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Hi Pav,
Thank you so much for the update! It sounds like you’re doing an amazing job being attentive to Ro’s needs and making adjustments as you go—that’s truly the best approach during these transitional phases.
You’re definitely on the right track with extending his wake windows and tweaking his feeding schedule to fit his current needs. As you’ve noticed, these adjustments can significantly impact nap quality, so it’s great to see that Ro is responding well to the changes.
Regarding your question about capping the first nap to encourage a longer second nap, this strategy can be effective, but it’s typically more suitable for slightly older babies.
For older babies, capping the first nap can help redistribute their total daytime sleep. And this can be helpful, because if they meet most of their sleep needs during that first nap, they may not feel the need to take a longer midday nap. So, by slightly reducing the length of the morning nap, you can extend the second nap of the day. This is especially useful as the second nap eventually becomes the primary nap they’ll rely on when transitioning to one nap around 15 months.
However, at Ro’s current age, I would recommend continuing to follow his lead. For younger babies, the first nap of the day is usually where they begin to link sleep cycles. This means the morning nap often becomes longer. Once they successfully extend their first nap, they generally become better at linking sleep cycles during their midday nap as well. As a result, the second nap tends to lengthen naturally over time without the need to adjust or cap the first nap.
I hope that helps!
Emma