Tips for naps and sleeping
Show your support
He usually goes to bed around 7:30, 6:30 isnt a problem I just think he's so unsettled at night because he's dropping the nap and he's overtired by bedtime but a small nap seems to make him worse too as he's then super grumpy when I get him up from it as he hasn't had long enough
Maybe 6:30 is too early for bed? I know you said 6:30 isn’t a problem, but maybe try putting him to bed later and just see? My son gets put down around 8-8:30 and he sleeps 11 hours a night. I wouldn’t force your son to only take 2 naps. If he still needs the 3rd then give him the 3rd nap. But what I have personally done is drop my sons 3rd and limit him to how many total hours he can nap during the day. I think around 8 months is when they don’t need anymore than 3-3.5 hours of sleep during the day. So what I do is have two scheduled naps for him and only 1.5 hours each max. And then by the time it’s bed time he’s sleepy enough to sleep all night. I also make sure my son gets enough food throughout the day so he isn’t waking up during the night cause he’s starving. Hope that helps!!
When he wakes up at 3 he'll have a 3.5 hour wake window until bed which is the most he can go without being grumpy and i don't want him to be napping at 6:30 so I have to do bedtime? He was sleeping through without any wakes but he's also just starting to crawl and move about more so I'm wondering if this is disturbing him? Hes also not waking for feeds so it's not because he's hungry.
It could be because he’s moving more? I know when I first moved my son (about a month ago) to his crib, he also was starting to become a lot more mobile and so he was moving around a lot at night so he’d wake up slightly more often and he was trying to figure out how to get comfortable and all that. Now he sleeps with no problem. My son personally wakes up at almost 7:30 on the dot every morning. He plays for 2.5-3 hours, takes his first nap around 10-10:30. Then takes his second nap around 3, then he’s up from around 4:30-8/8:30 and then sleeps all night. Could honestly be from just being more mobile and natural sleep regressions they go through as they grow 🙃
I would let him have a little nap at 5:00pm till like 5:30/6 if he’s really tired then put him down for the night at about 8:30pm
He won't go for a nap at 5 though because he's only been awake for 1.5/2 hours and his wake windows are around 2.5/3 so he's essentially dropped his own nap But thank you @Kelsey I have been thinking this! Like he can roll both ways and what not but he doesn't go down very lightly so I think a lot of it is experimenting to get comfy etc
Expect it's developmental affecting sleep but sometimes the 2 nap day can cause this I've read. Could you stretch his first 2 wake windows slightly to wake closer to 4 for a while and see if that helps?
What time do you want to put him to bed? Are you wanting a later bedtime? If my son wants a nap too close to bedtime, I just give him a 15 minute power nap and usually it gives him the energy to last another 1/1.5 hours before bed.