Need advice...in 2-1 transition but going on a trip.

[jlmlyle]

Hi,

I need some advice, and you lovely people seem just right.    So I have a 12 month old, (birthday two weeks ago), and she is in the early stages of the 2-1 switch.  We started having our second set of EW and difficulty with bedtime with the 2nd nap too late, and so we are pushing the morning nap and shortening it so that the 2nd nap occurs earlier.  Anyway this second round of EW started yesterday, so I am just now catching up and yesterday was off and today was totally off as I got stuck in traffic so she woke early and her 1st nap was late giving her a WT of 5 hours!  Ughh, it is normally 3-3.5.  Anyway my dilemma is this: we are traveling on Thursday, and I am trying to adjust naps Mon-Wed to correct the early wakings.  So that is one annoyance as we are at risk for OT.

Our plane leaves in the afternoon, so would you allow a longer first nap even though that's not the norm just to make sure some sort of nap happens?  Or would you keep the short first nap and hope for the more standard long nap on the plane.  In plane trips past, we have a hard time getting past 45 minutes...

Also, on the 5 day trip, she'll have one day for recovery and staying put for naps, but the next two days we have events to attend, so naps will be disrupted, and the 5th day is a travel day.  As you can see I am stressing because we have an adjustment right now followed by travel which will be disruptive, so suggestions on how best to deal with the travel days and preventing OT is welcome!

Here is her current routine though we have had issues last few days...(3-3.5 hour waketime, 40ish min nap, 3-3.5 hour waketime, 1.5-2 hour nap, 3-3.5 hour waketime before bed):

Wake: 7:00 (though 6:40, and 6:20 last few days) and bottle
E: 8:30 or 9:00
S: 10:15/30  for 40 minutes, may shorten to 35 or 30 after trip
W: 11:00ish (waking her to keep 2nd nap earlier)
E: 12:30/1:00ish
S: 2:00/2:30 this is 1.5-2 hour nap typically small bottle before nap (we are transitioning her fluid intake down and adding milk)
W: 3:30-4:00
E: 5:30/6:00
S: 7:30 bedtime and bottle


Thanks,
Jasmine

[jlmlyle]

Bump! I am hoping to get some input. We had more EW this morning...

[jordiwes]

Hi there,
We just got back from a trip and we are in the middle of a transition (we have been for a month +).
IMO, I think you have to let the routine go a little while you are on vacation. You have plenty of time to recover afterwards. Take sleep where you can get it. I'd say let the morning nap go for as long as possible. My daughter doesn't nap very long on the plane either.
With the EW, you might want to push this first nap a little and shorten to 30 minutes.
HTH

[deckchariot]

I agree with pp - don't try to do anything with the switch while on vacation - our approach is to just grab naps where ever and when ever we can when we're away - dd usually ends up just taking multiple catnaps each day.  Then when you get back, you can work more on the transition.  Just one note - if you're shortening the am nap, you don't want to push the A time on it - keep it at the same time, the A time between the 2 naps will be the A time you adjust.  If you want to push the A time for the first nap, don't cut it short.  That was the bit that I got confused on while doing the split too, and I was finding it then impossible to get 2 naps of any length in.  There are basically 2 approaches to the switch:
1) keep 1st nap at the same A time every day, but gradually shorten the length of it; at the same time, move pm nap earlier (by the same amount you shorten nap 1).  When nap 1 is <30 min, attempt to cut it out and just have 1 nap.
2) push morning A time later, allow your bub to sleep as long as they want in the am, then do a late pm catnap (can be a shorter A time than in the am, as you don't want them to take a full nap); eventually cut out pm catnap.

If she needs a longer A time before bed, then option #1 is generally better.  If she doesn't and HATES being woken from the am nap, option #2 may be better.  In both cases, you can offer an early bedtime if one/both of the naps is bad.

Whichever approach you choose - it's best to go gradually - so either cut 15 min off the am nap every 3-5 days or lengthen the am A time by 15 min every 3-5 days.  It also is helpful to know about how much day sleep is "optimal" for your dd and how much A time she needs (minimum) between her last nap and bedtime - that can help you plan out the day.

hth
michelle

[jlmlyle]

Thanks for the advice!  I think I'll do as you suggested and have her nap as long as she can in the morning and just go with the catnaps for the afternoon on the plane.  And than of course any nap we can get on the activity days will be whatever happens.  Past trips have taken us about a week to get back to things, so I was nervous about being off these last few days and than purposefully being off because of the trip.  Oh well, that's how it goes.

As to your suggestion, Michelle, of cutting the nap to 1 per day, I have a question.  I am following the first approach because I was afraid that as she got older, the 2nd case might become difficult if she needed a certain A time before sleeping since I hear that is often the case with toddlers.  So we decided to shorten the AM nap, and she does fine with that.  Anyway, why do you say to ditch it when you have to shorten it to less than 30 min?  I have noticed other moms shortening to even 10 minutes. I don't know if that works because I haven't followed those threads that closely, but I thought it was best to hold onto two naps as long as possible...  And we just shortened to 45 minutes when she was 11.5 months, and here we are at 12.5 months needing to shorten to 30 minutes.  So that means the drop to 1 would be right around the corner?  I was hoping for closer to 18 months for it!

Thanks so much for the help!
Jasmine

[deckchariot]

The suggestion to drop it once it's less than 30 min is what's been recommended.  I know some mums do go shorter than that, but given the length of a toddler's sleep cycle, a nap less than 30 min isn't really even a catnap, so it's not necessarily helping your bub transition, though I do think it helps mums   If you're getting good naps of 30 min and then a longer pm nap, there's no reason to ditch that 30 min nap yet.  Hold on to it as long as nights are good and the pm nap is good.  Only drop it once you notice either issues with the 2nd nap, NWs, EWs, or nap refusal with the am nap.  How long that takes varies from every bub.  I have a textbook dd, and even she went to 1 nap at 14 mos.  Also, once you initially go to 1 nap, you may find that you have several weeks where you go back and forth between 1 nap days and 2 nap days.  Does that help?

[jlmlyle]

Hi Michelle,

Sorry I didn't reply, I left for my trip the next day and than have been trying to adjust since we came back.  It seems like 1st year molars were also beginning to move up and so with a few one nap days with the travel and the teething she slept a LOT when we got back.  Now we are back to her more typical sleep needs and the 2-1 transition.

I could use your input because I'm not sure what to do next.  We've had protests at naps for the last 5 naps.  This is completely new and isn't simply an OT thing, I think.  Because she will protest as I lay her down, and than quiet when I leave the room and sit there playing as though UT until she is ready for her nap.  Sometimes she protests and than falls straight asleep.  In that 2nd situation I am suspecting OT.  But this protest with the UT is completely new.

Right now we have the following: 3.5 hr wake time, 30 minute nap (wake her), and even though I tried earlier it looks like a 4 hr wake time before her pm nap, and a 2nd nap which I have recently not allowed to go beyond 4 pm, even if it is only 45 min- 1hr, because she needs the longer waketime to make her bedtime.  Even when she has a long pm nap, she still wants her 7:30 bedtime and if she had a late nap, than she isn't sitting up UT, but rolling around for an hour or so, and than wakes early.  The last two days, I have been waking her at 4:00 pm, and she sleeps pretty soon after 7:30 and sleeps till 7:00.  I was nervous about 10 hour nights contributing to OT, so I have been trying to fix things so that the 2nd nap ends earlier and she gets 11-11.5 hours of sleep.

What do you suggest I do now?  It looks like the 30 minute nap in the morning isn't really working right now in terms of fixing the 2nd nap.  DD will turn 13 months on friday. I'm not sure which direction to adjust naps or if this whole thing is a sign of a OT cycle...

I am nervous about transitioning to 1 nap since she didn't seem to do well with that during the trip.    

Jasmine

[deckchariot]

It looks like you're caught in that awkward stage where your day isn't quite long enough to get 2 naps in, but too long to get 1 nap in.  That's when it's really hard.  You could do any of the following:

1) go to one nap, move bedtime 30 min earlier to compensate for no am nap
2) keep 30 min am nap, do 4 hrs of A time before the pm nap, but let her sleep as long as she needs to.  Then make sure you've got 3.5 hrs of A time before bedtime (so her bedtime may be later)
3) cut the am nap by 10 min, move pm nap a bit earlier, keep 4:00 wake up and 7:30 bedtime
4) move the am nap 30 min earlier, but still keep it to 30 min, that will move the pm nap 30 min earlier, still wake her at 4 and do 7:30 bedtime.
5) do one nap for 1-3 days, then do a 2 nap day to "catch up" from OT

It's really up to you what you think will work best.  If she only needs 3.5 hrs of A time between her nap and bed, you could do option 1 pretty easily.  If you notice that she's getting OT - if you get a NW or an EW, then go back to a 2 nap day.  Does that help at all?

[jlmlyle]

Hi Michelle,

That totally helps.  I sometimes get paralyzed by fear of what the right thing to do is.  And than I can't reason things out.  I think I will try option 3 first.  It seems like when I put her down earlier in the am, she still doesn't go to sleep until 3.5 hrs of wake time so I don't think #4 will work for typical days.  If that doesn't work, I may switch to number 2 for awhile until she can do 1 & 5.  I really would like to keep the actual switch to 1 nap to when she is older, but she keeps changing, of course

Do you have any guesses for why she all of a sudden is crying when I put her down for a nap?  This wasn't her old UT signal.  And she hasn't generally given me good tired cues, unless she is teething, so I usually go by the clock.  That used to work...  I guess I am not sure if the crying is UT or OT because on some occasions it has been like the OT, and she mantra cries and than falls asleep within 10 minutes of so.  But I have also had a few occasions of crying than playing than crying and falling asleep some 30 min- 1 hr later.  These are mantra cries, by the way...

Jasmine

[deckchariot]

If it's taking her awhile to go to sleep and some (most) of it is happy-ish, I'd guess UT.  If it's more of a screaming crying and she drops off right away, I'd guess OT.  It gets much harder to tell (I think) as they get older.  And the nap switch is just confusing overall.  Sometimes it helps to just have another perspective, because when you're in the midst of it, it's hard to figure out what to do.  You can mix and match the options too to find what works best for you and your bub.  My dd dropped to one nap at 14 mos, and it was delightful actually - she'd sleep for 3.5 hrs   Those days are gone, but she still takes a lovely afternoon nap, and it's nice to have our whole morning free, so life on the other side of the switch is good - you'll get there.