Carren,

Right there with you. Two months ago when my kid started getting very aware of things, she fought naps like crazy. The only thing that worked for me was to let her sleep in her swing seat. Now we've shifted to sleeping in her infant carseat with it sitting in the crib.

She is also an early to bed and early to rise baby like Isabella. I know Weissbluth says the kiddos are supposed to develop a 9-10am nap. But when my kid gets up at 6am (or as early as 5am during some phases), there is really no way to even get close to 9am. Trying to extend the wakeful period to get to 9am just ends up with Lorelei being all wigged out. She is only now getting to the point where she can stay awake for 2 hours at 6 months. Since the time she was 4 months old, she's developed into a 3 nap a day baby. The length of the naps are not predictable. When each nap starts dependsupon when the last one ended.

But I definitely agree with one of the previous posts about trying to get your baby back to sleep if they wake up too soon. I noticed that on the "good" nap days, she will nap for about the same total amount of time during the day. On the bad nap days, if she wakes up too early from nap #3, if I just nurse and keep holding her, she will inevitably fall back asleep and sleep long enough to fill the day's quota.

And don't think your baby "ought" to just fall asleep for naps. Every baby is different!