Nap schedule at 6 months

Another thing that, like feeding solids, is not common sense to me. The last two weeks for the most part has been 45 minute naps, tops. They used to do 1-2 hr naps, with the occasional 45 minute nap. Now it's reversed. There have been some other changes too though. My son used to sleep on my bed and my daughter in her crib to separate them and make it less stressful on me when one woke too soon. But now that he's more mobile, he's been in his crib the last two weeks - and I'd like to keep him there and just get them used to it already. We also stopped swaddling them at night. So I decided to break them of this for naps too. My daughter does pretty good falling asleep quickly. But it seems to take my son forever to calm down. Sometimes I give up and just go wrap him up, which he hates. Before (when separated and swaddled) they used to fall asleep in 5-10 minutes. Now it's 20-30 minute of playing, fussing, crying. I can't figure out if they are not tired yet, or overtired. I used to put them down 1 hour and 45 minutes after waking. Now I'm not sure if it's working anymore. Sometimes I think they seem overtired, but sometimes they go longer and seem better off.

So what's the norm for naps with 6 months old? How often, how long and how many? I think I need to try something new and try sticking to it. Right now we are floundering all over the place trying to find what works. I read the 6-7 month schedules in the First Year handbook and the naps were all over the place - some did 1.5 hrs in between, some did 3-4 hours. The sleep books you have referred to that have worked for you, what do they consider the normal nap schedule for this age range? (I still haven't read any).

 

At 6 months my girls were still taking 3 naps (on good days).

They were awake for the day between 5 and 5:30 and went down for their first nap at 7 am and would sleep from 7 - 8. Then they would nap again from about 10:30 or 11 - 12 or 1, and then go down for a short third nap around 2 or 3 pm.

I know some babies drop their 3rd nap around 6 months, it just depends on the babies. I am a person who needs a lot of sleep 9 - 10 hours a night, so I think my girls just take after me and need a lot of sleep (they just recently dropped the 3rd nap!) Maybe your babies are ready to drop the 3rd nap, I would try it one day and see how it goes.

As far as taking a long time to settle down, my girls do that a lot too. I think that only gets worse as they get older and discover they can play with each other in their cribs instead of nap. Sometimes my girls play in their cribs for a good 45 minutes before they fall asleep.

 

I'm still at 3 naps most days, but I've increased their awake time to 2-2.5 hours (more 2 these days though). Around 6 months they started fussing at nap time, so I just increased the time by 30 minutes and it worked. They often end up going to bed later this way though, but there is no way they could stay up until 7pm as most times they wake up from their second nap at 4pm if that.

 

we're in the same boat... they wake up at 7am and are tired by 9/9:30 so they go down for their first nap. I would love for them to nap only twice (at 9 ish and at 2 ish) with bed at 7:30 but they just can't do it. I've tried to keep them up from 10 am until 2, it's only 4 hours right... but no go, by 12:30 they are almost hysterical with crying and fussy and rubbing eyes etc... so down for nap we go around 12:30/1.

so unfortunately we're napping three times: 9,12,2/3 short naps of course so i can't really get anything done
but some days we usually go out after they get up from their morning nap so i've let them just nap a little in the car or in the stroller and then when we get home i do a solid feeding and keep them up until 2ish before putting them down. so they really only nap 2 times in their cribs... i'm hoping this will ease the transition to 2 naps. (they also sleep 7:30-6:30/7) so they're getting a lot of sleep at night...

we've also stopped swaddling DD1 and it went well, it only took her 1 day to get used to it. but with DD2 i've tried two different times but she is not ready, she can't settle with her arms free and she'll just lay there vocalizing and playing wiht her binkie when I know she is exhausted. I evenutally go in an swaddle and she falls right alseep. I just dont' think she's developmentally ready yet so maybe we'll wait another week or two and try again...

i think a lot of 6 months old are still at 3 naps from what i've read/asked.

 

Good question... I agree that it's not at all logical and unfortunately not at all consistent.

I dropped the third nap about a month ago or so (when they were almost 6 mo adjusted)... for us, that lead to longer daytime naps after a while. So typically they go down twice for 1.5-2 hours each time (though lately, they sometimes wake after 45 min--so I'm with you on that regression!).

Our sleep schedule looks somewhat like this:

Out of cribs: 7:30 (they will sometimes wake up at 6:45-7:15, but I've instituted the "not out of crib until 7:30 rule" unless, of course, they're screaming--usually they just play and talk).

First nap: 9:30-10ish (so 2-2.5 hours from waking)

second nap: 2-3 ish (about 3 hours from waking)

Down: 7:30-8 (about 3-3.5 hours from waking). They really still want the third nap I think, but we take them for a walk/jog around 6-6:30 and they either nap or go into a deep relaxed state while they're in the jogging stroller, so I guess that might count as a third nap?

As for transitioning them to the cribs and unswaddled, we did that when they were about 5 mo adjusted and it worked pretty well... we still had to swaddle our DD occationally. Basically, I read on here that some parents were putting their kids down for X amount of time and sticking to that, even with fussing... that's what I do too, so some days they play, fuss for a while before they sleep, but I always put them down if it's been over 3 hours from waking even if they don't go to sleep right away.

My problem is trying to determine whether or not I should seperate them (room-wise) since now that they interact more, I think one wake the other up...