24week old Growing WT / LONG naps - fragmented short night. What to do?

[stefwef]

Good afternoon! My first LO took 30 min naps for a year and this one at 5.5mo takes 3 hour naps so I'm totally out of my depth! We had a great three nap schedule for a couple months:

6:30WU / nurse
8:30AM nap - 1.5hrs
10AM nurse
12 nurse
12:15 nap - 1.5-2 hrs
2 nurse
4:30PM nurse
4:30PM - 30min catnap
6PM nurse
7:30 asleep in bed
wakes twice for nurse/back down

Then we started getting night wakings where she would be awake for 2 hours in the night maybe twice a week.
Then the waketimes pretty quickly increased to 2.15/2.5/2.5/3.
Then the bedtimes got later and later, and the mornings got earlier and earlier, like 5AM.
But her naps have not shortened.

Her total sleep in 24hrs has plummeted was pretty steady at 14.5hrs, but then it went to 14, then 13.5 and now 13.
The night before last she was up 3 hours in the middle of the night and would not go back down.
The past two days there has been no time for the catnap.
Today despite looking tired around 1.5hrs (and I tried then thinking she was totally OT and needing shorter WTs but no go), she took such a long time falling asleep for naps and such long naps that we had no time for the catnap. The past two nights she took 1hr to get down, she won't fall asleep until 3.5 have gone by from last wakeup, and she wakes at the 30min mark (classic overtired, right?)

Is this milestones (wonder week 26) and we should ride it out, is it a scheduling issue (where I should wake her if her naps go too long) or is she just transitioning to two naps so quickly that we can't avoid her being overtired? And if so, how long will this insanity last before she stops looking so tired but not going down?

Today's insanity:
6:50WU / nurse
looked tired at 8:15 and tried for nap but no go.
Tried for nap at regular 2.5 wake time but took forever to fall asleep.
9:25 - nap / close to 2 hours
11:20 woke / nurse
looked tired at 1:10 and tried for nap but no go.
1:20 nurse
Tried for nap at regular 2.5 waketime but took forever to fall asleep.
2:05 - nap / 2:35 duration
4:40 woke / nursed
6:40 looked tired but she took so long going down the night before that we decided to push it a little longer.
7PM nursed / bath
Put her down at 7:45
8:20 asleep
8:55: woke-up screaming
9 -back to sleep.

To mention she is falling asleep and napping in her swing for naps, and at night either falling asleep in swing (for DH) or (for me) rocked in my arms then laid awake in her crib to fall asleep. She sleeps most of the night unswaddled on her side or tummy in her crib and I've seen her visibly put herself back to sleep so I don't think this is an association thing though she could also just be more demanding as she becomes more aware. She knows how to roll to tummy but not back.

[stefwef]

Addendum: So she then slept from 9 to 2:30AM, which is awesome in our book here. Then she practiced rolling front to back for 30min, and then fell asleep and slept about 10min. Of course our toddler decided at that point that she was cold and needed socks, so the baby woke again and alternated trying to sleep and crying for about 30min until she really worked herself into a frenzy and I had to rock and shush pat her back to sleep so she was asleep at 3:40. Then she slept til 6:20AM.

This morning she again started looking tired at 90minutes, we tried nap at 2:30 and she would not go down before 2:45 (same exact as yesterday). She's now sleeping 2hrs14min and still asleep.

So is this our transition to 2 naps do you think? If so how can I prevent the 30min OT wakeup and when will she start looking less tired after 90min awake?

Thank you so much for any advice!

[Emami]

Hi there, I think you're right and you're in 3-2 territory. It seems to me that she's UT at night since she's doing such great naps.  That's usually what long NWs are, and also the fact that she's taking a long time to go down at BT makes me think she's not ready for the night yet. But then she's resisting sleep and staying awake longer and you get the 30min wake up.

If I read it right, putting her down at 90mins hasn't actually resulted in a nap at all? So I would push through to the longer A time since that's getting you good naps. She might be feeling tired from the broken nights but still need longer to get sleepy enough for a real restorative nap. What do you think about keeping the longer A times, get those 2 long naps, but either cap the second one if it's getting late, or move BT back a little to get her enough awake time that she's ready to sleep more at night?

[stefwef]

Thank you so much for the advice! She does sometimes go down at 2.5hrs wake time.  Yesterday she looked so tired again that we tried 2.5 and she went right down all day long! So we had a 2.5/2.5/2.5/2.75 day with 6AM wakup, 2hr nap (I woke her), 1.5hr nap (noise woke her at 2:30) and 30min catnap (5 to 5:30) and asleep 8:15. But then last night was all fragmented again.

The only way to fit three naps with a longer night would be to wake her up at 1.5hr mark for first two naps. I wonder if that's what I should do and keep her on 3 naps, or is the 2.5 supposed to be transitional while we push to 2 naps? She does do better night sleep on just 2 naps, but she's such a mess before all naps and nighttime that it makes me reconsider...

One of the main issues is I can't get her to bed before 6:45PM at the earliest because I have to wait for my husband to come home from work.

Thanks!
- Stephanie

[Emami]

Hugs hun, transitions are always tricky. Personally, the fact that you say she sleeps better at night with 2 naps would make me want to push through and drop the CN as night sleep is the most restorative, and ultimately what I would want to protect (trying to figure that one out with my DD2 atm!). Also, I've found with both my two that the CN becomes more trouble than it's worth even though sometimes it can be a long stretch to BT.

If you can't do EBT while she gets used to 2 naps could you maybe do some 3 and some 2 nap days depending on WU? Like the other day she woke at 6:50, which with longer A times should be late enough to let her sleep as long as she likes, get 2 good naps and do BT after your husband gets home. But when she wakes earlier like 6am you could cap both naps to 1.5hrs and squeeze the CN in so she makes it through to see DH?