20-Month Naps Falling Apart!?!

[krumley428]

Hello All   It has been quite some time since I have had to post a concern re my little one.  Lily is now 20-months-old and is (thanks to BW and the boards!) still STTN beautifully from 7pm-7am.  My concern is over her naps, or lack of, over the past few weeks.  Ever since our 2-1 nap transition, Lily has typically taken a wonderful 2 hour nap.  Lily puts herself to sleep after wind-down routine with very little, if any, fuss.  About a month ago, I noticed that her naps seemed to be getting a bit shorter but she was still waking up happy and I figured that it was simply that she didn't need as much sleep.  However, over the past two weeks, her naps have declined drastically in length and it is taking a lot more effort to get her down.  The past four days have been an out right battle to get her to nap for even 15 minutes.  I have racked my brain over and over again and do not see where I am going wrong.  Our routine/schedule has not changed as far as I can tell.  She acts the same as she always has during wind-down, but when I go to lay her in her crib, she clings to me as tightly as possible, followed by 10 minutes+ of crying, screaming for me, etc. before falling asleep for 5-20 minutes and waking up even more upset then when she went down.  I have read and re-read both the BW and BW for Toddlers books to no avail.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much!

Kim     

[becky1969]

May just be ready for more A time.  I'd try putting her down for nap 30 min later and see how that works.

On the other hand, lots of moms start haivng trouble around 18 mo b/c the awful canines are starting to come in; these make toddlers tired easier and so many toddlers need an earlier bedtime and nap than before.


In your case sounds more like a child who's UT (b/c nap is getting shorter and she's crying).  So I'd try the later nap!

I wouldn't expect the amt of sleep she needs to change much until a bit after age 2.

[krumley428]

Thank you for the reply.  All four canines are in so I am going to opt to try for later nap and more a-time.  We'll see ...

Kim

Was going to leave it at that except that today's "non-nap" was particularly bad.  Just in case anyone has any more advice, here are the only other things that I could think of that are pertinent; regardless of the crazy hard time putting Lily down at nap, she is still having NO problem going down at night (a blessing yes but why is it different at nap?!), I am getting worried about letting her "work it out" alone in her crib because she is very big for her age and could probably climb out if she put her mind to it, her schedule has been the same for the past three months when I last up'd her a-time.  That's everything I think.  As aforementioned, I am going to try putting her down later for tomorrow's nap and see what happens.  Thanks all!

[becky1969]

If you can't leave her alone in her room for fear of her climbing out then it is time for a BG bed! LOs wake up in the morning often and we don't hear them, so if you're *that* worried then you may want to transition.

The way we kept my son in his crib a long time was a sleep sack -- it really hampered his climbing abilities.  My son is a MONKEY and was able to climb just about everything by 13 months old.  But I just moved him into a BBB at 3.5 yo.