Dropping Naps: A Quick Guide

Sometimes you just want information quickly. Sometimes you basically know what you are doing (like when it isn’t your first child) and you just need a refresher. Sometimes you have no clue what you are doing (like when it IS your first child) and you just want a basic idea of what the road ahead will look like for you.

A quick guide for dropping naps

It is for both of these scenarios that I made this quick guide. I hope this will help you in your parenting life. I hope it makes things just a little bit easier. 

I know some people really like hard copies of things. I made a printable version and uploaded it to my Drive account. You can get your free copy here.

I have also added it to my eBook, Chronicles of a Babywise Mom Book of Logs. When you purchase these, this sheet will be included. If you have already purchased, you can download for free at the link above. 

If you want further details on any nap dropping, see these posts:

If you still have questions, please ask! When I get the same questions over and over, I know I have a gap in my information and I work to fix it. So ask away!

2 thoughts on “Dropping Naps: A Quick Guide”

  1. I’m trying to drop the 3rd Nap. My daughter is 10 months. She was sleeping from 8:30pm-5am-ish for about a month. Before that she was waking up every 2-3 hours. Now since I’ve tried to drop the 3rd nap she’s waking up earlier and earlier every night. She’s not settling on her like she used to. Her room is connected to our room and she wakes now whenever the tiniest bit of movement is made. This was not the case before. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. CIO is not working like it used to.

    Here’s her old schedule

    6:30-7 wake/feed
    9am nap
    10:30a wake/feed
    12:30p nap
    2:00p wake/feed
    4:00p nap
    5:00p wake/feed
    7:00p dinner
    8:30p bed
    5am wake for milk back to bed until 6:30-7a.

    New schedule

    6:30-7a wake/feed
    9:30a nap
    11:00a wake/feed
    2:00p nap
    3:30p wake/feed
    4:00p snack
    6:30-7p dinner
    8:00p nurse/bedtime

    FYI: My daughter has never slept more than 10 hours a night and naps for only 1 hour & 30 minutes. I’ve seen a 2 hour nap but it’s never been consistent.

    Reply
    • Hello!

      Have you ever tried an earlier bedtime? It might be that she is waking earlier because she is overly tired. Often when a nap is dropped, you just rearrange that sleep time, not just drop it, so either the other naps would need to get longer or bedtime would need to move up.

      If that cannot happen with your schedule, I would try adding the third nap back in and see how it goes.

      Reply

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