2 to 1 - long am / short pm nap help

[Kst33]

Hi,

We're attempting to struggle through the 2 to 1 nap monster and I'm not sure how to handle the afternoons...so wondered if anyone been there done it or going through it could offer some thoughts?

We now generally get a 1 and 1/2 hr nap in morning but afternoons are a bit more hit and miss.

I'm roughly aiming for..

6.45 wake
11.15 Nap 1 until 12.45 ish
4.45 Nap 2 until 5.15. (I wake at 30mins)
7.30 bed - 7.45 asleep.

It does seem really late in the day for a pm nap though and the day is getting a bit long. But is this ok?

Yesterday - he put in an awesome 2.30 hr nap at lunch (he's never done that before) so I went for a 1 nap day. Bit of a disaster with a 2hr NW 30 mins after bed.

So we had:
6am wake
10.30 - 1pm nap
5.45 bed / 6pm asleep.

But he woke up at 6.30 and it took until 8.30pm to get back to sleep. :-(

I wonder if he hadn't had enough awake time over the day and I need to get his morning A time a bit higher before I try that again? So perhaps I should cap that morning nap at 1hr 30 until he's able to do a bit longer As?

Any thoughts / suggestions would be brilliant.

Thanks a lot

[TB9]

How old is he?

DD2 had 20min cns right around 5pm before she dropped to 1 nap, so I would say that a cn from 4:45-5:15 should be ok.  You can always cut it to 20min if you think it is a problem.

The day he had the mega long nap, did he seem tired at bedtime?  Both my LOs did longer A before bed, so they were doing 4.5hrs A in the am, big nap, then 5.5hrs A before bed.

If you want to keep the cn around then yes, you can cap that am nap at 1.5hrs

[Kst33]

Thanks Tinkerbell.

Interesting you say that… yesterday he had a 1.5 hr nap end of the morning and then didn't fall asleep in the car like he normally does at the 4hr ish mark. Was yawning and eye rubbing - but also clapping, waving and smiling. So slightly mixed messages!

So ended up doing 5.40 A time in the afternoon and we didn't have the OT meltdown I thought we'd have. He did fall asleep feeding - so was probably a little too tired but. A few NWs but nothing worse than normal - if anything a little better.

So perhaps this is the way forward after all. There's me been paranoid about an OT baby for months - I wonder if it's all been UT!!

He's 11 and 1/2 months and to be honest - I struggle to know when he's tired and when not. He yawns and eye rubs a lot of the time - but is also super happy and would just keep going. I tend to only know he's tired -when it's too late. Then he only really gets upset if I get him to do something he doesn't want to!

Thanks so much for sharing your times - helped give me the confidence to give it a whirl and go with it.

[TB9]

No problem!

DD1 was on one nap at 9.5mo and dd2 was on one nap at 11mo, so it wouldn't be unusual for him to start having one nap days   By the time dd2 was fully on one nap she was doing 6hrs A before bed....I could hardly believe she was capable of it!