From 6/7 months to 15/18 months
Your baby is not a newborn anymore! She is now a lot more alert and interactive and, in fact, you start to notice that your her sleep kind of gets in order. Naps are more or less at the same time and they are (finally!) longer.
What happens is that your baby's pre frontal cortex is evolving and so does his sleep.
3-4 naps /day are fine for very young babies but, when our little one is 6-7 months we want to gently establish a two nap schedule. Yes! a schedule! You no longer need to be watching the clock every time because your baby is now able to follow a sleep schedule!
So what does that schedule look like??
To create your baby's schedule you need to have in mind two things:
Your baby's sleep needs
Wake windows
Your baby's sleep needs
Around 6-7 months of age and while she keeps the two naps, your baby needs 11-12 hours of night sleep and around 3 hours of daytime sleep. That makes a total of 14-15 hours of sleep every day.
Knowing that he needs 11-12 hours of sleep, you can now calculate bedtime depending on what time he/she is usually awake. A 7 to 7 schedule is perfect at this age ;-)
Wake windows
If you don't know what a wake window is, let me explain it very clear to you: it is simply the time that your baby can be awake.
So we will see 3 wake windows at this age and they will be between 2,5 h and 3,5 hours.
Usually, wake windows are shorter in the morning and elongate throughout the day, so you can see something like:
What's going to change your schedule is the time your baby is awake and how long she usually naps in each nap.
Usually the first nap is easier and can be longer, because the sleep pressure is stronger.
In any case, my advise to you is that you create the schedule that works for your family and stick to it. Babies need the routines and their little body clocks do better when they have regular times.
Do you have any question regarding your baby's 2 nap schedule? Feel free to contact me! I am happy to help :-)