How long should baby naps be?

If you google 'nap schedule for 6 month old', I GUARANTEE that you will get about 10 different variants. Some say a long nap in the morning, some say a long nap in the afternoon, some will have 2 naps, some will have 3.. so how on earth do you figure out which one your baby should be on?

Well here's the secret that no-one tells you.. there is no 'one size fits all' nap schedule.

If you take the 'average' amount of sleep that a 6 month old needs (for example): it's between 12 and 15 hours per 24 hours. Well that's a huge difference right? Your baby might be on the higher end of that sleep need, or maybe the lower.. or possibly somewhere in the middle.

But essentially this means that a generic nap schedule generally won't work. A lot of the schedules you will see online will give you the figurs for a baby with high sleep needs (why? I have no idea!), so it lulls parents into this false sense of security in thinking their baby must be napping for huge periods throughout the day.

There is only one way to work out your baby's perfect nap schedule and that's by understanding what their unique sleep needs are. How long do they actually sleep for per 24 hours, and then you can go from there.

If you don't know where to start with this, take a look at my Baby Sleep Guides - they tell you exactly how to work out your baby's sleep needs and how to structure naps around those.