Naps & STTN

[PeachBaby]

Hi. In order for baby to STTN, how should we deal with naps? How much naptime is too much? Should we wake baby up if the nap goes longer?

TIA!

[LadyCatherine185]

How old is your baby?

For any age, I would just follow baby's lead. Once baby is a toddler, you may need to tweak naps a bit, depending on wake-up time, etc. But no amount of tweaking is going to make baby STTN until they are ready.

[Louisep]

Yeah, I think some babies may be more sensitive to nap timing and STTN than others. No matter what we do with naps, our DS doesn't come close to STTN!

That said, we watched DS and found his natural wake/sleep cycles during the day. He used to have 4 naps, now we're down to 2.

I have never let him nap close to bedtime.

[Beauchamp]

It's definitely a go with the baby's flow thing for us, at 5 1/2 months. But I did find earlier on, that if she got more sleep during the day, somehow it helped her sleep better at night.

[PeachBaby]

DS is almost 1 year old. He is starting to STTN. He usually goes to sleep anywhere from 11 pm to 2 am. Then he typically wakes up anywhere from 9 am to 11 am/12 pm. His naps are very variable. Sometimes just a 30-40 minute nap. Sometimes it is for an hour or two hours. Occasionally 2 1/2 hours. I don't think he ever takes more than 2 naps. Usually it is 1 or 2 naps a day. Sometimes he'll nap in the afternoon and then maybe in the evening. Or sometimes he won't really nap in the afternoon and then he'll do 1 or 2 naps in the evening. That's oftentimes because I go shopping in the afternoon and the activity wakes him up or keeps him up.

Is 2 hours too long for a nap?

Should I make sure he gets an afternoon nap (if he shows signs of needing one) so that he won't do an evening nap? Should I keep his evening nap short by waking him up?