1 1/2 year old won't nap - help

[legend_018]

I have a bit of a dilemma. Chayse who is 1 1/2 years old won't nap. She was born August 28th, 2006.
She usually wakes up between 6 and 6:30am and I put her in the crib for nap at around 11:30am or so. She is usually sleeping within a 1/2 hour and hasn't giving me a hard time about it in a LONG time. If anything, she gives us a hard time at night when it comes to bed time.

At noon time, I had to bring her downstairs. I also take care of a new born so I can't just stay IN her room until she falls asleep. DH is at work. I mean - SHE never gives me a hard time at nap time. It's usually a cinch. She was crying up a storm and I was afraid she was going to spit up. IF she gets too upset and it happens FAST - she starts spitting up because she gets worked up.

So it's 1pm and I'm trying again. She was in a good mood when I brought her downstairs even though I wasn't "lol". I tried to see if she wanted lunch, but she didn't. Than her mood started turning yucky. She drank some water and I gave in to a few oz of milk.

What if she just won't go down again? She's crying a little already and it's only been 5 minutes.
If she does fall asleep, do I wake her so I can put her to bed at a reasonable time tonight?
How long should I let her sleep for?

She usually sleeps for a good 2 hours if not a wee bit longer. I noticed yesterday, it took an ENTIRE hour for her to go down, although she played and stayed in her crib and didn't cry like she did today.

ok now she's crying harder. NO NAP at all perhaps? WoW that just doesn't sound imaginable. I rest with my newborn while Chayse naps. I'm looking at a very nasty afternoon if she doesn't take a nap today. If that is the case, what will become of tomorrow. Oh man. This is awful. Welp, she's crying to hard and to loud so I have to go back up to her room. I have no idea what I'm going to do. If chaunda starts crying, I have to tend to her.

UPDATE: Ok I might of lucked out. I know overtiredness is at play here at this point. She has quieted down and that might mean, she is going to fall asleep. She woke between 6am and 6:30am and it's 1:05pm now. That's quite a long UP time. I had her bed time at 7:30pm and now I might have to move it up to 8pm if she sleeps for 2 hours.

I wonder if I need to have her A time longer now or something?

[momofclaire]

At about 18-19 months Claire started to adjust her routine (without asking me  ) to more A time in the morning.  She still needs less than most her age but it was a bit of trial and error to see what our new day would look like.  We went from a 7-7 to an 8-8 with more A time.

I would maybe try lengthening A time a little at a time, but don't do so until you are certain she isn't overtired. 
Our routine looks like this
8:00 wake
12:45/1:00 nap 1.5 hours
8:00 bedtime

I also noticed that while we weren't really doing much windown before we are needing to now.  I think 18 months is quite an interesting time for them and they need a bit more time to relax before being able to drift to sleep.
Hope that helps a bit.
Myia

p.s.  I can see you have had a time of it as I couldn't figure out how she could be 18 months and born in August. 

[Paulsmama]

Do you think it has anything to do with the new baby?  My two are about the same age difference, and older DS went through a rough patch with sleeping for several weeks after DS2 was born, though for us it was night and not naps.  DS1 was actually fine when the baby first came home, the problems started when he realized the baby was not going away!  What helped was some extra "mommy time" before sleeps and putting the baby to sleep first; this helped older DS feel like he was not missing out on things.

[lawnseed]

We also had something similar when my dd stopped going to sleep - I moved her nap time back a bit and she started napping agin. Now I put her down at 130 get her up at 330 and she still goes to bed at 7.