2-1 transition

[twinmama2]

My twin boys just turned 15 months and we are starting the 2-1 transition.  For the last few months we've been shortening their morning nap so that they would take longer afternoon naps.  But the last couple weeks we've been lucky if they sleep an hour in the pm so we decided to try dropping the am nap altogether.  Today is day 2 of one nap and they are only sleeping about 80-90 minutes and then are miserable for the rest of the evening until bedtime. 

This is what our EASY has been:
6am nurse and back to bed
7:20 awake for the day
11:45 down for nap (and usually very crabby by that point)
Today they were up at 1:00
We'll probably aim for a 6:00 bedtime, but don't know if they'll be able to make it that long. 
(We've also had some rough NW the last couple nights )

Do you see any changes I should make to help them nap better?

[twinmama2]

My boys went to bed by 6:20 last night (a little later than we had planned, but unexpected visitors threw our routine off a bit).  They went to bed with no problem but at about 2:30 they were both up screaming and it was 3 hours before we got them back to sleep...then they were both up for the day at 6:20 (an hour earlier than they usually get up).  Could that be from being overtired???  We are falling apart here. 
I am thinking that we're going to end up doing two naps today to try and recover from the night. 
Does anyone have any ideas for us??
Thank you!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

(((Hugs))) that was a heck of a nw! (x 2 no less). Is there anything else going on like teething? A lot of kids do well when transistioning to one nap by having alternate 1 or 2 nap days, just be aware that sometimes it can lead to ut and throw you into a loop of ut/ot. What did the day look like in EAS format prior to trying one nap? Would you say they are average or more high sleep needs?

[twinmama2]

I think they might be teething so we're going to try giving some advil tonight and see if that helps at all. 
Before we started this transition a typical day was:
7:00 awake
10:00-10:30 nap (always woke them from that nap...and they were not happy about it!)
2:30-4:00 nap
7:00 bed

But then the last couple weeks that afternoon nap has been much shorter, more like 45-60 minutes which is why we decided to try going down to one nap.  I think Jack has pretty typical sleep needs, but Levi needs more.  He usually sleeps a little later than his brother in the morning and sometimes a bit longer during the afternoon nap. 

So far today their morning nap was 10:50-11:45 and they went down for the afternoon nap at 3:00.  We'll see how long that nap lasts (hopefully it's a good one!)

Thanks for your insight!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Did the advil help? Tbh I would have pushed a bit and tried for one nap at 11:30...I know you said the one nap was short but you really need to let them have a good run at it to see it lengthen. Keep the afternoons low key and then do ebt if all else fails. Trying to fit two naps in at this age gets pretty hard as the day ends up so long and then they miss that restorative night sleep.

[twinmama2]

Ok, so you would suggest to keep trying the one nap days for a while?  How long do you think it should be before we start to see that nap lengthen?  And is there anything different I should be doing to try to help them lengthen that nap?  We've been trying for a 4-4.5 hour A time before the nap.  Does that seem right?  Today they only slept for 75 minutes and I tried to get them back to sleep but was unsuccessful.  We'll keep trying the one nap days and hopefully everything will start to fall into place.  Our nights are still hit or miss- sometimes they'll sleep through and other nights we have loooong night waking a.
Thanks

[twinmama2]

Bedtime was sooo rough tonight.  They usually go down very happily and fall asleep on their own within a few minutes.  However, tonight we put them in bed at about 6:20 and it was an hour before they got to sleep.  LOTS of crying and it was very very hard to settle them.  They ended up nursing to sleep (not something we want to get in the habit of doing!).  The last few nights they've had a harder time going to sleep as well, but tonight was the worst.  Do you think they were OT, maybe UT??  They were pretty happy all afternoon, despite the short nap.  Any help is greatly appreciated!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I'm trying to remember back to DD2 as DD3 is low sleep needs and not a good example...I know we went to one nap and she had a 4.5/5 hr A time both before and after the nap. I think 10 days should show you what may settle out. How long were they up from the end of the nap to bed? Dyt they could use more A in the morning to get a bit longer nap? Sometimes hard to tell what is ut and what is ot by this age...usually here bedtime shenanigans is ut.

[twinmama2]

So we've been aiming for a 5 hour A time both before and after nap the last few days.  They have not napped more than 1hr and 25 min (sometimes less - today Jackson was up after 1hr and 10 min).  I've tried to nurse them to get them back to sleep but that hasn't been working (they also seem to be self-weaning right now so they are less and less interested in nursing).  They are usually pretty happy in the afternoon, surprisingly, but today they've been especially clingy and crabby after their nap. 
The one thing that's really getting us though is that they've started to wake up earlier in the morning than they used to.  The last two mornings they've been waking up between 4 and 5am and having a really hard time going back to sleep (if at all).  If they do go back to sleep it's not for very long and they're up for the day around 6am.  Before we started this transition they were consistently sleeping until 7 or 7:30 every morning. 
The last two days have been pretty similar:
6:15 Awake
11:20-12:45 nap
5:50 Bed
Do you think we need to do an even earlier bedtime to help with those early wake ups?