Five months is when many families feel the day click: wake windows reach about 2 hours, the morning and midday naps consolidate into genuine hour-plus sleeps, and the third nap shrinks into a short late-afternoon catnap whose only job is bridging to bedtime.
Finishing the 4→3 nap transition
If you're mid-transition: alternate is fine. Three-nap days and four-nap days can coexist for a couple of weeks. Two rules keep it smooth: cap the last nap at 45 minutes so it can't crowd bedtime, and on days the fourth nap gets skipped, pull bedtime 30–45 minutes earlier rather than stretching a tired baby to the usual time.
Lengthening short naps
If naps still end at the 40-minute mark, check the basics in order: is the wake window long enough to build real sleep pressure (try adding 10–15 minutes)? Is the room dark enough that the between-cycle waking doesn't become a full wake-up? And does your baby get a minute to resettle before you go in? Many 5-month-olds surprise their parents by linking cycles when given a short chance.
Schedules are averages.
Your baby isn't.
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