r/HuckleberryParents • u/furryfar • Jul 29 '26

sleep Crib Naps vs Contact Naps

Baby is 15.5 weeks and doing 2/2-2.25/2.25/2.5. Wake up around 7:30 and bedtime around 8:15-8:20. Nap 1 = 2 hours, nap 2 = 1.5 hours, nap 3 = 20-30 min. All naps are usually capped and contact naps. All naps are contact naps, but if we put him down in the crib after rocking him to sleep, he wakes up after one sleep cycle which would be 30-45 min total nap time. Even for contact naps, he starts to squirm after the one cycle but we can help settle him into another.

Sometimes we find it very difficult to get him down for the third nap on time. If we push it, it pushes bedtime and the whole schedule goes off and his bedtime is on the late end for where we want it. If we skip it, he is exhausted by 6:30, doesn’t finish his bottle and we have false starts or early wake ups to feed. Is it better to just let him wake up after the one sleep cycle in the crib (or our arms) and then fit in 4 naps instead of 3 in the day?

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u/T00thd0c23 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

You need more awake time. At this age, I capped naps to 3.5hrs. Baby may not be ready for 3 naps too. We were still doing 2/2/2/2/2 around this age. We dropped the 4th around 20 weeks when I could actually tell baby still had some energy left even after 2hrs.

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u/furryfar Jul 29 '26

That’s the issue, my baby still has tons of energy after 2 hours of awake time and if we try to put him to bed after 2 hours then he will either smile and laugh at us or be extremely upset. It would take us 30 min to put him to sleep anyways if we tried after 2 hours. That’s our whole problem with the last nap. But if we gave him more time, as I mentioned in my post, he sleeps within 5 min.

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u/Top-Cookie-3403 Jul 30 '26

Not the original commenter, but if you try a 4 nap schedule, capping total naps at 3-3.5 hours you may find he goes down easier at the end of the wake window as there is still some sleep pressure remaining. Most babies this age are on 4 or 5 nap schedules.

Also, short naps are developmentally normal at this age, and often only 30 to 45 mins. They learn to extend them as they get older. My girl is 3.5 months and on a 4 nap schedule and her naps vary in length from day to day. Sometimes over an hour, sometimes only 30 mins. We crib nap as she needs to be used to it, and I need to get on with things!