10 month old taking a good morning nap but afternoon nap is 45 minutes

[Nicholas06]

Hi there,

I have a 10-month old who takes a great morning nap but the afternoon nap is never longer than 45 minutes and he wakes up screaming!!  I have tried and tried to manipulate the A times (shorter, longer) after the morning nap but it does not seem to work!  I have tried 1 hour and 30 minutes activity time to 2 hours of activity time to 3 hours of activity time between naps and nothing helps!
Other than letting him scream to get back to sleep (which does not work either), I am at wits end!!

Here is my EASY routine:

7 am - wake
730 am - bottle (7 oz)
9 am - breakfast
930 am - 1045 am (nap #1) - for 1.25 hours (I wake him up as he would go longer)
11 am - snack
1200 pm - lunch
130 pm - bottle (7 oz)
145 pm - 230 pm (nap #2) - wakes up screaming! : (
330 pm - snack
5 pm - dinner
6 pm - bath (a basket case for bath and bed as so tired!!!) : (
630 pm - bottle (7 oz)
7 pm - bed

He sleeps through till 7 am.  Is he ready for one nap??? Does a 45 minute nap mean under of over tired?

[~Sara~]

Hi there!  Just something that jumps right out at me is his first A time: it's only 2.5 hours long.  Have you tried pushing that one to the 3-4h range??  Most 8-10 month olds are doing between 3 and 4 hours of A time in one go (see here: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652).

That said, what appears to be happening is that his first nap, he goes down undertired and then by the day's end, he's overtired (that 45 min nap isn't enough to get him through to bedtime).

Most OT naps tend to be closer to 30/35 minutes, but some LOs will have a 45min OT nap.  Generally, it's been my experience that 45 minutes means UT...but, some LOs break the mold

Will wait for your response before talking about dropping a nap   Hang in there!

Also, thought this might help:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85134.0

[Nicholas06]

Hi Sara,

I tried to push his activity time in the morning, as you suggested, to 10 am (approx. 3 hours after he wakes) and he cried and cried to go down, then finally went down at 1015 am and slept for 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

When I was putting him him down at the 2.5 hour mark in the am, he goes straight to sleep and sleeps for 1.5 hours, no problem.  He would go longer if I let him.

For the afternoon nap, I have been putting him down at the 3 hour mark, giving him about 10 or so minutes to settle (upon waking from nap #1) and he screamed again and then napped for 45 minutes and screamed.

He has been doing this for 2 days consistently now.

What to do?

[~Sara~]

Hmm, maybe try just 5 minutes more at a time??  A shorter nap is, obviously, not the goal here

However, that said, he really might be starting to make the 2-1 nap transition.  I don't have much experience with that, but here's a thread that might be insightful:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=155604.0