2 to 1 Nap - How Should I Do It?

[Jenifer]

For the past couple days my DD has been taking an hour nap in the morning but not going to sleep for her afternoon nap at all - she just plays in her bed.  So, today and yesterday she has been awake from 11:30 am until 7:30 pm    ... and she's been absolutely fine.    

This was the routine:
7am - wake
10am - nap until 11:30am
2:45pm - nap until 4pm
7:30pm - bedtime

For the last month or so she's been taking awhile to go down for her naps (up to 30 minutes), and therefore not getting a full 90 minute nap.  She's also been not falling asleep at bedtime until around 8 - 8:15pm.  I knew we were headed to 1 nap .. just didn't think it would happen so sudden like this.

My question is: how do you think I should do this?  Plan A -a short nap in morning (say 30 minutes) and longer nap in the afternoon (2 hours) or Plan B - just bite the bullet and try and go for one nap?

I think I should try and get her to stay up until 11:30am and just do one long nap.  But I'm afraid if I do that she'll be overtired and not sleep long.  Her morning nap was always the good one .. I'm afraid to mess with it.   Also, she's never really napped more than 90 minutes .. will she really go to one long (2 - 3 hour) nap just like that?

Oh this kind of upsets me because she was napping SO GOOD for SO LONG!  I'm afraid how this transition is going to effect things ..

[Jenifer]

I should add that she's teething - two molars.  Not sure how this should effect things ...

[debo620]

Hi there,
personally I would go with the 30min am and longer pm (probably 90min more realistically) and see what happens. Try to keep 2 naps as long as you can. once you make the switch to 1 nap it is hard to go back and they can get so overtired easily. My son is 16months and we have been on one nap fairly steadily for about 6 weeks but it is still rough some days and the timing is tricky.

there is a 2-1 nap switch chat thread stickied on the nap thread. check it out and you will find plenty of mothers in similar situations.

HTH

[Layla]

My question is: how do you think I should do this?  Plan A -a short nap in morning (say 30 minutes) and longer nap in the afternoon (2 hours) or Plan B - just bite the bullet and try and go for one nap?

I agree with Deb. Try 45mins to start with (its a wonder what 15mins less can do) and if she's still fighting the pm nap, go down to 30mins and a longer nap in the pm (it might be 1.5-2hrs). I actually "bit the bullet" with Isabella at 14months as well cause I had no belief in all this cutting naps and what not and was certain that she would "settle" into 1 nap, get used to the new A times and have this 1 long nap! Well the 1st 3 days she did and then we got into all sorts of problems. Did the same with Jasmine (got a little impatient with cutting naps, etc...) & again, the 1st couple of days she did really well and then it went downhill (nightwakings and the obvious overtired signs). So although your dd did "ok" on a 7hr stretch, thats still a pretty long stretch and if it occurs again that she is fighting the pm nap, I would make bedtime earlier. On the days my girls faught the pm nap and were awake that long, I used to put them to bed as early as 5/5.30pm. They still slept until their usual wake up time of 6/6.30am.

I think I should try and get her to stay up until 11:30am and just do one long nap.  But I'm afraid if I do that she'll be overtired and not sleep long.  Her morning nap was always the good one .. I'm afraid to mess with it.   Also, she's never really napped more than 90 minutes .. will she really go to one long (2 - 3 hour) nap just like that?

This is something you need to experiment with. If you are comfortable stretching her morning A time, do so but in increments and keep offering a nap in the pm. If no nap in the pm, do an earlier bedtime. Wait 3-4 days to see if things are getting better or not. Personally this route never worked here cause my girls would plain & simply refuse the pm catnap and they were awake for a long time before beditme. Putting to bed earlier helps but you can only do that so many times. Overtiredness still caught up and we had nightwakings. There is no harm in trying. You can always go back to 2 naps.

2hrs is the average once they finally transition to 1 nap. To be honest, Isabella only did 1.5hrs to start with and then it got a little longer (2hrs) and now its back to 1.5. I think 3hrs is an exception and by the time they go to 1 nap, they don't really need that much daytime sleep. The av for toddlers is 11hrs at night and 2hrs during the day.

I would check that link out as well. Its many pages long but as Deb said, we are all going through the same thing.....

hth
Layla

[Jenifer]

Ok, I hear you .. but this is what I was thinking: if I do 2 naps I think she will get less cumulative sleep.  If I put her down at 10:15am (30 minutes) then again at 2:30 pm (1 hour - because she will have to be up by 3:30 to go to bed at 7:30) - she will only be getting 90 minutes of nap sleep.  If I try 1 nap at 11:30 am don't I have a better chance of her getting more than that?

On a normal day (not this weekend) it seems like she can do 3.25 hours of A time in the morning, 3.5 hours in the afternoon and 4 - 4.25 hours of A time in the evening.  How do I do that on 2 naps?

[debo620]

once you cut the morning nap down the next A time does get shorter and thus the afternoon nap occurs earlier.

my son could pretty much handle full a time on a 40min nap so I went to 30 and the next A time was 3hrs then and then the next nap was occuring closer to 1/1:30. but you really do have to experiment with the timing and I would do as Layla suggested and start with 40min am nap


so
wake 7
nap 10:15-11
nap 2pm-3:30

[Layla]

Ditto to what Deb said. On 40/45mins, Jasmine can do 3.25-3.5hrs but on 30mins, we're down to 3hrs (and some even 2.5hrs). Thats becuase 40/45mins is still a cycle (although not a full one) but 30mins is not even that, so you'll find that after 30min wake up they tend to be a little more crankier (and alot harder to wake) than if you wake her at 40/45mins.

[Jenifer]

Well, I did it like you guys said and she napped according to schedule today.  I felt bad going in and waking her after only 40 minutes this morning - she was so sleepy. 

One thing tho .. this seems so counter-intuitive to me.  If she can stay awake longer then shouldn't I encourage that?  Aren't we working toward longer A times?  How then is it right to limit her naps and therefore limit her A time?  I mean, the old way she was up for 3.5 hours mid-day .. now its only 3 hours.  Do you only do this when they're between 3.5 - 5 hours of A time and can't quite make it on one nap a day?

[Layla]

Yes, you are working towards longer A time but you don't want her to be awake for 6-7hrs before bedtime and get overtired.

The reason we shorten the morning nap is to have a longer pm nap (since this is the nap that will stay) so by shortening the morning nap, you shorten the A time so that the pm nap is more or less in the middle of the day. She will only be taking the morning nap to help her get through till the pm nap. Eventually she will resist the morning nap and will be able to stay awake longer. 3.5-5hrs is a very long stretch and alot of the times mothers find that when the push the morning nap in increments, the pm nap is non-existant and then there is a long stretch before bedtime & the baby gets overtired. Ultimately you want her nap to be around 12/12.30pm so her current pm nap (that she takes at 2ish) has to be moved up....

This is only temporary until she gets used to the A times. The A time before bedtime is in general longer so from 4/4.5-5/5.5hrs, thats not so much to stretch her but in the morning, its from 3-5hrs, which is alot longer. (i hope this makes sence, lol). In my case 30mins was the most I had to cut down to and then Isabella would play instead of sleep... so that was my cue that she was done with sleeping in the morning and kept her up until 11.30/12pm. I honestly think the older the baby is, the better they are at handling longer A times so I'd rather get 2 naps in than 1 and have an overtired baby.

I still feel bad waking Jasmine up from her nap. She looks so peaceful and it seems unatural to wake her.... I have let her sleep (in the past) for longer becuase there was such a long time until bedtime and I was SURE she would take a nap but it always backfires so I would rather a little bit of crankiness in the morning than nightwakings at night.

[Jenifer]

So, how temporary is this schedule would you say?  Weeks .. months?   

Despite getting her up at 3:30 pm she didn't fall asleep until after 8pm tonight.  I can't possibly get her up any earlier in the afternoon.    It did take her until about 10:25 am to fall asleep this morning as well.

Just to clarify, I don't think the 6 - 7 hours of awake time she had this weekend was normal or something she can sustain either.

[Layla]

The whole transition can take months (it took us 12-15months of toing and froing between 1&2 naps) and then the final 2 weeks were 2 naps every 3/4 days. Isabella was done by 16months (although I am sure she still would have wanted a morning nap every now and then but I kept her up cause it was all getting to me & I needed some stability because by that stage I had a 2mo to take care of as well.

You know, she might be an easy baby and take well to being pushed to a longer A time in the morning & it might only take her a week or two to adjust. It really depends on your baby. The short morning nap doesn't work for everyone. Try something out for a week and if you feel its not helping out, then change back to long morning nap and push her A time in the morning instead. There is no harm in trying things out. Wait a few days before you try something different.

Just to clarify, I don't think the 6 - 7 hours of awake time she had this weekend was normal or something she can sustain either.

Lol, I didn't think you were implying that at all  . It happens here too with Isabella every now and then & she does well (because I would think in general she is a well rested baby).... whereas if she was overtired to start with, the long stretch would have made things worse.

 

[debo620]

Jennifer,
at your dd's age we were at about 4.5hrs after 2nd nap until he fell asleep. just like you guys had tonight.
I would give the routine you did today another couple of days, if she is still not falling asleep until after 8pm, then maybe the 2nd nap needs to end earlier (say 3pm) so she is asleep by 7:30--in this case you would then shorten the am nap to 30min.

so with a 30min nap, I would do:
nap 10:15-10:45,
crib 1:00/1:15pm--and let her play and fall asleep hopefully by 1:30pm---sleep til 3pm
bed 7ish
asleep by 7:30pm