Dropping the 3rd nap...

We've been trying to drop the 3rd nap of the day since last Tuesday. Most days our schedule looks something like this:
7a wake
9a nap (1-2 hours)
12:30/1:00p nap (1-2 hours)
6:30/7p bedtime

The problem is they had been sneaking in a 3rd nap around 3-4:30pm (never napping past 5 pm). We were finding that on the days when they napped really well, putting them down at 4:30pm made no sense. I also read that by 9 months you should have fazed out that 3rd nap. Well....we've been doing this for days now and they seem to be SO crabby by the end of the day. How long will it take for them to adjust? And am I supposed to be keeping them awake for 4 hours at a time at night (before bed). They just seem so overtired?

 

When we dropped the 3rd nap, we had to move up bedtime to 6pm. I'm hoping as they start to get a bit older (and it's lighter/nicer outside), we'll be able to push it back again to 7pm.

Good Luck! Suzi

 

I went throught the same thing when my two decided they didn't want their catnap at 5:00. Mine are on about the same schedule as yours, in bed by 7. I wish I had some concrete "here's what you do" advice, but we basically just had to gut it out. Dinner was rough for awhile - they would fuss and be difficult and we finished many a meal with me holding one. This went on for maybe a week or two, but then it's like they just got over it. If they don't get a good 2nd nap now, I get them fed at dinner, skip the bath and get them in the bed by 6:30. On a typical day, mine are only awake 3 1/2 hours from the last nap until bedtime. On those rare and wonderful days they sleep really long in the afternoon (like 1:30 until close to four), there hasn't been a problem with them going to sleep at their normal time. So, no, you don't have to keep them up for 4 hours in the afternoon so they will sleep at night. I use to worry about that, but it has proved to be a non issue.

 

When we went down to two naps, my girls were going down at 9 and 1 and going to bed for the night around 6. Maybe aiming for 1:00 and putting them down even a 1/2 hour earlier might work for you. It does take some adjustment, I think my girls got used to it after a couple of weeks.

 

Here was our schedule at 9 months....

730 wake and bottle
830 breakfast(pancakes, cereal, applesauce, fruit)
915 snack(usually puffs or cheerios), milk in sippy
930 nap
1130 bottle
1230 lunch(pasta, diced veggies, and veggie baby food)
115 snack(crackers),milk in sippy
130 nap
330 bottle
4 snack(nutrigrain bar), milk in sippy
430 bath
530 family dinner(usually some of what we are eating, or pasta, veggies, fruit, and one container of baby food)
7 bottle and bed

 

QUOTE(MichelleL @ Feb 10 2008, 03:13 PM) [snapback]615353[/snapback]
When we went down to two naps, my girls were going down at 9 and 1 and going to bed for the night around 6. Maybe aiming for 1:00 and putting them down even a 1/2 hour earlier might work for you. It does take some adjustment, I think my girls got used to it after a couple of weeks.


MichelleL - I just had to tell you the first time I read this through I saw:

My girls were going down at 9, and I was going to bed for the night around 6.

I had to re-read it several times to realize the I that I saw was a 1 for nap time!!

Just had to share my funny!!
Suzi

 

I had to move the afternoon nap a little later.

So we went for naps at 9:00, 1:00 and 4:00 to our current schedule (wake up and bedtime have pretty much been the same since they were born)

5:30 wake up
9:30 or 10:00 nap (one hour)
2:30ish nap (one and half hours)
7:15ish bed time

 

We had a cranktastic couple of weeks when we dropped the third nap, but soon we were back on track with our happy boys. If I were you'd I'd back up the morning nap by 1/2 an hour (so put them down at 9:30), then back up the afternoon nap by 1/2 an hour, and put them down to bed between 6:00 and 6:30 instead of 6:30 and 7:00. We had a very early bedtime for a few months but now our boys can stay up until 7:30 many nights without getting fussy.

Just a bump in the road - congrats on having such a good routine.

C.

 

Thank you ladies for all your suggestions! I think if I tough it out this week, we'll be back on track