More Than One Child Creates Bedtime Problems
An older child, about age three years, might not nap and need to go to sleep around 6:00 or 6:30 p.m., especially if he has a very active day.
His younger sister, about age six months, might be taking three naps and be able to stay up later.
A parent cannot ignore the baby and attend to the three-year-old’s bedtime routine.
A solution is to eliminate the third nap for the baby so she goes down earlier, around 6:00 or 6:15 p.m.,
while the three-year-old is playing by himself.
Twins who have different sleeping schedules, causing different bedtimes, are challenging to parents and sometimes there is no solution except putting them down at about the same time and…
if there is any crying associated with falling asleep, then temporarily separate them.
Third Nap Is Absent, Too Short, Too Long, or at the Wrong Time
The third nap, around 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., is variable:
It may be short, long, o&absent.
It usually disappears by nine months of age.
If it is a long nap, your child might be able to go to bed later at night.
But if it is too long, the very late bedtime might become associated with bedtime battles because your child is way past his biological time for evening sleep.
So either shorten (if your child is way under nine months) or eliminate (if your child is nine months or older) the third nap.
Even a brief, baby power nap lasting twenty to forty minutes late in the afternoon or early in the evening might interfere with an early bedtime.
So if you are struggling with bedtimes, consider eliminating this third mini nap and try for an earlier bedtime.
Sometimes, around nine to twelve months of age, a child falls asleep around 5:30 p.m.
and is up around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., then is up playing with parents for a few hours until 10:00 p.m., and finally goes back to sleep but does not sleep well at night.
The parents think the child is taking a third nap at 5:30 p.m.