My son is now 7 months old. His daily schedule is a lot more flexible than it use to be. Prior to 5 months old, if I did not get Cooper down for his nap at exactly the right time, then he would not nap well. Timing was everything. Now that Cooper is a little older, he has become more flexible with his napping schedule. This is very nice for me because I don’t have to stress out if I am out running an errand and will make it back a few minutes late for his nap because he will still take a decent nap.
I was looking over his schedules and noticed a pattern to his napping schedule. I started to goggle some information about older babies napping schedules when they are down to only 2 naps a day. I found that a lot of babies fall into a 2-3-4 napping schedule. What is a 2-3-4 napping schedule? This type of schedule is when a baby is awake for 2 hours in the morning before the morning nap, awake 3 hours in between the morning nap and afternoon nap, and awake 4 hours in between the afternoon nap and bedtime (nighttime sleep). It seems that babies cannot stay awake as long in the morning. I am not really sure why this is, but it has always been true with my son. Even when he was on a good 4 hour schedule (up for 2 hours down for 2 hours) he could only stay awake 1.5 hours before his first nap. As he has gotten older, 6 and 7 months, my son has naturally fallen into a napping schedule very similar to the 2-3-4 schedule. He is on a 2-3-3.5 napping schedule. Here is his current napping schedule at 6 & 7 months:
7:00 wake-up
9:00-11:00 nap
2:00-4:00 nap
7:00/7:30 bed
*his naps are anywhere from 1.5-2 hours in length usually. His nap lengths do cause some variation to the schedule. I just start watching the clock from the time he wakes up. So if he wakes early from his morning nap at 10:30 that means he would go down for his next nap 3 hours later at 1:30. To see all of my son’s daily schedules type out by age click on this link: https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/infant-schedules-by-month/
More information on the 2-3-4 nap schedule:
http://www.easybabylife.com/baby-sleep-schedule.html
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2005/12/quick_and_dirty.html
For more information on creating a daily schedule for infants read my post:
https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/infant-schedules/
For more information about sleep requirements for babies read my post:
https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/sleep-requirements-for-infants/
If your child is having trouble with napping read the following posts:
https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/nap-trouble-the-45-minute-intruder/
https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/sleep-windows-get-them-to-bed-before-its-too-late/
https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/create-a-good-sleep-environment/
[…] Typically around 6-8 months, you will find that your baby will be able to stay awake longer in the evenings. Your baby will most likely be on a 4 hour schedule at this point and will not longer require the 3rd nap, which is a catnap by the time your baby will no longer require that nap. I have found that around 6-8 months of age, babies tend to fall into a 2-3-4 napping schedule. This is when the baby is awake for 2 hours in the morning and then nap, awakes for 3 hours in the afternoon and then naps, and then awake for 4 hours in the evening before going to bed. For more information on a 2-3-4 napping schedule, please see my post 2-3-4 napping schedule for older babies: https://blogginaboutbabies.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/2-3-4-nap-schedule-for-older-babies/ […]
My baby is just over 6 months and seems to be heading towards the same schedule 2-3-3.5. Before I was doing a sleep, eat, play routine but now as she is awake for 3 hours in the afternoon and then sleeps for 2 hours I was wondering if a 5 hour gap between feeds is too much? I do give another feed before bed,so in total she gets 4 feeds during the day whereas before she used to get 5. Any advice?
At 6 months, if you are fitting in 4 feeds, you should be fine. You are also going to start solids soon if you have not already done so. So going 5 hours between feeds should be fine, as long as your baby can tolerate going that long between feeds.