EW with 1 nap

[Mackjack]

Hi all,

I posted this on the 2-1 nap transition board but that's a busy old board and I thought I might get more of a response here!

My LO is 1 and for the past 2/3 weeks, we've been on one nap a day pretty much all the time. On a good day, she wakes about 6.10, has a nap about 10.30/11am for 2-3 hours then goes to bed about 6.30.

Past few days, she's been waking in the morning about 5.15-5.45am. She still manages to go until 10.30/11 before napping but even if she has a long one (like yesterday, she had 3hrs 10!) she still seems to get really shattered in the afternoon after about 3 hours A time. I thought that they were supposed to be able to handle longer A times as they go through the day - how come she can do around 5hours A time in the morning but not so long in the afternoon? Do you think that on the days she gets up at 5.15/45, even if she has a long nap, the tiredness of getting up so early in the morning catches up with her in the afternoon? Do I just need to put her to bed earlier on these days - say 6pm?

Also after the 3hour 10 nap (she woke at 2.10pm) she got tired in the afternoon after about 3 hours. So I tried to put her to bed early but only managed 6.40pm  (I reckon she would've gone down at 6). She slept soundly but woke  at 4.50am!! She's never woken that early before!! Now, did she wake that early because the 3hr 10nap was too long OR because she was overtired and needed to go to bed earlier??

Thank you!

[~inbalance~]

Do you think that on the days she gets up at 5.15/45, even if she has a long nap, the tiredness of getting up so early in the morning catches up with her in the afternoon? Do I just need to put her to bed earlier on these days - say 6pm?

I reckon this is what is happening.  I would try the 6pm bedtime for now and see if you can get a solid 12hr night out of her.  If you can get her sleeping a little later, then hopefully you can start to push her day back a bit.

[Mackjack]

Hi,
Thank you Martina. So, yesterday after the 4.50am wakeup, she seemed very tired in the morning. She fell asleep on a 3minute car journey at around 9am. I put her down for a nap at 10.30am and she slept 2.5 hours. She was still very tired in the afternoon so I put her to bed as early as possible - 5.30pm - though I think she could probably have gone down earlier. This morning she still woke at 5am. Now I know that's 11.5hours which is great but I was kind of hoping the early bedtime would've made her wake up later.

I'm thinking that perhaps if I had put her down just that bit earlier, at 5pm, I might have got a later wake-up?? So do you think I need to get some really early bedtimes in to try to "reset" her clock and get her back into later wake ups? And then just keep early bedtimes for a while until she properly adjusts to one nap a day?

[~inbalance~]

Well, I would be weary of going TOO early because it seems like your day just might keep getting earlier and earlier, kwim?  I doubt she will do longer than 11.5/12hr nights.  But if you put her to bed early, and she has a good night but still wakes up early, that might still be enough sleep to start shifting her day forward.  Does that make sense?

What I think I might be tempted to do is, give her a short am catnap of only 30mins.  Then you can push her am nap a bit closer to noon.  That should get you a late enough nap to do a later bedtime which will hopefully give you a later wakeup.

[Mackjack]

Ok, so you mean a 30 min am nap and then how long should I give her for a pm nap?

[~inbalance~]

I would let her have 2hrs and then do bedtime at 6:30.  So something like:
wakeup ?
nap 1 - 9am for 30mins
nap 2 - 12-2 (or 12:30-2:30 if you think she can make it)
bedtime 6:30 which will hopefully give you a 6am or later wakeup

[Mackjack]

Ok, great - I will give it a try! I will give ANYTHING a try!! Thank you!

[Mackjack]

Ok, thought I'd give an update. Yesterday I intended to do as you said - give her a 30min nap in the am and 2hours in the pm but I had to go out and hubby let her sleep for 2hr 20 in the morning/lunchtime. So, her day looked like this:

Awake - 5.30am
Nap 10.20 - 12.40 (2hrs 20)
Bed 6.30 ( she was tired by 6pm but her usual night sleep on a normal, good day is 11.5 so I thought if I pushed her another half an hour, she *might* get up at a decent time)

She woke at 6.15am - which for me is an acceptable wake up time. And that's 11.45hrs sleep! Anyway, she was quite grumpy in the morning, so as you suggested, I tried to put her down at 9am for a 30min nap but she was having none of it so I did what we'd normally do and waited til she was obviously tired and our day ended up like this:

Wake - 6.15
Nap 10.45-12.45 (as it was her normal nap time and she'd been up for a good length of time, I let her sleep rather than cap the nap)
Bed 6.45 (I pushed her a further 15mins)

So, let's see what happens. I'm hoping, *hoping* that the EW were a glitch but we'll see. She has had a third tooth coming through and I know this can cause EW but surely it would cause her to EW in a bad mood - when she does EW, she's normally quite happy?

Will update!

[Mackjack]

So this morning she got up at 6.10am - again another 11.5hrs so can't complain. Anything after 6am is fine by me!

[~inbalance~]

Sorry for the late reply, I am away at the moment so don't have my computer.

Knowing that she only does 11.5hrs at night helps figure out what time bed should be. Sounds like she is faring well on one nap so I would keep working on that, keeping an eye for OT and trying to inch her nap later so her pm A time isn't too long.

[Mackjack]

Hi,
Thought I'd update. Things seem to be going well (fingers crossed). AS you said, Martina, because she's been getting full nights' sleep, I've been moving her day forward ever so slightly. At present, she is having a nap starting between 11.30am/12pm and sleeping for around 2 hours. Bedtime is 7am. She's getting up between 6.10-7am. The other day she slept from 7pm- 7.20am - that was quite exciting!!

So, think I'm managing to get on top of this for the moment.

Thanks for the help and speak to you all again soon when the next inevitable sleep problem crops up!

[~inbalance~]

That sounds great!  Hope it continues for you!