15 months, OT? Settling?

[candicebullard]

Hope you all will have some suggestions for me...

My DS is 15 months, we've been on 1 nap for about 1 month. For nap, he will typically settle quickly and without much help from me. At bedtime, he really struggles and I end up going in and out of his room and put my hand on him for 20-30 minutes before he settles.

He was taking a longer nap, sometimes 2 hours, but lately he's been waking at an hour or an hour 10/20 minutes and refusing to go back to sleep. During this, he's started waking earlier, around 6am instead of 6.30-6.45. This early wake up makes it hard to manage on one (short) nap. I have put him in the car after his nap a few days and he sometimes goes back to sleep for another 45 minutes. This all makes me think he's OT.

Here's his typical routine:
6am wake up
7am milk
8am breakfast
11.30 lunch
12pm sleep
wake up (time is different every day)
5pm dinner
7pm sleep

We have done EBT this week of 6.30, but it really hasn't seemed to help.

Questions:
1. How can I help him to settle more easily and without so much help at bedtime?
2. What can I do to lengthen his nap and get him out of this OT state? Any ideas to get him sleeping later in the mornings?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

[Truly Blessed]

Hi Hun,

(HUGS) to you for the hard time. Can you tell me have you recently pushed his nap out  has he been doing 6 hours A time since going to 1 nap  To be honest I can't say what's going on for sure, but I would recommend bringing the nap earlier while this is going on, in order for him to hopefully extend it.

Lots of LO's have a harder time settle at BT than nap time for all sorts of reasons. UT/OT  right now I'd guess OT for you little fella  . Sometimes just due to over stimulation.

I definitely think a shorter am A time is a good place to start though Hun. Generally speaking LO's will go 5 hours to nap when they're first on 1 nap, then extend when they get older.

What do you think 

x.

[Truly Blessed]

How's it going Honey 

x.

[candicebullard]

Hi, thanks for checking in. I haven't recently pushed his nap later, but I think he was coping a bit better before because he was waking later in the mornings. I've tried to get him down for nap nearer to 5 1/2 hr A time as opposed to 6, and it doesn't seem to be helping much. Last several days the nap has been 1 hr 20 and then today 1 hr 30. He seems really tired. I guess I'll just wait it out?? Do you think I should try to get him down even earlier in the day? My fear is that if I do that, he will still only have an hour and a half and then a very long time until bedtime.

[Truly Blessed]

I think it would be worth the risk Hun. If he is OT then there's more of a chance of him short napping with a longer A time.

x.