how long A time after short nap????

[clairebear79]

DS is now doing a 3hr A time, on a good day he can sometimes do 3hrs 15min.  He gave me a short nap of 45mins after his 1st A time this morning & wouldn't resettle, & I'm not sure how long his 2nd A should be in order for him to go down for a decent length nap.

Any suggestions would be appreciated?

xx

[empowered mama]

hi there,

In general, you want to shorten the following A time anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes, depending on how long the nap was.  If you are going off of 45 min, I would lean more towards 30 minutes off the A time, especially if your LO is prone to getting OT easily. 

Also, you may want to consider lengthening the first A time a bit if he is giving you 45 min naps.  He very well may need a bump in A time to get that longer nap back.

HTH

[~Sara~]

Hi there!  First off, if the 45 minute nap becomes a trend, I'd say it's time to increase the A time by 10-15 minutes.  Suddenly shortened naps of ~45min-1h10, plus LO being happy as a clam and not wanting to resettle are classic signs of an undertired nap.

By how much you reduce the A time really will depend on your DS.  Some babies like 15 minutes shaved off, others need 30.  I'd go with something in the middle and see how he does.  Good luck and keep us posted!

**Sorry, posted at the same time

[clairebear79]

Hi ladies, thanks for the advice.  We are in a bit of an OT loop at the minute & plagued by EWs.  I've been trying to push his 1st A to avoid him taking his 1st nap as an extension of night sleep.  Normally he gives a good 1.5hr nap here, but we've had 3 days of short ones. 

I've got a post about this on the sleep boards already & had it suggested to try a much shorter A time to try & get him as much sleep as he needs to catch up as he is very very tired & fighting all naps & giving around 9.5-10.5hrs night sleep. 

Today I've put him down after only 2.5hrs A time & he's so far slept just over 1hr - but I hear him stirring now. Sigh!  I was a bit dubious about doing this incase it caused short naps - so maybe I will have to push him to increase it further.

[~Sara~]

Well, I think it's good that you're working on that first A time.  An important thing to remember is to shorter the A after a short nap...seriously, it's key to keeping OT in check.  Doesn't make the day pretty sometimes, but we do what we can.

What A time did you shorten to 2.5h?  And what A time were you using that resulted in the 30 min naps?  Wondering if there's something in between you could try.

[clairebear79]

It was the 1st A of the day.  Usually he can do 3hrs & then a good nap but he has been very tired out & is showing tired signs 1.5hrs after getting up.  I've been keeping him going as long as possible, as it'd be impossible to get through the day without a 3rd nap near BT otherwise.

The 30min short nap was after his 2nd A time which was 3hrs ish.  So probably OT nap as long A following short nap?

[~Sara~]

So he had first A time of 3h, followed by a 1h nap...followed by another 3h A time with a 30 min second nap?  If that's the case, yes, the 2nd A time was too much.  I would have cut it back to about 2.5h.

On days when he short naps, it might mean that the EAS times don't fall like they normally do, and that's just par for the course.

A thought I had was: do you think he's teething or getting sick?