14 month old nap problems

[John_Henry]

Hi,
Our spirited 14 month old boy is a fantastic sleeper at night usually.  About 6 weeks ago, we transitioned to one nap per day.  His schedule was somewhat like this:

7:00 - wake up
7:15 - breastfeed
8:00 - breakfast
10:30 - snack
11:15 - breastfeed
11:45 - start nap
1:30 - wake up
2:00 - lunch
5:00 - breastfeed
6:00 - dinner
7:30 - bedtime

Recently, we went through a pretty severe bout of separation anxiety, which he seems to be slowly overcoming.  He falls asleep fine for his nap (after about 15 min).  But now wakes up almost everytime after 45 minutes of sleep.  Because 45 minutes probably isn't sufficient for getting him through the day, we have started the bad habit of giving him the pacifier when he wakes up, and he goes back to sleep for another 45-60 minutes.

We don't know what to do to make him sleep longer.  Is he overtired?  Still reeling from separation anxiety?  Undertired?  Addicted to the pacifier? 

What's the deal?

Thanks.

[Florencia]

Hi and welcome to the forums!

I don't think the pacifier is a "bad" habit. If it helps him go back to sleep, perhaps you could talk to him about it before going down and leaving the paci near him so he can find it himself and place it in his mouth without having to fully wake for it.

If it doesn't help and he's still waking after a week (give him some time to recover from the Sep Anxiety spurt), then i suggest you to try Wake to Sleep at the 40 min mark of the nap. The method is described under a thread called TEaching Independent Sleep on the FAQ section of this board.

On days his nap ends before 2 pm, i suggest you to try an early bedtime to avoid overtiredness and have him in bed no later than 7-715 pm. This might help him catch up on lost sleep and hopefully not being so tired by nap time and reinforce the continuous sleep.

HTH and keep us posted if you have any doubts!

[John_Henry]

Thanks for the response!  So, a pacifier isn't considered a prop in this circumstance?

Will post again when something changes (or doesn't).

Thanks again.

[Florencia]

IT is not considered a prop if he can replace it himself and is ok by doing that without your intervention.... i know perfect sleepers that still use a paci around the age of 4!!!! now, that's dentist's material LOL and subject of another post in a different forum