2 yr old waking from naps crying and LONG crib party

[pbmom]

My 2 yr old has been waking from naps crying the last few days.  She never cries unless sick.  She has been partying in her crib for 1 1/2 hrs prior to going to sleep for naps.  When we come down from nap she sits in my lap for up to an hour crying.  Not like her at all.  I think she  might be cumulatively OT from the time change as her routine has been an hour off since then, but I have kept the nap at the same time.

Here's her routine:

7:30 wakeup (used to be 8:30)
8:00 Bfast
Play until winddown at 12:15
12:30 Nap (party until 2pm in crib)
         Actual nap 2-3pm
3pm wakeup
3:30 Snack
5:30/6:00 Dinner
7:15 Winddown for bed
7:30/6:45 Bed (crib party for approx. 1/2 hr)

She's always been the queen of the crib party before and after sleep, but this is ridiculous.  If she woke happy I wouldn't care, but where is my happy child?

Any thoughts?

[LeesMom]

Hi,
Do you wake her at 3 or does she wake on her own? My dd's crib parties really started up when she turned 2 and I ended up having to wake her after only an hour... she was generally NOT pleased. Do you think there could be anything else going on like teeth coming in? This is happening for us right now (crying after sleeps)... I thought it was because she has a cold but today I saw a molar coming through --- looked REALLY painful    Seems your lo is getting the proper amt. of sleep though --- am I reading correctly that she gets about 12 hrs. overnight and then 1 hour nap? We're only doing about 12.5 total here at this point. HTH

[pbmom]

Hi and thanks for the quick response

She already has her molars...right on time that one

She has always been the queen of the crib party (since a baby).  She will generally play for 1/2 hr and then sleep for 2-2 1/2 for nap so it surprised me that she would party so long and only sleep one hour.  She is not happy upon waking and is waking up herself crying.  I've never had to wake her from her nap.  She could sleep until 4 and then still go down to bed on time and not wake any earlier the next day. 

I was afraid she was getting sick or something, but no symptoms.  I thought maybe she was OT as she was waking up crying.     

[pbmom]

oops - sorry...and generally 11 hrs at night (45 min crib party until about 8:30pm)

[LeesMom]

Hmmm...
I'm wondering if, like you said, her body just hasn't fully adjusted to the time change yet. That might explain why she's waking around 3:00 (her body thinks it's 4:00, definitely time to be up from nap). I'm wondering if you tried for her nap around 12:00 instead of 12:30 if it might help a bit. Not sure if this is possible with your schedule, but might be worth a try. If I'm reading your original post correctly, it looked like she was originally doing about 4 hrs. A time in the mornings (plus 1/2 hr. for crib party) before the time change. Maybe now she is getting too much A time in the mornings and so it's harder for her to fall asleep for her nap. It's strange about the time change... some kids seem to adapt really quickly to the new schedule but for others it takes a while. HTH 

[Layla]

I don't ever do the full hour at once as I remember doing that with my dd2 & she went beyond OT & it took me 6 weeks to fix! I think its better to also take a step back to her previous nap time & perhaps add 20mins or so every 3days or so... should only take about a week for her to get back on track

hth
Layla

[pbmom]

I noticed that she was up for 4 hrs before and then 5 hrs now too after I re-read my post.  I'll try earlier tomorrow...I'm home with a 4 month old too, so we can do whatever we need to.

Thanks again LeesMom and Layla...I'll let you know what happens.

[LeesMom]

Good luck tomorrow