3 hours after waking from nap #1 rather than 2 hours. Naps have always been tricky for me to figure out.

 

thats what I will try as I cant let them nap earlier, (construction site next to our building piles between 12 noon and 1pm) Thanks!