Sleep Unraveling Quickly

[bloosiern]

I've been thinking of just transitioning her but everything I read says that they need 2 naps until at least 15 months.  However, I feel like battling with her every day to try and get 2 naps is actually making her OT because neither of the 2 naps ends up being very restorative.  Thus she is OT by bedtime and takes forever to settle and then sleeps fitfully.

I'm just wondering if your experience was at all similar?  I'm just wondering how long it was until you noticed that the 1 nap was working out?

Thanks again for all your advice/support!

[jessmum46]

We were on one nap from about 11/12 months and reasonably settled on it by 13 months.  I think it's important to remember that every LO is different and whilst some will keep two naps until 18 months, others are perfectly happy to change to one nap at 12 months.  It's a transition period anyway, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.  You could have one or two one-nap days a week and do two naps the rest until she can manage with one nap every day?

[bloosiern]

Things are getting so awful around here.  I was going to try to keep up 2 naps until the time change occurs but she is just absolutely refusing the afternoon nap or taking it way too late.  I would be fine with this except that even though her morning nap is a decent length (typically 1.5-2hrs) it occurs way too early in the morning to hold her over until bedtime.  She is then taking at least an hour or longer to settle for the night which then makes her overtired and not sleep that great thus requiring a nap early the next day.  She's not cranky but she is starting to look like she needs more sleep (dark circles, red-rimmed eyes). How in the world do I get her out of this vicious cycle?  Anyone else have similar experiences and how did you fix it?

[jessmum46]

So what's her EASY at the moment?  You might need to switch to a short am, long pm nap if you are getting pm nap refusals.  Or possibly start pushing her am nap gradually later combined with much earlier bedtime aiming to get to one nap in the middle of the day.  Does she respond to APOP e.g. Car/stroller naps?

[bloosiern]

I think pushing her morning nap later is the only solution and I figured that out this morning.  Her morning nap was only 45min-1hr and she still refused an afternoon nap.  There's not much of an EASY routine to post since things are kinda all over the map lately.  She's mostly been waking around 6 but occasionally a little earlier or later.  She's usually asleep around 3 hours after waking but the last few days she's taking even longer and it gets close to 4 hours...one day this week it was actually after 5 hours but she had woken up around 4am that day (I didn't acknowledge her until 6 though cuz she was just playing/rolling around).  Her nap tends to be 1.5-1.75hrs and she's up between 1045-1130.  We've had to put her to bed at 5 because pushing her to 530/6 was just making her too OT and she would take over an hour to fall asleep then wake crying 45min later.  Not sure how to proceed now.  My husband despises the 5pm bedtime because he doesn't get home until 445pm.  He's a little better with it knowing that when we turn the clocks forward next Sunday then 5pm will become 6pm though I must admit he doesn't even like that early but he knows it's best in the long run.  So I guess my question would be what time should Be my starting point for the 1 nap?  I was thinking 4 hours after waking.  Also, how much and how often should I push the nap later?  Any further advice is greatly appreciated!

[jessmum46]

When I just couldn't make two naps work we did:

WU whenever
Nap at 11.15/30 (I did a set nap)
BT set at 6pm, as early as 5.30pm if the nap was a complete disaster

If we had a really really early morning (pre-6am) I would do my best to APOP a short CN (25 mins or so) at around 9/9.30am then offer a nap around 3h after WU.  It was a very messy couple of months but setting the times helped my sanity at least!