I am so grateful for all the advice from so many people on the site that I wanted to share some success we are currently having in regards to our 30 min. napper!
I recently changed our LO's routine to the 4 hour EASY . She was having so much difficulty staying up for two hours but over the course of a few weeks is doing much better. Her naps have always been short and still to this day do not reach 2 hours. The most I'm getting sometimes is 1 1/2 but I'm totally thrilled!
What I've found to be working a little is extending her A time by 10-15 minutes. My Lo is extremely grouchy after about 1 1/2-3/4 hours up so I thought this would be impossible. But I've been putting her in her snuggly and doing things around the house for the last half hour and she is quite content to let me extend her A time just a little. Now, when she wakes at 7:00, I put her in the snuggly at 8:40 until about 9:10. Her A time is now about 2 hours 10 min. Slowly, she has been able to stay out of the snuggly longer and longer. Once she gets too grouchy, I pop her in and I do the laundry, clean the house, make the beds, all the things I now don't have to do during Y time! I've found with this little bit of extra A time, she is sleeping past her 30 min. mark without W2S or any help from me. She is also going down so much easier. I'm sure partly because of the routine maybe she is more tired, or the walking around is helping to relax her.
Now my Lo is a very spirited one and this doesn't work all the time, usually only one of the two big naps per day. But this is a start and she is currently cutting her first tooth and still it seems to be working to extend her nap and always works to help her go down quickly.
Our goal will be for her to one day be content for the full A time, but for now, the snuggly is doing the trick! And even if she does wake up after that dreaded 30 min. mark, at least the house work is done and I've had a whole 30 min. to myself!
Now only if we could get the nights in order....
Leah
