11mo naps

[blessedmummy12]

Hi,

Would appreciate some advice for my 11mo LO. I think he is in the process of dropping from 2 to 1 nap but from what I have read on here, it would be good to preserve 2 naps for as long as I can! Struggling though.

Our normal day should go like this:
WU and BF: 7am
Breakfast:   9am
1st Nap       11:15am (normally sleeps for 1hr 15-25 mins)
Lunch:        1pm
2nd Nap:     3.30pm (usually put him down 3 hours from WU 1st nap. For the last 2 months, he has only slept 30 minutes for this nap, always wakes crying unlike first nap and has recently started fighting it so much that I've taken to using pram or timing car journey to get him to CN)
Dinner:        5pm
Bedtime:      7pm


He has never been a very good napper during the day and we've had to use PUPD to train him for naps. This worked brilliantly to get him to learn to go to sleep and he now goes down for his first nap really well, no fuss. 10 minute wind down, smiles, leave room, jobs a goodun. 2nd nap just painful now, tried varying time of putting him down and doesn't seem to make any difference, he just fights it until he conks out on my shoulder and I put him down.

We've had issues with EW on two occasions and now NW (mostly before midnight so far, which is easier to cope with) in the last week. Normally he is fine to settle if he happens to wake in early evening and it only takes 5/10 minutes. This week it has taken between 2-3 hours each evening and it is getting exhausting. If he wakes in the night normally (i.e. 11pm-6pm), he might cry out, and then settle himself. We very very rarely have to go into him, as he has learnt to self-soothe which is brilliant.

Two factors that could contribute this week - he is teething badly and we are dosing him up with Calpol before bed each night. I return to work in a week and he had his first session with my mum for a day which may have unsettled him as he has been a bit clingy ever since. This week, my husband has been unable to settle him and it has to be me, which backs the latter up.

So...what do I do!? Do I need to cap his first nap (he has always been best at the first nap of the day so I was aiming to let this come later and later in day as he jumps in A times quite regularly each 4 weeks or so and I just extend by 15 minutes. He seems to be at the upper end of A times, always has been.) and then see if that promotes a better second nap? Scared of doing this as the first nap is my best bet. Or do I drop 2nd nap as perhaps I'm doing it too late and it is interfering with bedtime? Bedtimes are strange, either brilliant or takes 45 minutes of WIWO to settle him. We never rock him to sleep or provide a prop and he does get himself to sleep each night, it just has been hit or miss depending on whether he is OT and can't relax enough to sleep.

Can you tell I'm in a mess? Please help!

[Layla]

Hello

I also think he might be in the 2-1 nap transition and during the transition, if the morning nap is too long (and it may only be just 1 hr long ), they start to fight the pm nap! What worked for us was to shorten the morning nap to 45mins and offer pm nap around 3-3.5hrs later and the pm nap was more achievable (although it wasn't always long) but it did the job until bedtime lol. But that doesn't work for everyone and some people leave the morning nap and APOP the catnap so if he's fighting the catnap, I would continue to use the pram. If the catnap is too late and too close to bedtime, that can also affect their nights though. When you do eventually get him down for the catnap, what time does he wake from that nap? I would try and ensure he is awake by say 4pm from the catnap? You could try and up the A time in the afternoon but if that doesn't work, I would try shortening the morning nap to an hour for about 3/4 days to see if the pm nap is easier to achieve or maybe even 45mins am nap but as I mentioned earlier, it doesn't always guarantee a good pm nap, so there is a risk! It does unfortunately require some trial and error and what worked for my girls might not work for your LO. But in any case, this is what we did until we finally went down to 1 nap (which for dd1 was around 15/16 months and dd2 was around 17/18 months). The below schedule is roughly what we did.

6am - wake
9-9:45 - morning nap (i would wake)
1-2.30 - afternoon nap
6.30pm - bed

And then when she would start to fight the pm nap again (or it was short), I used to aim for this:
6am - wake
9.30-10am - morning nap
1-2.30pm - pm nap
6.30 - bed

I do think that 11months is a little on the young side to move to 1 nap but some LOs handle long A times quiet well and only you can determine if that is the case with your LO. The other thing I am thinking is that your A time in the morning is quiet long and maybe that in itself is causing the nightwakings.... perhaps he is getting overtired from being up too long in the morning and then taking the catnap too late in the evening. Did you increase A time in the morning because it seemed like he needed it? Was he taking longer to fall asleep for his morning nap? If he fighting bedtime on the days catnap is late? You might have to temporarily adjust bedtime to a later time as there is no point in putting him down at 7pm is he's catnap ends at 5pm, if that makes sense.

SA and teething of course don't help! For SA, I would try a longer windown routine and spend lots of one on one time with him before he goes down for the night. It sounds like he's waking up and is able to self settle, so I would just leave him if that's the case.

(((hugs))), it can be a tough couple of months (or more) when they are in the 2-1 nap transition. There is a support thread you may want to have a look at and join to see what other babies his age are doing and whats working and not working!

From 2 to 1 nap transition (10-12m and older)
10/ 11mo sleep gone wonky? Read this first! (2-1 switch)
Anyone want to talk about the 2-1 transition - #25

Let me know how you go 

[blessedmummy12]

Hey,

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I've been trying what you have suggested and it is giving us strange results!

So...we've been putting him down for his AM nap as usual, or a little earlier so that he has enough time to nap in the afternoon but not go after 4pm as I think you are right, his later naps were interfering with his bedtime. He is going down fine for these and we are waking him at 45 minutes (although this feels so wrong as battling 45 minute naps for ages when he was 3-4 months old!). We are then leaving it 3 hours and then putting him down for PM nap. Interestingly, he is now going down fine for his PM nap but only sleeping very short time.

The first day he went to sleep with no noise and slept for 40 minutes. Woke up chatting to himself and was really happy rest of day. Come bedtime, he went down absolutely fine.

The next couple of days, he started to take 5 minutes or so to fall asleep and then has only slept for 20/25 minutes and is waking up really agitated! Bedtimes for these days have gone back to crying and having to do WI/WO to settle him although each time he is getting himself to sleep.

What to do? Persevere with this plan or go back to longer AM nap of 1.25 hours and APOP the PM nap until he is ready to drop it?

My problem is that I go back to work next week and I need to be able to tell his grandmas who will be each having him for a day (I will be working 2 days) what the schedule is and I need to get him into it before he goes to them otherwise it could all go terribly wrong. As it is, he refuses to nap at their houses even when it is us putting him down and it takes  a LOT of PU/PD before he will sleep for a 25 minute nap max. They are going to try a few things to get him used to the travel cot at theirs and probably take him for a long walk for his AM nap to help ease the transition. Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

Re the long A times. They are long aren't they! He has always been at the upper end of A times, and each time I have to increase it when he does short naps and fights going down for them. When I increase it by 15 minutes he then settles back into things and we are fine for another month or so. I have had to go by time with him as his cues have not proved very reliable since he was 3-4 months old.

Catnap in afternoon was always 30 minutes to the dot. He seems to fight bedtimes on days when it is early or late. In fact, the only days i can remember recently where he has gone down better for  bedtime are when we have had a nap longer than 30 minutes in the afternoon. The other day he did an hour in the morning in his cot and then an hour out in the pram in the afternoon (in the pouring rain!).

Any more advice? So appreciate help, thanks v much! x

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, seeing as you were getting a longer am nap prior I personally would stick with that approach and try still for an even short CN in the afternoon. Some people here manage to keep a CN by capping it to 15-20 mins maximum for a while before dropping it completely. We did this and it really worked for E whose first nap was always the most reliable.

I know he's young but it's not unheard of to go to one nap at this age. Your LO really needs to be able I manage a morning A time of 4.5 hours before moving to one nap consistently though.

With a fair bit of new routines about to start and with you going back to work, I'm sorry to say I expect things on the sleep front to be a bit rocky for a while. We always found our DD slept totally differently at nursery or at my parents than she does at home. They do settle and you will find out what works best for you all but it may take a little while. ((Hugs)) for you while it's all working out xx

[Layla]

Catnap in afternoon was always 30 minutes to the dot. He seems to fight bedtimes on days when it is early or late. In fact, the only days i can remember recently where he has gone down better for  bedtime are when we have had a nap longer than 30 minutes in the afternoon. The other day he did an hour in the morning in his cot and then an hour out in the pram in the afternoon (in the pouring rain!).

And this is why I suggested the other way around because you mentioned he was fighting bedtime, he started waking more at night and he started waking earlier in the morning but as Naomi suggested, you could keep the catnap and maybe shorten it and see if that will make a difference to the issues you had 

For us finding the right A time was the key to getting a longer pm nap and it might be that he needs a little more A time before the 2nd nap (maybe 3.25 or even 3.5). Some days we would too have just 2x45min naps but overall we did well with that combination.

And yes, things will probably be a little rocky whilst he is getting used to napping in other places and there probably isn't much you can do about that. I would just try and make sure I'd stay on top of things as much as possible and on days he hasn't napped well, offer an earlier bedtime.

Let us know how you're going

[blessedmummy12]

Hey guys, thanks so much for the advice, it is great to be able to pop on here and get some help!

So update on the rest of this week - it has been a nightmare. My LO has just done shorter and shorter naps, and he is fighting each one unless he is out in the pram and then he will sleep, but it can take a long time, so not very reliable. He just seems so tired, big circles under his eyes and he has gone from being chilled and happy all the time to cranky and crying at everything. Every nap has started and ended with lots of frantic crying and today has been 2x 30 min naps. Bedtimes have been particularly bad all week and last night took 1hr 30 to get him to sleep. Tonight 30 minutes but I put him down mega early. Those 30 minutes were pretty much constant crying though which he never normally does on me.

I think the OT has just built up and we are stuck in a vicious loop, which now means the AM nap isn't long enough for me to cap. Have tried shortening the A time before PM nap to see if that helps, but hasn't made much difference.

Do you think perhaps he is more ready than I give him credit for in terms of moving towards 1 nap? Until these last two weeks, we were up to 4 hrs 15 A time and that was producing sleep of 1hr 15 consistently.

I really don't know what to do, but I want my happy little boy back. It is horrible seeing him so agitated and not like himself.

Also - teething does seem to be hitting him hard (he seemed to be in pain tonight and the hand was in the mouth) and he has just started to crawl forwards this week, so big milestone.

Any thoughts? xxx

[Layla]

Hugs, it can be a rough couple of months and if he's teething, that might be messing things up too. With regards to being in an overtired loop, I have always found an earlier bedtime the key to getting out of the OT cycle (and not just 1 night but a couple of nights in a row).

Would you be able to post what your last couple of days look like?

[blessedmummy12]

Hey,

Sorry for long absence, have gone back to work (very traumatic for me but LO loving it!) and things just got on top of me.

So things are still bad and I'm at a complete loss as to what to do. I've tried shortening AM naps, I've tried APOP PM naps, I've now had to move AM nap forward by a lot as my LO is just so OT and can't seem to recover. Having been fine at 4hrs and 15 minutes and doing 1hr 15 to 1hr 30 mins very consistently, he is now super tired by 9.30 and will go straight to sleep if I take him out in pram or car.

All naps are a fight now, and every single one ends with him falling asleep on me from frantic crying. I'm worried he is totally loosing the ability to go to sleep by himself for naps as he used to be brilliant with this (after using PU/PD at 4 months and doing it very consistently for ages). He won't sleep for more than 30 mins in his cot, and 45 minutes if we are lucky out in his pram. He seems to have a new fear of his cot/room and now will cry when you take him in which he has never done before.

NW are continuing, most before midnight which is a blessing but happening every week now, although on and off, so never more than 3 nights in a row. We were up from 4.15 till 6am the other day, knackering!

The one improvement I have seen in last 4 days is that he is now going down for bedtime with very little fuss. The NW tend to happen within the first 2 hours of him being asleep, then taking 30-60 minutes to resettle and then he wakes again about an hour later, same to resettle then he will be ok until 6.30/7ish in morning. He is getting increasingly agitated when he wakes and screams a lot. I thought it was teeth but nothing has appeared.

So...what to do? Please help, I am super stressed with being back at work and missing my LO, and I just want to get him back on track so he is back to being the happy chilled out little man that I know and love. Should I move to one nap, or persevere with 2? I have no idea what A times to do now, they are so all over the place. The other question I have is whether I should consider set naps? I read a post on here about them in the Toddler Sleep section and it made a really good point about not missing the moment with your LO because you are obsessing over A times. LO is now 12 months (birthday was last week!).

We are currently doing the shortened AM nap at mo, then down for next nap 3 to 3.5 hours later and now I am putting him down for BT at 6pm (instead of 7pm) to help him gain back some sleep.

Any advice greatly appreciated, am at a total loss.

x

[Buttonbobs]

((Hugs)) honey, you both have so much change at the moment, things are bound to be a bit up in the air. Happy birthday to your LO Is it ok with you if we move this thread over to toddler sleep board now your DS is 1?

When I first started back at work and my DD started nursery and being with my parents for care during 3/4 days a week, it did really affect her sleep. Where is your DS when you are at work? Do they follow set naps there? How has he been sleeping?

During the transition from 2-1 nap I had real trouble getting E to take an afternoon nap at all, there were some days when we had an 8/9 hour A time from nap to BT! In the end I decided to go for set naps and just aim for one nap a day. When we first started this she wasn't really ready for one nap but it was better getting one nap in the middle of the day and a shorter A to BT than what we had had before. E was still OT but no worse than our previous position so I figured I'd go with it.

For us this all coincided with starting at nursery too and E was in a 14MO-2YO room and they do set nap at 12.30 with all the children. It made sense for us to follow their pattern, and she was already heading towards one nap. I found it fantastic as it meant I could plan my day and it also meant I stopped worrying so much about her sleep. It can take a little bit of work to find the right time for the nap(s) but once I got it we had really good naps for a good few months.

My DD also finds nursery quite OS and is OS and OT by the time I get her home on the two days she is there. Do you think your DS could be OS too? Do you have time to do a slower wind-down on your work days perhaps with an earlier BT if you can fit it all in?

Could you post a couple of days EAS for us to have a look at?

[blessedmummy12]

Thanks for the quick reply! Happy to move over to Toddler sleep board (eek, does that mean I have a toddler now!?).

DS does a day at each grandma's house for the two days I work. He has been absolutely fine going to them, eating well, playing well but refuses to nap in the cot at their house so they have to take him out for two walks a day, bless them! My mother-in-law ended up walking ten miles last week! He gets really agitated if you try and put him down at their houses, been that way since 4/5 months old. He doesn't sleep as well with them and I often find the days after he has been with them it can take a while to get back into routine. My MIL tends to err on the early side with naps so today for example, it sounds like he was all done with naps by 2pm so I've got to rush him back and do dinner, bath etc and get him into bed within 1 and half of getting him home to get an early BT.

Do you think I should plug on with early BT to get him out of OT loop, then go for one nap at a set time? When he isn't tired, he can easily go for 4 hrs and 15 minutes, but that hasn't been the case for a few weeks (since I went back to work) and my biggest fear with going to one nap is that the night wakings get worse. At the moment, they are just about ok since they have all pretty much been before midnight so I get at least 6 hours sleep. I know I shouldn't complain at all in that he has been super child with night time sleep and has always slept right through since 7 weeks old. But he has woken up more in the last 4 weeks than he has since dropping the night feed at 7 weeks.

I imagine DS is pretty OS from being at his grandmas. He is brilliant at amusing himself and can play happily for a good period of time. I gently tried to convey this to both mums to stress that they shouldn't be overstimulating him but I have no idea if they listened to me.

EAS at the moment looks like this:

WU: between 6am and 7am
Breakfast: 8-8:30am
Sleep: 9:30am (for me, unless I take him out in pram, only 30 mins in cot having to do PU/PD to get him to sleep. Wakes up crying).
Eat: 12 noon
Sleep: Usually 3-3.5 hours after he woke from AM nap
Dinner: 4.30-5pm
BT: 6pm

We have resorted to early AM nap as he is just so tired I can't keep him up much longer. Then in the afternoons he doesn't seem very tired and if I waited for sleep cues, I wouldn't put him down at all.

Normally, he was at 4hr 15 min A time for morning nap and 3 hours for PM nap and then 3 hours ish until bedtime. Those were a real battle, seemed to be getting better and then he was awful again last night, having been with my mum all day. He has slept 40 mins in morning, 1hr in the afternoon which is the best he has done for ages.

Does that help? xx

[Buttonbobs]

It does indeed mean you technically have a toddler! Although I didn't truly believe it myself until DD was actually toddling which happened a fair bit later for us

Do you think you can get the grandmothers to follow a pattern if you set a nap? It will be crucial to the set nap working for each to be the same. It might be a good idea to try and get him caught up a bit first, but you may have to bite the bullet and go for one nap anyway. Sometimes around nap transitions the OT comes but because an LO is mainly UT for naps and the naps are therefore too short to be restorative. The NWs you are getting definitely sound like OT as they're mainly before midnight.

Perhaps try and get him caught up with EBT for a couple of days but if he doesn't tack on lost day sleep to the night you may have to set a nap and go for it.

What do you think?

[blessedmummy12]

Crumbs, that feels grown up to have a toddler! Only just hit the 30 mark this year and this just makes me feel even older!

Anyways, I have been doing some reading on the sleep forums and I reckon I was putting DS down too early for his naps. I didn't realise 1hr 15 meant UT so that makes sense now and I probably wasn't putting him down early enough for PM nap resulting in OT and it has just built. I think also going to both grandmas has resulted in a lot of OS as he gets constant attention from them which has increased OT and then they started putting him down early for naps as they felt he needed it. The last few days he has done 45 min naps for AM (APOP using pram/car) which have been much earlier and I've been doing EBT at 6pm and so I think this has been helping him catch up. I wonder if I give it a day or two more and then go for set nap as he was coping fine with 4hr 15 and that was a month ago and usually he jumps up in A time every 3 or 4 weeks so could probably handle 4.5 hours easily if he can get out of the OT loop. Does that sound sensible? What time should I aim for in setting the nap?

Grandmas are fine to follow a routine and have been pretty good in this area (except for putting DS down too early, I think I just need to tell them to string him out where possible, change activity, etc.). I really want to get back to some sort of normal as this current set up is knackering with the NW, no time during day to get anything done and DS being so grumpy when normally he is lovely.

Just another question whilst I'm here - DS used to be great in mornings if he woke early. He would just chatter to himself and either go back to sleep or be very happy in his cot for at least 30 minutes, if not more. Recently, as of the last month or two, he has started crying from the instant he wakes up and I can't leave him very long at all. He is then grumpy for the morning as I don't rush in for fear of reinforcing the instant retrieval cry! He is also very tearful when I go in the nursery these days, even just to change his nappy, and cries whenever I put him in his cot. Do you think this is linked to the 2-1 transition?

Thanks for the advice, it is so appreciated. xx

[Buttonbobs]

Hey that sounds like a good plan. I also agree it is UT leading to OT overall. It could LOs be this giving you the grumpy WUs in the morning. That's fairly typical for a OT WU.

[blessedmummy12]

Hey,
Just a quick question - we have been really pushing the AM nap out with my LO and he is now going down without a fight (yippee, he can still remember to fall asleep independently!) and is sleeping between 1 hour and 1 hour 20. However, over the last week, we have tried pushing it out a little more (up to 6 hours A time on Sunday due to unforseen event) and no matter what time between 5 and 6 hours I put him down, it is always the same time slept. What does that mean?! Is he UT and I should push out more? Could he be waking cos he is hungry now that it is so close to lunch time? The strange thing is, about half way through A time he looks shattered and so sleepy, but then I give him some food and keep A time low key and he perks up and keeps going, and I only put him down for a nap due to time, not because he then shows any sleep cues again. Am I getting this totally wrong? Please tell me if I am.

NW have gotten worse and have had a few after midnight now. EW have become problem too as he can now wake anytime from 5am. Early bedtimes aren't always working as we are trying to offer a catnap still between 3 and 4pm (too scared to fully go down to 1 nap, so keep offering). Sometimes he takes it, sometimes he doesn't. Yesterday he didn't take it and so I had him in bed asleep by 6.10pm. He cried out a few times in the evening but got himself back to sleep each time fine and with little fuss (hasn't done this for ages). He then slept till 6am this morning.

What do you make of this? xx

[Buttonbobs]

You might find you need to hold at one A time for a few days before getting any lengthening of the nap - I'd say go for the A time that he settles nicely for and hold that for at least three days before changing anything else.

You're not getting it wrong - I found this with my DD as she got older too. Think about how you feel if you don't have a meal at the right time, sluggish and lethargic I'd imagine - he's no different

I'm not sure yet about the NWs - can you hold the A times for a few days andthen post your EASY for us to havea look at?