very irregular naps

[cww]

Our 8m old daughter takes incredibly irregular naps - there is almost no clear pattern.  She may take her first nap at 8am or noon and may finish her second nap anytime between 4:30 and 7pm.  This is a real logistical problem, in addition to making regular bedtime (and wakeup time) impossible. 

I don't need a super rigorous schedule, just something that gets her to bed at a reasonable hour, and with a nighttime sleep long enough for us to sleep (9-10h for her means we might be able to get 8h). 

I think I know what kind of schedule we should aim for (something like this maybe: sleep 9pm-7am, nap 10-11:30am, nap 3:30-5pm?), but I don't know how to get her closer to it.  Many books suggest trying to adjust gradually, but since she has no schedule now, there is nothing to adjust from!  Also, I'm not so comfortable waking her up early since she tends to be grumpy when we do that accidentally!

Has anybody worked on getting their irregular baby on more of a schedule and did you find a gentle way to do it?  I would love to hear from those of you who have BTDT!

(I also can't figure out how many total hours she should be sleeping since the books disagree.  I think she needs at least 12.5-13h, and sometimes she has slept 15.5h, but it doesn't seem to work to get her to sleep that many hours on a consistent basis.)

Thanks for reading my post!

[BabySmurf]

My baby was totally like this!! Well, he kind of still is, but it's definitely become a little easier recently.  By about 9 months old, I began to notice something of a pattern, and I've just been running with it.  he used to go to bed anywhere between 730 and 930, and generally sleep for 11 hours or so.  naps were all over the map.  I've been able to pick up on a pattern of how long he will be awake before he needs sleep.  The thing that actually helped me pull something out was out right giving up on trying to coordinate things or find a pattern.  If I needed to get something done during the day, then I would do it when I needed to and not worry about if it was a "nap time zone".  By throwing his nap times *off*, it became much more apparent what his rhythms were.  HTH!

[lifeguard]

Ds didn't settle into a nap pattern until he dropped to one nap & his bedtime didn't really settle in until he dropped to no naps. I tried being consistent but if he wasn't tired he wasn't sleeping.

[Megan73]

Many kids (including both mine, given the opportunity) fall into the 2-3-4 routine with naps ie first nap two hours after waking in the a.m., second nap three hours after waking from the first and bed for the night four hours after waking from the second. I would see if starting nursing down for the morning nap earlier did the trick. I find that if I miss that window with my almost-eight-month-old he gets too keyed up and sleep. I've found with both my kids that once the morning nap falls into place the afternoon follows.

[cww]

Thanks for the replies!

Babysmurf, I know what you mean about being able to tell if you've missed the window. Our DD definitely let's us know when we've waited too long. It's just that only seems to happen in extreme cases.

Lifeguard, your response makes me feel better. I feel like that is exactly our daughter!

Megan, thanks for sharing the 2-3-4 rule. I feel like back when she had 3 naps she was a bit closer to something like this, but now 2h always seems way too soon. A ton if times we've tried pitting her down at the first signs of tiredness, but she just wasn't having any of it.

I'm convinced that she's not sleeping ling enough at night - often only 8-9h. Maybe she sleeps too much during the day, or maybe she should sleep more hours total. How many hours did your kids sleep per day? The books seem to totally disagree.

If there is anyone else out there whose btdt or who is willing to share the total number if hours their babies slept at around 8m, please feel free to share!

[anjsmama]

Our whole schedule is earlier due to a family need to wake at 6 am, but it's the same concept (she sleeps 11 hours at night). At 6 mo my DD was all over the map, but it was  somewhat close to the 2-3-4 rule. Around 7 months she just jumped and now she is 4-4-5. She wakes at 6, naps at 10, 2, and goes to bed for the night at 7. Her 10 am nap is just a "I need to rest to gear up for more play" nap ... 45 minutes to an hour. Sometimes if we're going somewhere she'll just take this nap in her carseat. Her 2pm nap is her "I've exhausted myself, time to crash out to get ready for Daddy" nap... usually 1.5-2 hours. From 330ish to 7pm, she eats and plays her little heart out and then crashes. She typically wakes to nurse right about the time I come home from my night shift job (midnight) and then cosleeps without any true waking again til 6 am.

I struggled for a few weeks cause I was hanging on to the routine I thought we had, and I didn't realize she was making a new one. I just watched her.... hungry, excited, playful, moves to clinging to mom, whining a bit, rubbing eyes, breakdowns over a fallen toy and what-have-you.. and it's nap time. The other big thing is that if I miss the "window" she will wind back up and then I'm in trouble... she'll skip her nap, be totally cranky, and sleep poorly at night too.

Good luck! 

[BabySmurf]

For us, in terms of total hours sleeping, I would say that DS will sleep about 13-14 hours (on average) between naps and night time.  He's actually starting to transition from two naps to one, (so THAT"S why he's been so nutty!), so if he naps once per day for about 1-1.5 hrs, he will usually go for 12 hours at night (not all at once though!).  If he takes two naps during the day, he will usually only get about 10 hours at night.  I actually think that he could use a cat nap or something else, but I haven't been able to get him to do it.  I've just been learning that if all else fails I can just go for a ride.  (that never used to work when he was a little baby!)

[jacksmom0115]

I think "most" babies settle into going to bed by 8 pm, then a 9am and 1pm nap by this time (my LO is also 8 months), but of course, they are all different. You might try enforcing first a night time 'time" to go down. Then, once that's down, you should work on the first a.m. nap. The afternoon should generally follow. My doc said that about 13.5-14 hours is ideal at this age. Jack will get about that much on the weekends at home, but when he's at daycare, he might only sleep a total of 1 hour during the day...so he's getting 12.5-13. He doesn't show any signs of dropping his afternoon nap soon.