Establishing naps with older siblings

I am trying to work on establishing a flexible nap routine for the baby. He is nearly six months now and our naps are all over the place. He does get enough sleep overall but I would like more of a routineand one long early afternoon nap so the big kids know when I will be able to give them my full attention and so I can get more thingsdone around the house.
 
The fixed points are:
 
6.15 am - wake-up
8.00 am - 45 minute morning nap in the sling while I walk the big kids to pre-school
7.00 pm - bedtime
 
And in between it gets complicated because the big kids' schedule varies so much: they have 3 long pre-school days when I pick them up around 3 pm and 2 short days when I pick them up at noon; we have their sport one afternoon and DD usually has one playdate a week. The baby naps well in the sling and ok in the stroller but in both cases mostly wakes up when the motion ceases, so naps on the go are usually short. When we are at home he often falls asleep around 11 am, but pre-school pick-up cuts that nap short twice a week.
 
Any ideas?

 

It's probably not particularly helpful but I gave up on the idea of a really consistent nap routine for the reasons you mentioned. With the older girls' schedules it was too difficult to establish a consistent routine so we just did the best we could. If I saw signs of tiredness in Emmett, I sometimes arranged it so that I wouldn't have to interrupt his nap to pick up/drop off the kids (either childcare for him or arranged for the girls to go with friends after school), but otherwise we went with the flow. It got better when he was consistently doing 2 naps/day and really settled down once he went to 1 nap/day. I just divided my time between the 3 of them as best I could, but also made it clear that the girls were expected to entertain themselves if they were bored. I also tried to focus on quality of time spent together rather than quantity. Five minutes of cuddling and really listening to the girls went much farther than anything else. I think the reality of having 3 kids, especially when one is a baby, is that there can't be the expectation of long stretches of mom's undivided attention every single day.

 

It's easier for me bc the big kids are in school all day in 1st grade. But we are still working on naps a little. I did finally have to give in a let the kids ride the bus home from school bc school pick up was interrupting his afternoon nap more often than not. (Besides, they were begging to ride the bus.)

While one baby is easier than 3, I was not prepared for how difficult it'd be to split my time and attention!

 

I swear my youngest slept for his first year.  I'm not going to be the helpful one.  My kids went to preschool and had a dropoff at the end of the driveway so letting him sleep was an option.  Good luck! 

 

I have these same issues with my daughter, who is almost 9 months, and our 3 year old son.  She just sleeps when she can, honestly I think most of her napping is done in the car, poor thing.  She's a pretty easy going baby and doesn't seem to mind it much.  My 3 year old just started going to preschool twice a week and I noticed if I let her, my daughter will sleep the entire time he's at school.  That being said, I have no constructive advice!  

 

I am glad that I am not the only one whose baby has to go with the flow and sleep whenever he gets a chance.