Little Bug has always, since birth, required a lot of sleep.

Her wake times have never been very long. Even at 9 months her wake times ranged from 1.75 hours to 2 hours. Once Little Bug hit that 2 hour mark it was very obvious that she only wanted her bed and it was time to take a nap.

At almost 10 months old, Little Bug was still taking a third evening nap. I could tell she was trying to drop it but just wasn’t quite ready.

Well, Little Bug turned 10 months old on March 27th and it is like a switch was flipped in her!

We went to the zoo that day. We left after she woke up from her morning nap and were still at the zoo at 1:30ish when she normally lays down for her afternoon nap. But on that day you never would have known Little Bug was late for a nap. (When she was between 5-8ish months if we were late for a nap it was no fun for either of us – Little Bug turned into a monster and I had to corral said monster to her bed as quickly as I could!)

Anyways, we didn’t leave the zoo until around 2:00. Little Bug’s next feeding was anywhere from 3 to 3:30. I decided to feed her early and then put her down for a nap. By 2:45 Little Bug was down for a nap. However, she talked and played in her crib for half an hour before finally falling asleep at 3:15! By 3:15 she had been awake FOUR hours and had not been cranky at all. (Granted, we were at the zoo for the first time with her and she was having an absolute ball.)

A few days before our trip to the zoo Little Bug had been taking about 30 minutes to fall asleep whereas she had typically been going right to sleep within 5 minutes of being laid down. This was my first clue that maybe Little Bug was ready to extend her wake times.

The day at the zoo helped me realized further that she might (finally!) be ready to go more than 2 hours between naps. Also, since Little Bug napped from 3:15 to 4:45 that day we went to the zoo, she naturally didn’t need that catnap she normally takes around 5:30ish. We did the bedtime routine a little earlier that night and Little Bug was in bed by 8ish instead of 8:15/8:30.

It’s now been over a week and Little Bug continues with wake times of 3 hours or more and she has not had a third nap since extending her wake times either.

I say all this to remind myself when I’m trying to figure things out with #2 in the future that it is best to just let things happen naturally. Remember, with the time change I was trying to help Little Bug along by trying to adjust her schedule so she would go ahead and drop that 3rd nap? Well, it happened, eventually, in “Little Bug time”.

Third nap is gone and we now have a good block of time during the afternoon between naps to run errands, go on walks in the neighborhood or have a play date with friends!

- Elaine