1 hour 15 minute naps - good or bad?

[JaspersMum]

Hi to the experts out there,

just wondering if 1 hour 15/20 minute naps are good or bad for an almost 11 month old?

DS was taking a 2 hour morning nap and a 45m/1 hour afternoon nap and I thought, before things go wonky, I would start shortening the morning nap.  Well, over the past three days he's been taking a 1 hour 15/20 minute morning AND afternoon nap and I'm wondering why and is this restorative?  All part of the slow transition to one nap possibly?

I guess I'm still a bit reluctant to cut the morning nap to 1 hour because I'm so worried his afternoon nap will not lengthen.

Here is our routine:

6.30       Wake and BF
7.30       Breakfast
9.45       Sleep til 11am
11.00      BF
12.00      Lunch
2.20       BF
2.30       Sleep til 3.45pm
5.00       Dinner
6.15       Bath, dress, stories, songs with dad
6.40       BF, songs with mum
7.00       Bed

Also, does anyone find that if their LO has a 2-5 minute nap in the car that its almost impossible to get them to sleep when back home?  DS has been in his cot for just over 30 minutes now and is NOT sleeping!!  Probably due to the 3 minute wink he had in the car after lunch.  Soooo annoying!!

[mimi1017]

Your routine looks great!  My dd also does 1hr. 15-20 mins. naps and she seems to be happy for the most part.  Depends how is your lo waking? happy? crying?  Your lo seems to be sleeping a good 11 hrs. at night and about 2.5-3 hrs in the day so that's really good.  Let's see if any of the experts here have any other feedback for you. :-)

[JaspersMum]

He seems to wake okay but as soon as I go into the room he is clamouring for me to pick him up.  He still looks tired and usually after his afternoon nap he is VERY grumpy, so I just feel he has not slept enough. 

I think separation anxiety is full on for us at the moment as he cries at every nap/sleep time now - hates for me to leave the room but settles after 3-5 minutes.

He is down now for his morning sleep and I'm determined to wake him at the 1 hour mark, hoping his afternoon sleep is longer.  I guess its going to take a few days to get used this new routine.

[*Jo*]

My little boy also does not sleep after even just a 5 min snooze in teh car, sometimes i try to keep him awake when i know we are just up the road from our home. I had this on Saturday, he wouldnt sleep all day, he slept 15mins in the car and then wouldnt sleep for another 2 hours, so he went 8 hours on little to no sleep!!!

how did he do yesterday with the first nap being shorter?

[JaspersMum]

I woke him at the 1 hour mark for his morning sleep (at 11.05am) and he was back to bed at 2.20pm but did not fall asleep until just after 2.30pm, but slept til 4pm which was good.  I think we are getting there!

However, today we were at his nana's 'practising' sleeping in his cot there as she'll be looking after him one day a week when I return to work in 2 weeks time.  Unfortunately he fell asleep in the car on the way there, and slept a total of 50 minutes (awake at 9.30am) which totally threw out our routine.  He did not show tired signs for ages!  He went to bed at 1.15pm and after a bit of protesting, he was asleep at 1.25pm until 3.25pm!!!  Unbelievable!  I'm thinking his A time is at least 3 and half hours now, after a 45/50 minute nap. Now I'm wondering, do I shorten the morning nap even further, down to 45 minutes, so that he'll have a 'deliciously long' afternoon nap??

[*Jo*]

Here are the suggested A times:

8 - 10 months 3 - 4 hours. Some are getting more.
11 - 12 months 3.5 -4.5 hours. Some are getting more if moved early to 1 nap

Do you think perhaps you could try stretching your LO a bit more? perhaps he is ready for more A time?

If not then i would stick at it for another week if you can at least, it does take them a little while to adjust. If you shorten his morning nap even further he may not have had enough sleep to make it to the next nap happily in time for what you are hoping to acheive, you dont want an OT baby. I would dismiss the day where you went to his Nana's as that wasnt an ordinary day and just start again tomorrow. If he is happy after the two 1.15hour naps then i wouldnt worry too much.

Can i ask why did you decide to change the morning nap in the first place? If it was working well what was the need to change it?

[JaspersMum]

He was taking a 2 hour nap in the morning and a 45m/1 hr nap in the afternoon, which wasn't too bad I guess, but by the time he was ready for a nap in the morning, say around 10am, it was 12pm before he'd wake and half the day would be gone.

I keep reading about how around 10/11 months naps can go wonky, AND that having a longer nap in the afternoon is more restorative AND that soon he'll be on one nap anyway.  So I've read a lot of posts where mums are cutting short the morning nap in order to lengthen the afternoon one in preparation for the switch to one nap.  I thought I would start doing that, and it helped that his 2 hour morning nap was starting to shorten anyway (to 1 hour 15m).  But those days where he'd had two 1hr15m naps, he was grumpy and tired.

I guess I am aiming for a day like this:

7am        Wake
10am       Sleep til 10.45/11am
2.30        Sleep til 4.30
7.30        Bed

Because if I stick with 3.5 A time all day, I'll have to push bedtime back.

Maybe I should bother with any of it and just go with the flow?

[*Jo*]

I think you are right in making the first nap shorter if you lose half the day, Did you try perhaps only cutting the first nap to 1.5hours for awhile and then going down to 1 hour? perhaps it was a bit much for him the first time, how have your days gone since the wonky day at Nana's?

[JaspersMum]

Yesterday was quite good:

7am          Wake
9.30          Sleep til 11am (He was so tired from having a late night the previous night)
2.15          Sleep til 3.45
7pm          Sleep til 6.20am this morning.

So we had quite a good day with 1.5 naps.

He has been whingey all morning (I think it may be teeth again) so I put him down at 9.30am . . he was asleep by about 9.40am but woke grizzling at 10.20am!  I left him for a few minutes and he's gone back to sleep!  He's either OT or teething but thankfully he put himself back to sleep.  We are going out for lunch today to a friends' so he's not going to get a good afternoon nap today unfortunately, so early bedtime I guess.

Thanks for sticking with me!  It would be so much easier if we never left the house but we'd go crazy!!

[*Jo*]

wow that looks good! keep at it for a bit longer and then try and decrease the morning nap again. keep me posted!