Me again!

[Carmela's Mom]

UNC when you made bedtime later for her, what time did you make it?  And how long did it take? 

See what's hurting us (I think) is those catnaps on the couch.  Before the catnaps, she'd go to sleep at 7:00 and wake up at 7 or later.  Now with these catnaps, she's in bed at 7:00 but falling asleep closer to 7:30 and up at all different times in the morning.  Her brother may be waking her which is a whole other can of worms. 

Today she was up EARLY and never went back to sleep so I know she'll take a catnap on the couch!

[UNCMomma]

Bedtime was 7 or 7:15 for the most part until the last couple of months, now 7:30.  If we've got something going on she can push it to 8, but a couple nights of this in a row brings us back to EW.  When she FIRST started skipping the nap and we did the early 6:30 bedtime, it took us maybe a month to ease our way back to 7 PM. 

What time are the catnaps when they happen? 

What does she do when she wakes in the AM?  Another BW friend has done this trick with her 3 year old... she tapes an index card with a big "7" on her kid's clock over the minutes.  She tells him when the numbers match (2 7's, therefore 7:00 AM) he can get up, but not til then.  We haven't had to try that yet, but I'm keeping it in the back of my mind!  Thought it might be helpful for Carmela...

Good luck!

[Carmela's Mom]

She starts rest at 1:30 pm (when DS goes in for pm nap) and then she falls asleep around 2:30 or 3:00.  And sleeps anywhere from 15-30 mins.  Today DS is only getting one nap (I had an eye doctor appointment so he had to miss his am nap) so I can put her for her 'rest" earlier and see how that goes.

[Mum of girl, boy, boy]

Carmelas mum. We seem to bump into each other at the same times and guess what. Our daugthers are the same age. After the weekend I am going to try and new routine as DD's naps have got too long and night time sleep disturbed or taking ages to go to sleep. If I let her miss naps she's a bear to be around. What I going to try is a proper nap with me waking her after 1 hour. I am going to put her down at 12.30 each day and wake at 13.30 If she goes she goes if not when the alarm goes naps finished. I think the first week will be bumpy and then after that is should settle more and we might not end up with such a dramtic yo yo effect. What I am hoping is that if I set the boundaries she will fall into it. So lets say the first day she messes about and doesn't sleep until 13.15 I will still wake her. Bedtime will always be the same time nap or no nap as my DD seems to be able to tell the time. The next day I will keep activities low and perhaps try. I then go for the nap again and hopefully she'll be willing because she'll be overtired. I'll wake her up at the same time. I am hoping that by the end of the week her body clock will be on my time. By letting her nap one day and not the next it seems to through her more and by having more sleep one day than the next I have no idea where I am with it.

I will keep you post.

Probably will start at the weekend. Once she's had a couple of nights in her bed (shipping arrives as we moved to Oz).

Good luck. Hopefully if my strategy works it might be worth a try. Also if it does work I figure I could use it until she drops naps completely but just reduce the nap length.

J

[Carmela's Mom]

I tried doing exactly what your doing, but she still would go to sleep too late (9pm versus 10 pm though).  She still woke up at 6:30ish am (sometimes earlier).  So that's why we dropped the nap.  I feel bad dropping the nap beause she didn't want to skip it, but wanted to nap for a long time and then go to sleep late and wake early.  Today her brother is taking one nap so she'll rest earlier.  Hopefully that works. 

[Mum of girl, boy, boy]

Oh ok. I reckon we are going to have to go through the pain threshold with no naps to. All our furniture arrived today and we were busy unpacking and I decided that it was going to be pretty hard to convince her to nap with so many toys and a new bed and I didn't want to spend the time getting her down and then not have the evening to carry on unpacking. She went to bed and I explained the boundary. Mummy will say good night nicely and then I am not talking anymore. Each time she got out of bed and head for the door I would put her back and not talk. After about 5 attempts she stayed back in bed. Once she was quiet I did go back in to check and kissed her goodnight and I think that reassured her that mummy was not being mean just firm. I have now put a potty in her room and we should be all set up to go. Its got to be nicer for her to sleep in a bed rather than a ready bed. Will keep you posted but I reckon we will be following you with the bumpy transition.

Just out of interest do you reckon we find this transition harder because we have another little one. If it was just DD I think it would be just fine really but when you are needed by another little one it makes is that much more of an issue if they are grumpy and not so willing to tow the line. I just don't have the time to distract her at the end of the day. Today I had DH home and I just left him to sort out DS whilst I kept on top of DD's mood and it wasn't too bad but we were on the edge a couple of times.

Take care.

J

 

[Carmela's Mom]

It is definitely harder with my son around.  Because if he wasn't, then I'd just an hour quiet time and be able to put her in her room and then be able to get out and do things.  But with my son's naps its hard to do so.  Also maybe we could do more things that would tire her out if my son weren't here.  But he is   And I know a ton of people that got through these transitions with 2.  I just didn't realize how difficult it is!!!!!!!  like today, my son is refusing his am nap and I'm about to go crazy.  We were supposed to meet friends at the park at 11:00 but it is now 10:45 and no morning nap for my son means that I will have to do lunch soon and get him down for one nap instead.  Which means I need to cancel the time with our friends.  That aggravates me to no end

[Mum of girl, boy, boy]

After a missed nap DD went to bed early she woke around 1030pm and was crying saying that her tummy hurt. She had a bit of weetabix before bed. Not normal but because of our container arriving meals were all over the place and I didn't want her to feel hungry so probably my fault. I gave her a little paracetamol and calmed her down and she did calm down eventually!!! After that she stayed in bed all night!!! We had our mattress and it was bliss. She has finally hit the wall today at around 2pm so she's in her room for quiet time and I am not going to stress too much about it all. DH is home early tonight so I should have some help for the bit that gets hard.

I'll keep you updated. The two nap things is such a pain with the little one as it messes the day about. I ended up switching DS early to one nap. I would get him to have a 20 min nap (at around 10am) in the car every other day then wake him up to preserve the afternoon nap. Often it was a case of falling asleep whilst we were out and about and me waking him. If he had 45 mins that would be enough to keep him going until 3pm and too late. Sometimes now he could nod off if in the car around 11am. I normally wake him up after 5mins and he still goes down later. If he does sleep longer I then have to move the pm nap. Probably the reason I can do this with him is that is Angel / Textbook. DD is more Grumpy / Spirted / Textbook.

Catch you later.

J