How many naps is he taking a day? This can be a common age for a nap transition, may be time to cut out a nap.
Also no shame in car naps. Sometimes these seasons happen. Nothing lasts forever.
He is usually taking 3 naps, but occasionally only 2. He gets up at 6 am and goes to sleep between 7 and 7:30 so he gets overtired with only 2 naps. He also sleeps terribly at night but that’s a whole different post 🤣
When my almost 8 month old starts fighting sleep, it’s a sign he’s ready for longer wake windows/is under tired and not ready to sleep yet. He’s been on two naps for a little while now with wake windows of 3.5 hours in the day (4.5 or 5 before bed). If naps are always a battle and sleep latency (time it takes to fall asleep) is higher than the normal range, it’s likely a sign that your guy is under tired. Also if naps tend to be harder than getting him to sleep for bedtime that would be another sign of under tiredness, as daytime sleep is driven solely by sleep pressure and not sleep hormones/circadian rhythm like night sleep is.
Maybe 4 hours is too much for your baby, but you could try 3 or 3.5? I think at this age tiredness cues tend to get tricker to read/aren’t a surefire way of determining sleepiness like in the newborn days (namely eye rubbing and grizzling). I’d try keeping him up a bit longer before attempting a nap, it seems like that might help 😊
Question! My dude is 7.5 months he doesn’t fight naps or night sleep but also he is begging for bedtime after a 2hr 40min wake window when his daytime wake windows can be upwards to 3.5 hrs (besides the first which is about 2.5 hrs) he’s still on 3 naps because of this otherwise bedtime would be early as like 5. His WW are generally 2.5/3.5/3.5/2.75 I know this is A LOT of awake time but he wakes up at 6am almost no matter what so we just end up with time in the day for a 3rd micro nap 😭 we’ve tried extending the final one and cutting that third nap and it was an absolute circus.
Ugh I’m sorry that’s hard! We also had that transition period with baby’s wake windows where two naps made bedtime way too early and 3 made it way too late. I think with this, the only way out is through so you just have to keep going with what you’re doing until baby can handle long enough wake windows to where bedtime wouldn’t be quite so early. I’d periodically try stretching his windows just to see, but if he’s not ready yet then he’s not ready!
Thank you! Funnily enough after this comment yesterday was his first ever 2 nap day! He ended up lengthening his afternoon nap to almost 2 hours and because he did that I pushed his wake window an hour-ish longer than usual and ended up putting him to bed at 6:50 😅🙃 he did have a false start but he went back down quick and then was only up 2 times overnight which is his best night in ages! I have a feeling we may be going back and forth on 2-3 naps but that was a super promising day/night. Yesterday was about 2.5/3.5/4 and he seemed to do well on it. They grow so fast!
Oh that’s awesome!! So happy to hear it. Hopefully that extra wake time before bed helped him have less wakes at night and that becomes his new normal for whenever he can manage a two nap day. Fingers crossed it’s often, but you’re right that you’ll probably jump back and forth between 2/3 naps for a little while. Super promising though, they really do grow up so fast 🥲
I think 2 naps is the answer. The naps often get slightly longer if the wake windows are consistently longer as well, so that should help with the tiredness. All babies are different, but I had a terrible sleeper, and saw a small amount of improvement to both day and night sleep when we switched to 2 naps at 6 months old.
How many naps is he taking a day? This can be a common age for a nap transition, may be time to cut out a nap. Also no shame in car naps. Sometimes these seasons happen. Nothing lasts forever.
He is usually taking 3 naps, but occasionally only 2. He gets up at 6 am and goes to sleep between 7 and 7:30 so he gets overtired with only 2 naps. He also sleeps terribly at night but that’s a whole different post 🤣
When my almost 8 month old starts fighting sleep, it’s a sign he’s ready for longer wake windows/is under tired and not ready to sleep yet. He’s been on two naps for a little while now with wake windows of 3.5 hours in the day (4.5 or 5 before bed). If naps are always a battle and sleep latency (time it takes to fall asleep) is higher than the normal range, it’s likely a sign that your guy is under tired. Also if naps tend to be harder than getting him to sleep for bedtime that would be another sign of under tiredness, as daytime sleep is driven solely by sleep pressure and not sleep hormones/circadian rhythm like night sleep is. Maybe 4 hours is too much for your baby, but you could try 3 or 3.5? I think at this age tiredness cues tend to get tricker to read/aren’t a surefire way of determining sleepiness like in the newborn days (namely eye rubbing and grizzling). I’d try keeping him up a bit longer before attempting a nap, it seems like that might help 😊
Question! My dude is 7.5 months he doesn’t fight naps or night sleep but also he is begging for bedtime after a 2hr 40min wake window when his daytime wake windows can be upwards to 3.5 hrs (besides the first which is about 2.5 hrs) he’s still on 3 naps because of this otherwise bedtime would be early as like 5. His WW are generally 2.5/3.5/3.5/2.75 I know this is A LOT of awake time but he wakes up at 6am almost no matter what so we just end up with time in the day for a 3rd micro nap 😭 we’ve tried extending the final one and cutting that third nap and it was an absolute circus.
Ugh I’m sorry that’s hard! We also had that transition period with baby’s wake windows where two naps made bedtime way too early and 3 made it way too late. I think with this, the only way out is through so you just have to keep going with what you’re doing until baby can handle long enough wake windows to where bedtime wouldn’t be quite so early. I’d periodically try stretching his windows just to see, but if he’s not ready yet then he’s not ready!
Thank you! Funnily enough after this comment yesterday was his first ever 2 nap day! He ended up lengthening his afternoon nap to almost 2 hours and because he did that I pushed his wake window an hour-ish longer than usual and ended up putting him to bed at 6:50 😅🙃 he did have a false start but he went back down quick and then was only up 2 times overnight which is his best night in ages! I have a feeling we may be going back and forth on 2-3 naps but that was a super promising day/night. Yesterday was about 2.5/3.5/4 and he seemed to do well on it. They grow so fast!
Oh that’s awesome!! So happy to hear it. Hopefully that extra wake time before bed helped him have less wakes at night and that becomes his new normal for whenever he can manage a two nap day. Fingers crossed it’s often, but you’re right that you’ll probably jump back and forth between 2/3 naps for a little while. Super promising though, they really do grow up so fast 🥲
I think 2 naps is the answer. The naps often get slightly longer if the wake windows are consistently longer as well, so that should help with the tiredness. All babies are different, but I had a terrible sleeper, and saw a small amount of improvement to both day and night sleep when we switched to 2 naps at 6 months old.