I think I need to change things up a bit, any suggestions? :)

[Sarahboh]

Hello everyone,
Just wondering if anyone can offer some advice? Ella just turned 10 months a few days ago and I think she is outgrowing her old routine as the afternoon nap the last couple f days have been a *%^#^@&, to put it lightly.

THis is her routine at moment.

7:30-8:00 am wake and bottle 5 ounces
9:00am breakfast and 2-3 more ounces formula in cup
10-12 nap
12 bottle 4-5 ounces
12:30(1:00) lunch +1 ounce formula in cup
3:00-4:00 nap if lucky, lately crying when putting her in the room but I am eventually getting her to take atleast 30-45 minutes.
4:00 bottle 4-5 ounces
5:15 dinner+2-3 ounces formula in cup
6:30 bath, massage
6:45 bottle 7-9 ounces
7pm bed sleep till morning

Now I know to shorten the morning nap to 1.5 hours at max and have tried this but she still doesn't want to take the afternoon, she howls and cries like I am torturing her! Should I keep the one long and keep working for the short afternoon? She is very well rested and does not suffer having a short afternoon nap. She just will not do the long afternoon one no matter how I change things up. Can I leave it be? Any advice would be much appreciated! Sarah

[Sarahboh]

anyone?

[ks6]

This sounds similar to my ds at that age.  He was doing the same thing but going to bed at 8pm instead of 7.  I stopped trying to fix things as it was driving me crazy, so we just went with whatever he did.  The afternoon nap turned into more of a catnap, and like you, we were lucky to get 30-45 minutes.  Eventually, the same thing happened with the morning nap, and I was happy to get 2 45-minute naps a day, and they were getting too late in the day for him to take both.  That's when we decided to move to one nap around 12:30.  (Around 11 1/2 months)  For a while, he slept longer at night and had a 2-hour nap during the day.

I don't have much advice to offer, but that's what happened with us.  It sounds like she's getting enough total hours of sleep, though.  I think I counted 15. 

[Caroline-Charlies Mummy]

     mmmmm, she's a bit young, but it sounds like she's on her way to one nap a day. These links might help:

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=59266.0
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=41952.0

Like I say though, she's a bit young for this, so one thing I might suggest is to limit her night sleep to max 12 hours, ie wake her at 7am instead of 8am. She may well be getting so much sleep at night that she's not up for sleeping in the day.

HTH

[Sarahboh]

Thanks Kim!

Did you go to the one nap cold turkey or did you do it gradually. I find with Ella she has always adopted to change in routine very well. When I start seeing both of them get short like that should I just go cold turkey and switch, or should I allow the 45x2 to go on for a while until they shorten even more?


Thanks Charlie's Mummy for the links, I will be sure to look at those. It just seems like overnight (since she hit 10 months a week ago that she has changed so much with the sleep). Is this typical?

[ks6]

We had 2 45-minute naps for quite a while.  We began having trouble because there was no time in the day for even 2 45-minute naps.  Naps ended up at 10:30 and 2:30, then 10:45 and 3:30, then 10:45 and 4:00.  It just got weird, and he stayed awake in his crib for a long time.  So one day when he didn't seem tired at the morning naptime, we just kept him up until after lunch.  He was sooo tired, and slept 2 1/2 hours (which he hadn't done since he was a newborn).  For a few weeks, we switched between 1 and 2 naps depending on how his morning went.  We kept the same bedtime, and his night sleep didn't change much.  Hope that helps--we just kept 2 naps until we couldn't fit them in the day and he was crying before every nap.  Now he doesn't cry at all.