From 3 naps to 2 naps???

My DD is nearly 6 months old and we have consistently had trouble with our daytime naps on & off since she about 3 months old. The main one being that she will only sleep 45 minutes at each nap. Most of the time she wakes up happy.

At present she has 3 naps at approx 9am,12pm & 4pm she is normally awake for a maximum of 2 hours not including the time I spend trying to get her to go back to sleep which can be anywhere from 1/2 an hour to an hour.

After trying all sorts to extend her naps I am wondering if she is not actually that tired when I put her down for the nap as she has started to protest quite alot at naptimes and take awhile to go to sleep and she wakes up happy after 45 minutes and stays happy most of the time until her next nap. I am also not really seeing any tired signs anymore and just following the clock a bit, and putting her down for a nap after 2 hours.

Should I be keeping her up longer than 2 hours? (she will be 6 months old next week)

When did you find that your DD/DS did not need 3 naps anymore and could stay up longer?

I am so confused and this whole short nap thing is doing my head in!

Hi, have a look at   thesleepstore.co.nz - I used this site a lot when bubs was younger to help me get my head around the 45 minute napping! Unfortunately you can't make bubs sleep when they don't want to. My bubs has never been a good sleeper - she was doing the 45 min nap but I got her to 1.5 - 2 hours at a time. In the middle of the day I used to take her out every day (ops naughty - Plunket told me I should be staying at home - unfortunately errands need to be run) and she would sleep in the car seat if she wanted to. Afternoon nap was about 1.5 hours. Bubs is in day care now and her rountine has changed again - they haven't persisted with getting her to sleep in the mornings that well - so I have noticed at home she is only doing .5 again (I have noticed at the weekends) and an afternoon sleep of 1-1.5hrs but she is getting older too (almost 8 months) and is definately wanting to see everything!

My DS is the same. Has only ever slept for 45 mins since he was really little. Since he wakes up happy, it doesn't worry me anymore.

He sleeps 12 hours at night and we've just gone to two naps a day - about 10/11 and then 2pm-ish. Sometimes we get 3 naps in, I just go by his mood.

But he's staying up longer to compensate for less naps. Anything like up for 3/4 hours at a time, especially if we're out and about which he loves.

It's been hard no longer having a 2-hour up, then nap routine which was good. Now I really just have to follow his lead. As someone else said, you can't make a baby go to sleep!

Thanks for all your ideas/advice everyone, today I took a very relaxed approach and got one 45 min nap, one 1.5 nap and then 40 mins which was not too bad, she is managing to stay awake and happy for up to nearly 3 hours sometimes and is mostly always waking happy so I am just going to follow her lead and not get to stressed about it..............sometimes easier said than done, but makes the days a lot easier!

We are having the same sort of thing going on here. Some days we have 3 naps others are 2. Im just sort of letting B lead, if hes tired he has a nap. Im hoping we get a bit more steady in the future. On the plus side on the days he only has 2 naps he is going to bed a lot earlier and sleeping longer.