14 month old always cries when she wakes... advice needed

[kycat]

Hi,

My 14mo daughter always cries when she wakes... from naps or in the morning.  Our day looks something like this:

6:30am - up for the day, small snack with older sister
8:00- breakfast
9:30- 1st nap, usually 45 minutes (but sometimtes 1.5 hours)
12:00- lunch
1:00- 2nd nap, usually about an hour
6:00- dinner
7:30- bed

If she wakes in the night I usually wait a few minutes to listen if her mantra cries begin to escalate.  They almost always do.  I go in, she's standing and has thrown out her lovey and paci to the floor.  I give them back and lay her down.  She goes right back to sleep.

I guess I'm wondering if she's getting enough sleep since she always wakes crying.  The cry is a mantra cry, but will escalate after several minutes if I don't go in.

Any advice?

TIA,
Jill

[Layla]

Jill, on the days that she is taking a long morning nap, is she still taking an afternoon one? My dd usually cries from naps or in the morning when she is overtired.

I would continue to offer her 2 naps but limit the morning nap to 45mins so that she can take a longer afternoon one. If she only sleeping 1hr in the afternoon and is then up for 5.5 hrs, that might be too much for her at this stage. I would bring the bedtime forward to 7pm as well for now. My dd has only been able to manage 5.5 hrs when she was around 16 months.

She could also be crying for the paci. Does she settle after you give her the paci midway through her nap as well?

[kycat]

Today I was able to resettle her during her afternoon nap by handing back the paci, the lovey, and laying her back down.  She went straight back to sleep, no problem.  I'll try to do that again in the next couple of days and see if I can extend that afternoon nap (and also limit the am nap to 45 min).  What's hard is that somedays her pm nap can't start until after we pick up older sis from school (3pm).  So that pushes her A time from AM nap to PM nap to 4.5 hours or so. 

I guess I'm looking at a transition of some sort.  She's up once during the night now, crying and not settling unless I do it for her.  Occasionally she wakes up and is happy, looking at her books in her crib that I leave for her.  But the norm is for her to mantra cry straight away. 

I'll implement your suggestions and get back to you.  If anyone else has any advice, I'll take that, too   

Jill