Day 29: Natural schedule changing?

Mari had a good but unusual day for naps today. Instead of three shorter naps, she had two two-hour naps. She seemed well-rested and was in a good mood most of the day.

I wish I could say it was because of something I did differently, but it wasn't. She's just unpredictable. However, today made me think maybe Mari's changing her natural schedule, such as it is. She suddenly also seems to want to stay up longer. Only a short time ago she was always tired after two hours of being up, sometimes sooner. Lately trying to get her down after two hours has been a struggle, and today she was up for a couple of three-hour stretches. So maybe part of the problem with her naps has been that I've been trying to make her sleep when she wasn't tired yet.

Not everything today went exactly as I would like. She woke up briefly in the middle of the first and had to be nursed back to sleep. Also, she slept in our bed for both naps, though for the second, amazingly, I was able to leave her quickly and she still kept sleeping.

Regardless, maybe I'll lay off a bit on trying to schedule her for the next week or so. Instead, I'll feed her, potty her and read her a story in advance of when she usually gets tired and use that as a signal to begin quieter play. Then I'll pay close attention to her tired cues and when I see them, I'll get her down right away in the best possible environment for sleep. Maybe if I do all that, she'll show me some sort of pattern.

As I understand things, babies can be in transition between three naps and two for quite awhile, so it's likely she'll still need three naps most of the time, which will make the days' schedules different. But a little more observation will hopefully give me a better idea of if I do need to shift her schedule.