My little girl (2.5) has always had a difficult time napping (never napped more than 30 minutes at a time as an infant). She went through a long phase of good naps around 1.5 - 2 years old. She is now 2.5, and has gotten into horrid habits. She wakes at 6:30am - 7am (sometimes will sleep in later and we have to wake her by 8am), goes to bed at 7pm and falls asleep within 30 minutes at nighttime. All of this is fine and good.
Naps, on the other hand, are making me tear me hair out. She goes down between 1:00pm and 1:15pm after a long wind-down routine, and for the past 2 months, unless I intervene heavily (i.e. talk at her through the baby monitor and tell her to lay down), she will not sleep. If I can talk to her in the monitor sternly, she will lay down and be asleep within 15 minutes. Without intervention, she will never fall asleep and jumps, screams, sings, etc. (LOUDLY - wakes her twin brother in the next room) in her crib. She is definitely tired, because she sometimes sleeps for 2-2.5 hours once she does fall asleep.
As you can imagine, the intervention needed (basically me getting cross on the baby monitor and telling her to stop playing, lay down, go to sleep, etc.) is getting more and more and it's becoming a big crutch. It also prevents me from getting a thing done while she's sleeping, because I have to watch the monitor like a hawk!
The other issue is that she will still wake up after 30 or 45 minutes (sometimes even one hour) - obviously in a sleepy phase, and immediately begins crying. If I talk to her right away in the monitor and tell her sternly to lay down, she will go back to sleep and sleep for another 30 minutes (or sometimes even up to 2 hours). Without this intervention, she will begin playing, jumping, singing in her crib and will not fall back asleep.
I doubt she's really ready to drop a nap since she seems to need the sleep. But, her naps involve so much intervention and frustration that I am at my wits end. She has a twin brother who sleeps soundly for 2.5 hours and another baby is coming in the early Spring, so I'm hoping to get this issue resolved somewhat. Thank you for any input or insights you might offer!
