How to fix napping situation?--almost 13 mos old

[fujbeck]

My DD has been a terrible napper for a while, but I just haven't been able to focus on getting things figured out... but am seeking help now.

I think she is wanting to go down to one nap. She wants about 4 hours A time upon waking... problem is, she often has early morning wakings. She will not take a 2nd nap unless her first nap is no longer than 45 min, and the second nap must be after 4 hours A time also... so if it's 2 naps, it's two short naps (she never takes a long nap in the afternoons). I have tried doing one nap only, but she will never sleep any longer than one hour. I have tried slowly pushing her nap later and it ends up being one hour or less still. So she is very tired by the evening. Due to managing the rest of my family I can't really get her to bed any earlier than 6:30 pm. She also has at least a couple NW every night.

How should I go about fixing this situation? What do I do when she wakes up too early when I'm trying to attempt one long nap? I tried pu/pd in the past to get her back to sleep for naps and it never worked--she always just got hysterical.

So her routine might look like this [this was today] (2 naps):

5:45 am wake up
9:45-10:30 nap
2:20-3:00 nap
7 bed

--OR-- (one nap)

7 am wake up
11:10-12 nap
6:30 bed

Thanks in advance... 

[Layla]

Joy, what about trying to cut the morning nap down to 30mins and putting her down for the pm nap no more than 3hrs A time. Its sometimes tricky with 45min morning naps..... they can be restorative enough for them not to sleep longer in the pm. With 30mins, its enough to tie her over until proper nap time (the main pm nap).

So something liekt his:

5:30-6am - wake
9.30-10am - morning nap
1-2.30pm - afternoon nap
6.30-7pm - bedtime

With dd1, the transition started around 12months and not until she was 15-16months did she go to one nap. Even then, the nap was only 1hr long (12hr nights) and finally a few months after that it was a stable 1.5-2hr nap. With dd2 pretty much the same but it lasted until she was 17months or so. When she was down to 1 nap, it was only about 45mins-1hr long to start with and again a few months later stabalised.

The nightwakings are probably due to short nap days and bedtime being a little too late... but thats something thats out of your control... so i would say try to go with the flow. Also we were teething molars (terribly) so the night wakings could also be due to that.. so try some pain relief to see if it will help.

hth a little & let me know how you go
Layla

[fujbeck]

Hi Layla,

Thanks for your reply. I tried your suggested schedule today and it didn't work out too well. I cut her morning nap to 1/2 hour and tried to put her down 3 hours later but she was not tired AT ALL. She finally went down close to 4 hours later but was OT and put a huge fuss up about it, and only slept for 25 min. Then she was really OT when she went down for the night and I couldn't get her to sleep till pretty late.

Ugh... I wish this could be resolved easier.

[claires mum]

Hi Joy...welcome to the club.  There are a lot of threads at the moment similar to yours.  My LO is going through the transition and it seems like every week a tweak is required (UT/OT...it's a fine line!).

Layla has given you some good advice and that strategy worked for me ... for a while.  Funny thing is...after a month of 4 hour A times (and nothing less), we've managed to go back to 3 hour A times for a while.  I guess the OTness built up over time and the one day that we were successful with a 3 hour A time...it stuck for a while.

Another strategy worth considering is to bring forward the am nap to only 2 hours after wake up.  Sounds drastic and backwards...but Aly Mac posted this strategy in a previous thread.  I tried it and it worked for me....again ... for a while (!!).  The one great thing about this strategy is that they are tired enough from the night sleep to be able to fall asleep easily in the am.  Then you can do the 4 hour A time that they normally need and still get an early bed time...shooting for a 12 hour or 11 hour night depending on how it works out.  I was worried that the early am nap would result in an EW ... but it didn't. 

Have a read of the many 2-1 nap transition threads and see if you can find something that might work for you...it's a lot of trial and error unfortunately.