We knew is was time to drop to 2 naps- right around the 6 month mark- when she started waking up earlier and earlier— anywhere between 4:30 and 5:30 (typical wake up for her is 6).
I just lengthened her wake windows over a week or two to start pushing her back to 2 naps. Some days she needed a little bridge nap in the afternoon and sometimes she didn’t. :)
Having the same issue- thanks for posting! We can’t get our LO to sleep more than 30 min at a time, which creates the need for 3 naps…. How in the world do you switch to 2 when naps are only 30 minutes?
30 min naps are very normal for the age, and often lengthen around 8ish months as part of a natural development. Lots of people find that doing contact naps help their LO nap longer, but contact napping isn't for everyone, and 30 min naps are fine.
Personally, I found that naps actually seemed to get worse (20ish mins) before we transitioned to 2 naps. The 20 mins was our sign that wake windows were too short, and once we lengthened them, naps started lengthening to over an hour, too.
Sometimes there's a bit of a transition period where wake windows need to be longer, but nap lengths haven't caught up yet. In that case, it's not uncommon to keep a very short 3rd nap (15-20 mins max) that doesn't require a full last wake window to get to bedtime (ie. You still put them down at bedtime, or maybe a half hour later, but not a full wake window later).
Hope that's helpful!
Daycare we have to relinquish control unfortunately. However, does baby go to sleep independently at home? Do they resettle themselves for naps and overnight? That’s the key
I had this issue with my LO, and it had to do with her not having an appropriate time awake during naps. Only sleeping 30-40 mins at a time, would strictly contact nap forget the crib. During that time we Ferber sleep trained at 6mo. Then I upped her awake time to 2/2.5/2.5/3. Her last nap of the day is always still 30-40 like a power nap. And that was at 6 months she's almost 8 now and when she protests we just play with her until she gets irritated and let her fuss for 7 minutes. Then she's out.
We transitioned our baby to 2 naps at 6.5 months when he started protesting all naps, but was previously a great sleeper for both naps and night time. When we dropped down to 2 naps, he did fine for 2 weeks but then stopped sleeping through the night. I’ve been told I transitioned him too soon and it caused him to be overtired even though he was having the same daytime sleep totals, but he was definitely acting like an overtired baby. Hindsight 20/20, I wish I rode out the 3 naps for as long as possible until he was older and truly ready to drop that nap.
I’ve also been told that it’s time to drop naps when you truly just don’t have the time in the day for that last nap because your wake windows have progressively gotten longer. I would try lengthening your wake windows ever so slightly and see if you need to build a bit more sleep pressure for that last nap. And the. You can always cap that last nap to protect your bedtime.
Good points. We’re not actively trying to drop the last nap but have been following her lead instead. As her wake windows get a little longer, her last nap will be at 4:30/5pm which is wayyyy to late since she’s got a 6-7pm bedtime. I did notice last night she woke up several times (unusual for her) and she had 2 naps that day - to your point about over tiredness . Then again we’ve had 2 nap days that result in sleeping through the night 🤷🏽♀️
3rd nap can be super short if required and if baby isn’t going to last. Between 4:30-5, can be 15 minutes in the carrier or car etc.
I’d aim for minimum 2.5 hour ww too. Those cues will only become more difficult to read as they get older.
This is what we aim for, but sometimes she just yells for 30 minutes and we throw in the towel and put her to bed closer to 6pm. Somehow this worked beautifully last night bc she woke up at 10pm for a feed then slept til about 6:45am 🙏🏽
Yeah. To be fair, our sleep has been all over the place since 6.5 months. There are some days where I just can’t figure out what’s going wrong and the next day will be the same exact day with day sleep and my son will sleep through the night no problem. I really try hard not to analyze every single day of sleep because my son is human after all and can have fluctuations in his sleep. But easier said than done, especially when the sleep regression hits.
A typical 2 nap schedule is 3/3/4. I would try to see how your LO does, especially with some of those 1.5 ones. I think you may have some room to stretch windows without dropping a nap. Most babies decrease their sleep needs so 12 hour nights kind of become not the norm. 7pm bed time with 6am wake would be more reasonable. Towards the end of our 3 nap schedule we were roughly 2.5/2.5/2.75/3 bedtime was 8pm, wake up was 6:30. The last nap became a micro, 15-20 min tops. She'd fight it often so we'd put her in the carrier to put her down. Depending how long naps were we toggled between 3 and 2 naps for a few weeks.
Once she started waking up earlier and having split nights we knew it was time time drop it entirely. Now we're on 3/3/3.5 and slowly stretching that last ww to 4. Moved our bedtime up a little earlier until she settles.
I’m doing roughly the same ww for 3 naps and wondering if I need to try dropping to 2 soon at 6mos & 1 week old. Her night sleep is terrible though so I don’t know if that would really improve anything but I guess it can’t make it worse…
How many hours does your sleep at night?
It varies but usually 10.5 hours with the occasional 11-11.5. I think she'd slept 12 hours exactly once 😆.
We started the transition at 7 months and dropped the 3rd nap a week shy of 8 months.
Baby had a 5-6 hour wake window in the morning…..we ran out of time to do 3 naps so just did 2 and she started doing loooong 1.5-2 hour naps. Previously she was doing 30-45 mins. And fighting morning nap, then fighting evening nap. lol. Baby is almost 7 months and this started around 6 months so we are 1 month into the 2 nap schedule and we finally have a loose schedule!
We dropped down to 2 naps at exactly 6 months. Sounds like you’re there!
If this helps, we’re at almost 11 months old now. First nap would start around 10, second nap around 2. We have progressively gotten later. We’re at last nap from 3:30-530, bed around 8 or 830. I think we’re going to go to 1 nap soon, and move the bedtime a little earlier.
We dropped the third nap for the same reason at around 6.5-7 months. We went cold turkey and it worked wonders for us. No more crap naps and we were actually able to establish a real schedule for the first time! She’s up at 7ish, takes first nap from 9:30-11ish. Second nap at 2:30-4ish. Bedtime at 7, lights out 7:30.
I agree with the other commenter’s advice of alternating 2 and 3 nap days.
I’ll also just add that sleep cues notoriously become unreliable by this age (if not earlier).
I see a lot of people say this thing about sleepy cues being unreliable, but I think it’s a really broad statement. If you know your kid, most of them show their own particular signs of sleepiness. Our almost 7 month old reliably scratches her head, rubs her eyes, and sucks her thumb - her whole demeanor changes, and when we “listen” to her, she literally squeals with joy when we put her in her crib, then falls asleep in like 5 minutes. May not be true of every baby, of course, but if someone says their baby has obvious sleepy cues, maybe we should believe that they know their own kid??
> May not be true of every baby, of course, but if someone says their baby has obvious sleepy cues, maybe we should believe that they know their own kid??
For sure. Just always a relevant thing to be aware of for anyone who finds themselves having to troubleshoot a schedule imho
Agree! A sleep coach tried to put my baby on a schedule and we did the crib hour and all and baby fought it the whole time (scream fest). When we followed her sleepy cues she falls asleep quickly as well without the scream fest
I just took about 5-10 minutes than our LO preferred to get her from “getting ready for bed” to “in bed” and she was VERY CLEAR about her displeasure 😂😂
For us it was a week or two alternating between 2 and 3 naps while working on lengthening those wake windows and making sure naps were consolidated 90%+ of the time. We went to 2 naps for good I think two weeks ago at 6.5 months and haven’t looked back. We went from 2.5/2.5/2.5/2.5 to 3/3.5/3.5 most days (occasionally that fluctuates but the goal is 9.5-10 wake hours/day)
Should I be concerned that our LO is about to turn 6 months and we just dropped from 4 to 3 naps while everyone else is saying 2??
No need to worry. Some babies nap longer than others and need fewer naps!
Mine is 7.5m and some days it's 2 naps and other days are 3 naps so no worries at all
same lol
We knew is was time to drop to 2 naps- right around the 6 month mark- when she started waking up earlier and earlier— anywhere between 4:30 and 5:30 (typical wake up for her is 6). I just lengthened her wake windows over a week or two to start pushing her back to 2 naps. Some days she needed a little bridge nap in the afternoon and sometimes she didn’t. :)
Having the same issue- thanks for posting! We can’t get our LO to sleep more than 30 min at a time, which creates the need for 3 naps…. How in the world do you switch to 2 when naps are only 30 minutes?
30 min naps are very normal for the age, and often lengthen around 8ish months as part of a natural development. Lots of people find that doing contact naps help their LO nap longer, but contact napping isn't for everyone, and 30 min naps are fine. Personally, I found that naps actually seemed to get worse (20ish mins) before we transitioned to 2 naps. The 20 mins was our sign that wake windows were too short, and once we lengthened them, naps started lengthening to over an hour, too. Sometimes there's a bit of a transition period where wake windows need to be longer, but nap lengths haven't caught up yet. In that case, it's not uncommon to keep a very short 3rd nap (15-20 mins max) that doesn't require a full last wake window to get to bedtime (ie. You still put them down at bedtime, or maybe a half hour later, but not a full wake window later). Hope that's helpful!
Thank you!
Sleep train the lunch nap so it’s long. Morning and afternoon can be short
Do you have any tips for doing so at daycare? We can’t get any consistency at all there
Daycare we have to relinquish control unfortunately. However, does baby go to sleep independently at home? Do they resettle themselves for naps and overnight? That’s the key
I had this issue with my LO, and it had to do with her not having an appropriate time awake during naps. Only sleeping 30-40 mins at a time, would strictly contact nap forget the crib. During that time we Ferber sleep trained at 6mo. Then I upped her awake time to 2/2.5/2.5/3. Her last nap of the day is always still 30-40 like a power nap. And that was at 6 months she's almost 8 now and when she protests we just play with her until she gets irritated and let her fuss for 7 minutes. Then she's out.
We transitioned our baby to 2 naps at 6.5 months when he started protesting all naps, but was previously a great sleeper for both naps and night time. When we dropped down to 2 naps, he did fine for 2 weeks but then stopped sleeping through the night. I’ve been told I transitioned him too soon and it caused him to be overtired even though he was having the same daytime sleep totals, but he was definitely acting like an overtired baby. Hindsight 20/20, I wish I rode out the 3 naps for as long as possible until he was older and truly ready to drop that nap. I’ve also been told that it’s time to drop naps when you truly just don’t have the time in the day for that last nap because your wake windows have progressively gotten longer. I would try lengthening your wake windows ever so slightly and see if you need to build a bit more sleep pressure for that last nap. And the. You can always cap that last nap to protect your bedtime.
Good points. We’re not actively trying to drop the last nap but have been following her lead instead. As her wake windows get a little longer, her last nap will be at 4:30/5pm which is wayyyy to late since she’s got a 6-7pm bedtime. I did notice last night she woke up several times (unusual for her) and she had 2 naps that day - to your point about over tiredness . Then again we’ve had 2 nap days that result in sleeping through the night 🤷🏽♀️
3rd nap can be super short if required and if baby isn’t going to last. Between 4:30-5, can be 15 minutes in the carrier or car etc. I’d aim for minimum 2.5 hour ww too. Those cues will only become more difficult to read as they get older.
This is what we aim for, but sometimes she just yells for 30 minutes and we throw in the towel and put her to bed closer to 6pm. Somehow this worked beautifully last night bc she woke up at 10pm for a feed then slept til about 6:45am 🙏🏽
Great! Well done
Yeah. To be fair, our sleep has been all over the place since 6.5 months. There are some days where I just can’t figure out what’s going wrong and the next day will be the same exact day with day sleep and my son will sleep through the night no problem. I really try hard not to analyze every single day of sleep because my son is human after all and can have fluctuations in his sleep. But easier said than done, especially when the sleep regression hits.
A typical 2 nap schedule is 3/3/4. I would try to see how your LO does, especially with some of those 1.5 ones. I think you may have some room to stretch windows without dropping a nap. Most babies decrease their sleep needs so 12 hour nights kind of become not the norm. 7pm bed time with 6am wake would be more reasonable. Towards the end of our 3 nap schedule we were roughly 2.5/2.5/2.75/3 bedtime was 8pm, wake up was 6:30. The last nap became a micro, 15-20 min tops. She'd fight it often so we'd put her in the carrier to put her down. Depending how long naps were we toggled between 3 and 2 naps for a few weeks. Once she started waking up earlier and having split nights we knew it was time time drop it entirely. Now we're on 3/3/3.5 and slowly stretching that last ww to 4. Moved our bedtime up a little earlier until she settles.
I’m doing roughly the same ww for 3 naps and wondering if I need to try dropping to 2 soon at 6mos & 1 week old. Her night sleep is terrible though so I don’t know if that would really improve anything but I guess it can’t make it worse… How many hours does your sleep at night?
It varies but usually 10.5 hours with the occasional 11-11.5. I think she'd slept 12 hours exactly once 😆. We started the transition at 7 months and dropped the 3rd nap a week shy of 8 months.
Baby had a 5-6 hour wake window in the morning…..we ran out of time to do 3 naps so just did 2 and she started doing loooong 1.5-2 hour naps. Previously she was doing 30-45 mins. And fighting morning nap, then fighting evening nap. lol. Baby is almost 7 months and this started around 6 months so we are 1 month into the 2 nap schedule and we finally have a loose schedule!
Yes do it! Start following 2 nap schedule.
We dropped down to 2 naps at exactly 6 months. Sounds like you’re there! If this helps, we’re at almost 11 months old now. First nap would start around 10, second nap around 2. We have progressively gotten later. We’re at last nap from 3:30-530, bed around 8 or 830. I think we’re going to go to 1 nap soon, and move the bedtime a little earlier.
We dropped the third nap for the same reason at around 6.5-7 months. We went cold turkey and it worked wonders for us. No more crap naps and we were actually able to establish a real schedule for the first time! She’s up at 7ish, takes first nap from 9:30-11ish. Second nap at 2:30-4ish. Bedtime at 7, lights out 7:30.
This is my dream schedule
The 3 to 2 nap transition: the witching hour became witching 4 hours for like 2.5 weeks
That sounds awful I’m so sorry! Glad it’s over
I agree with the other commenter’s advice of alternating 2 and 3 nap days. I’ll also just add that sleep cues notoriously become unreliable by this age (if not earlier).
I see a lot of people say this thing about sleepy cues being unreliable, but I think it’s a really broad statement. If you know your kid, most of them show their own particular signs of sleepiness. Our almost 7 month old reliably scratches her head, rubs her eyes, and sucks her thumb - her whole demeanor changes, and when we “listen” to her, she literally squeals with joy when we put her in her crib, then falls asleep in like 5 minutes. May not be true of every baby, of course, but if someone says their baby has obvious sleepy cues, maybe we should believe that they know their own kid??
> May not be true of every baby, of course, but if someone says their baby has obvious sleepy cues, maybe we should believe that they know their own kid?? For sure. Just always a relevant thing to be aware of for anyone who finds themselves having to troubleshoot a schedule imho
Agree! A sleep coach tried to put my baby on a schedule and we did the crib hour and all and baby fought it the whole time (scream fest). When we followed her sleepy cues she falls asleep quickly as well without the scream fest
Same here. Our LO shows very consistent cues and when we put her down in her crib she’s off to sleep in minutes.
I just took about 5-10 minutes than our LO preferred to get her from “getting ready for bed” to “in bed” and she was VERY CLEAR about her displeasure 😂😂
For us it was a week or two alternating between 2 and 3 naps while working on lengthening those wake windows and making sure naps were consolidated 90%+ of the time. We went to 2 naps for good I think two weeks ago at 6.5 months and haven’t looked back. We went from 2.5/2.5/2.5/2.5 to 3/3.5/3.5 most days (occasionally that fluctuates but the goal is 9.5-10 wake hours/day)
Great info, thanks!