Sometimes I think it would be nice if babies would behave like robots and nap at exactly the same time every day, for the same amount of time every day. Wouldn’t that be nice?!
Fortunately, babies are not actually robots, but unfortunately, that means sleep can’t always be as precise as I’d like. This is ESPECIALLY true when Baby is getting ready to drop a nap.
Babies have four big nap transitions, and my almost-5-month-old, Holly, is on the tail end of the first transition: 4 naps to 3 naps.
Of all the nap transitions, this one is often considered the easiest and most natural, but it can still feel tough when you’re in it!
Here are a few tips to help you navigate your child’s 4-3 nap transition:
At 3 months, we want to hold on to 4 naps. Fitting in enough awake time and enough sleep time is always a tricky balance, but especially during times of transition. If we try to drop the fourth nap too early, Baby will have to handle longer waketimes in order to fit enough total waketime into her days, and we don’t want to push Baby to the point of overtiredness! We keep 4 naps by cutting the naps off as necessary. We want the first three naps to be at least 60 minutes and the fourth nap to be at least 30 minutes, so if your waketimes were 0.75 / 1 / 1 / 1.25 / 1.25, the cutoff times to reach those goals are 8am / 11am / 1:15pm / 3:30pm / 5:30pm (if your waketimes are different, the cutoffs would be different, but the 8am and 5:30pm are pretty much set in stone). That means we’re waking Baby for the day by 8am, and from naps by 11am, 1:15pm, 3:30pm, and 5:30pm. Waketimes at this age are between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours.
At 4 months, you can stop worrying about the cutoff times because it’s okay if there isn’t room for the fourth nap now. You can even let naps go as long as 2.5 hours! However, this means you’ll also need to start stretching the waketimes. A 3-month-old who has 4 naps and [five] 1.5-hour waketimes will not do well becoming a 4-month-old who has 3 naps and [four] 1.5 hour waketimes because the total waketime will have decreased by 1.5 hours! So you start stretching each waketime to work toward enough total waketime throughout the day. As you stretch waketimes, Baby will go back and forth between 3 and 4 naps for a few weeks. The total awake time will vary from day to day, but it will average out over a few days. (See below for the real-life sleep log of my daughter two days in a row that shows how this works!) Waketimes at this age are between 1 and 2 hours.
At 5 months, if Baby has not already dropped the fourth nap, it’s time to stretch the waketimes to ensure that the fourth nap is completely dropped. Waketimes at this age are between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. Note that at 5 months, we start limiting naps to 2 hours so that Baby doesn’t get too much daytime sleep.
6:40am - Awake
8:10am - Down for Nap 1
9:15am - Awake {1:05 nap}
10:50am - Down for Nap 2
1:00pm - Awake {2:10 nap}
2:30pm - Down for Nap 3
3:55pm - Awake {1:25 nap}
5:40pm - Down for Bed
Total Awake Time: 6:20
Total Nap Time: 4:40
6:40am - Awake
8:00am - Down for Nap 1
8:57am - Awake {0:57 nap}
10:32am - Down for Nap 2
11:35am - Awake {1:03 nap}
1:12pm - Down for Nap 3
2:15pm - Awake {1:03 nap}
3:30pm - Down for Nap 4
5:00pm - Woke her {1:30 nap}
6:45pm - Down for Bed
Total Awake Time: 7:32
Total Nap Time: 4:33
The nice thing about making this transition is that, once it’s complete, you should have a solid nap schedule for more than 5 minutes! There’s a lot of RAPID change in the first 5 months of Baby’s life, but then it slows down just a bit. You should be good on a 3-nap schedule until Baby is 7-9 months old :) Stay tuned for more info on that transition a few months from now when Holly is going through it! :)
How did the 4-3 nap transition go for you? If you’re struggling with it, I’d love to help! Book a FREE discovery call to see how I can help you get your baby on the right track :)