anyone want to chat about the 2-1 nap switch , thread#3

[laurencopenhaver]

Thanks Linda, Kyler is going to bed about 6, sleeping till 5:30 or so, usually about 11.5 at night.  Then nap is anywhere from 30 min to 1.5 hrs.  But the majority is 45 min-1 hr.  So 12.25-12.5 now I guess.  I though about 2 diff. ends of the spectrum;  extending am awake time to be able to extend betime then try to soothe him back to sleep till 6:30; or put him down at 5 pm.  I'm afraid to do that cause he already seems to be waking earlier and rested since I implemented the 5:45-6 bedtime.

[lesorl]

Hi lindaloulou-

The past few days, my lo (11 mos tomorrow) has been waking before 6am (5:10am-5:45am) and I've gone in and PD once, and she's been going back to sleep until about 6:30am.  She takes 2 naps, but they vary greatly in length.  Generally she's a short napper.  This morning she had 3 hours 25 mins A time, but yesterday is was 4 hours 5 mins A time. 

Hi Lauren- have you tried shifting his day a little, 10-15 mins every few days?  It seems he's getting enough sleep at night, so it sounds like you need to move everything forward- eating/naps/bedtime, not put him to bed earlier.  What time is is his 1st nap?  We're all here for you, so hang in there. 

Leslie

[laurencopenhaver]

Leslie-Thanks I need the support right now, it's been really hard on me.  A couple weeks ago I was putting down closer to 11:30 and for about 4-5 days he was sleeping 1.5 hrs.  Then he started waking after 30 min. crying (which indicates ot), so I kept moving it back until he didn't wakeup crying like that.  This past week it's been 10:15-10:30.  Yesterday I put down at 10:30 and he only slept 45 min woke happy (which indicates not enough A time).  So today I kept him up till 10:50 and he slept for an hour, and seems well rested.  He first wakes kinda whiny but not crying.  And now is in a great mood.  Tomorrow I'll try for 11 since he didn't wake crying after 30 min.  I assume bedtime will be around 6:30 tonight.  If he wakes at 5:15-5:30 and is awake till 11, that's quite a lot of a time and should be ready to handle this right?  Now we just have to get him waking later.  I'm so afraid that he is waking now out of habit of getting up sooo early.  It's not the same time every day but it's always earlier than 6.

[NiknLily]

Lauren, you can shift his day as Leslie said. First set his nap & bedtime time for a few days to the same time each day, then add 10Min's to his am A time and move everything by 10Min's so any bottle, breakfast, snacks would also be 10Min's later than normal.  Then do his lunch, snacks, dinner last bottle and bedtime 10Min's later than normal.  Keep doing this everyday and as his bedtime creeps later so his wake up will follow.  Its important to move meals and bottles as well because these are markers to his body clock about what time of day it is and what happens next.  DD was waking at 5/5.30 and in bed no later than 5.30 at night when we went onto 1 nap, fixing the time of nap & bedtime made her wake up jump up 30/45Min's on it's own and then I shifted her day to 7am-7pm.  Her nap also became a more regular length once her routine was fixed, it was short between an 45Min's and 1.15Min's but slowly its improved we now get almost 2hrs.  I also found that I was able to put her down early to bed and it not just cause EW which it had done before.  For us OT caused the initial EW and the only way out of OT was an early night as I could not get her to take good naps (and she had always been a good napper) but the constant early nights can reinforce the EW    I did find W2S some help extending Lily's nap but PD worked better for us as we did get a bit stuck on 45min nap at one point and for some time would need PD at 45Min's into nap, now she sleeps right through.

[laurencopenhaver]

Thanks new mum, that was helpful.  Tomorrow I'll move sippy to 15-30 min after wakeup instead of first thing, then bf around 7:15 instead of 7, and so on.  I didn't realize those had to be moved too, but makes sense.  I wanted to have bedtime tonight 6:30,  but by the time bathtime was over and he played in him room, he was tired and now fell asleep at 6:10.  Oh well, that's 15 min. later than last night.  But also slept 15 min. longer but was up from nap at 11:50 instead of 11:15 yesterday.  I really appreciate the advice, you have no idea how much it's helped me, especially w/ my sanity.  How long was it before your little one started sleeping till 7?  And when was her nap during the day if she woke at 5?

[amy123]

lauren - we're all going through some form of the same thing.  hang in there!!

newmum - your last post to lauren was helpful to me too, as I'd forgotten that when they shift to 1 nap, it won't automatically be a 2 hour ordeal!  today dd refused a.m. nap, so when she went down after 5.5 hrs A time, i was hoping for a big long delicious nap, but it was only 45 minutes.  at that point i didn't know whether to do PD or get her up and just plan on an early bedtime.  tomorrow i might try w2s if the same  pattern starts emerging.

must run... am doing some self-care tonight!  shopping w/ the girls.  so good to remember that every moment of my life doesn't revolve around dd's sleep schedule. 
amy

[lindaloulou]

Just when I thought it could'nt get any worse...I aimed for a SUPER early bedtime tonight and had her in bed at about 5:30. She hung out in bed for about 15 minutes and now is crying (for about 25+ minutes) and its almost 6:30. She has not cried at bedtime for over a year!!! I really am down right now and it seems everything I am doing is just all wrong. Do early bedtimes just NOT work for some of am I just getting discouraged too easily?

Linda

Now its 6:46 and still not asleep....

[Aly Mac]

Newmum, I also didn't realise about moving the eating schedule too  Something to remember when helping others on naps too.  I will try that with Lil.  wE are getting some 6am wake ups here - well her waking me up, I suspect she is up earlier.  I dont mind 6 as I can feed her, then DH gets up to go to work so at least he has some tme with her.  Will aim for this for a couple of weeks, and then try to move a little later.  still no 100% on the bedtime - basically trying to make it as close to a 7pm sleep time as I can with out her being ot.  Lots of walks int eh garden iwth dh before bed, seems to work well. We had some nw last night but that was due to OT and OS yesterday, so half expected it.... naps ok today, but need to be better. 

Linda, maybe it was a little too early?  jsut guessing here, but maybe an extra 10mins would help her go down quieter?  I did that for L's naps when she was fussing too much, but not sure if it would work with bedtime..

hope it went ok.

Amy!   (waving madly...)

[lesorl]

Lindaloulou- how did she sleep last night??  Sorry you had such a rough time getting her to sleep.  I think I mentioned that happened with my lo the past few nights, it took more than an hour for her to go to bed, and then she woke early.  Since I would go in when she woke early and do 1 PD, she was going back to sleep.  Not sure if she was trying to move her day forward, as last night I put her to bed at 6pm, she fell asleep at 6:23pm, and then woke this morning at 6:23am.  That's definite progress for us.  What time does she usually go to bed?

Amy123- Off topic, but how was shopping?  And more importantly did you get ideas I could steal from you?

We had a decent day yesterday-

6:30am Awake
S 9:54am-11:05am
S 2:33pm-3:10pm (not enough A time, despite the tired signs?)
Bedtime 6:23pm

6:23am Awake

new mum- still can't thank you enough for your help!

Leslie

[lindaloulou]

Ana finally fell asleep at a bit before 7PM and woke at 5:37...about 10.75 houre which is still way too little. Not sure what to do about the early bedtime. She desperatly needs to catch up on sleep...but 3 night running it has taken her forever to go down. Before the OT thing Ana was going to bed and asleep around 7PM, waking after 6AM. Sorry to keep asking, but does anyone have any other ideas???

Thanks all for the support!

Linda

[NiknLily]

Lauren - I started by putting her down at 10.30, it was a little too late after a 5am wake up (5.5hrs) but I needed to get it as late as possible.  I think it took about a week before her wake up jumped up to a fairly consistant 6am so I pushed her nap to 11am then shifted the rest of day from there, took a week to do at 10Min's a day, so no time at all really.  DD is now 19months and I find that max 5hrs A in am and 5hrs after nap works best for her.  If she has a bad night or naps poorly one day the next day I put her down at 4.5hrs A and she will then sleep later than if I put her down at 5hrs A time.

Amy - if you get a 1nap day again I would try to get her down at 5hrs A time, 5.5hrs can be just too long

Linda - it sounds like she's hitting rock bottom, the only way is up from there.  Lily will do the total bedtime nightmare thing when horribly OT.  It drives me insane knowing she is soooo tired but still won't go to sleep.  The thing is if they are OT and not napping well an early night is your only chance to get past the OT, its just the early nights can cause their own problems, like reinforcing EW.  The way I can tell with Lily is if it just takes her some time to go to sleep but we have little or no NW and she does a good 11.5-12hrs night then she wanted a later bedtime, but if she fights bedtime, has NWs and/or EW then it was OT stopping her going to sleep. It will get better soon  

Just seen your latest post, what is she doing during the day now, can you give average routine for last few days, and can you remind me how old she is 

AlyMac - I've just realised we both have Lily Mai's just spelt differently  

[lindaloulou]

New Mum-

Ana is 16 months a few days ago. The past few days her routine has looked like this:

5:00-5:35 wake
6:30 out of crib and BF/breakfast
8:45ish down for nap (yesterday she went right down, today she has been in crib for 35m inutes not asleep yet)
10:00ish awake from nap
10:45ish BF/lunch
1:45ish down for nap
2:30ish falls asleep for 20 minute nap
5:30 in bed last night/ closer to 6/6:15 previous nights
asleep between 6:40-7PM

This is roughly what our day looks like the past few days
 

Linda

[radmer22]

  I have read the FAQ's and numerous pages on this post, but am not quite sure I've got my answer.  My DD is almost 16months and wanting to go to one nap.  Oh the joy!

I understand that I move her nap 15min. later until it reaches around noon, then just put her to bed early.  My problem is that when I put her to bed early, she cat naps, wakes up 45 min. later and cries to get up.  She has a really hard time going back to sleep even when she tries. It might take two + hours to get her down again.  If I give her a short late evening nap (i.e. 5pm), sometimes she has a hard time going to bed that night (delay bedtime to about 9pm--yuck!) and will sometimes have night wakings.

Obviously, the shift in schedule/routine is messing up her eating, so sometimes she's hungry in the middle of the night/early morning.

She has also started night wakings, early wakings...  This has been going on for many weeks now and I'd sure like to know if I just have to wait it out even longer or if there is something I can do to make it better.

Also has four molars coming in!  Doesn't seem to bother her tooo terribly much most days.

Former routine:
7:20 wakes up, milk.
8:20 breakfast
10:30 nap (1.5 hours)
12:00 lunch
1:30 milk
3:30 nap (1.5 hours)
6pm dinner
8pm bed

THANKS!

[laurencopenhaver]

Okay ladies, things seem to be getting worse instead of better.  Kyler is now waking up more at night crying, and it's lasting longer too, usually 1-2 min of crying before he goes back to sleep.  Then he wake around 4-4:30 and cries off and on until about 5:30-5:45.  Here's our lately routine:

5:15-5:45 wakeup
6:00         out of crib
6:30         milk
7:00         breakfast
9:00         snack (he's such a poor eater that he barely eats bf and I have to sometimes give snack at 8:30)
10:30-11:00  nap; usually 1-1.15 hrs; lunch when wakeup
3:00         snack
5:45-6:15  bedtime

The last few days has gone to bed 6:10 or so.  He doesn't seem tired, he's kinda hyper.  But his eyelids are red and puffy by 4:00 or so.  Should I put to bed earlier?  Gosh it seems when I did that his wakeup got earlier cause he was getting close to 12 hrs.

[NiknLily]

Linda  - Only you know if you think this will work out OK, but I think if it where me at her age I would try going for the 1 nap, maybe a late catnap too if she will take one, if not just an earlyish night.  I would start by putting her down at 10am for her nap regardless of wake time then have her in bed 5hrs after she wakes from nap or 5.30pm at latest, let this stick for a few days/week and see if her wake up time shifts up at all.  Once this is set then shift her day up as I've described above somewhere, until wake up is at about 7am with a 7/7.30 bedtime.  She probably wont sleep much more than 1.15hrs a day during this, but once the day is shifted I would adjust her am A time to be between 4.5-5hrs and 5hrs A time after nap till bedtime.  At this point if she only sleeps 1.15hrs during day you should find you can put her down 30Min's early for bed and it will help get over the OT and not cause EW.  Once she isn't OT anymore you can extend that morning A time up to 5hrs, which should be about lunch time.  Thats what I did with Lily at the same age and was so glad that I did as things really started to work themselves out once I did this.  One more thing is to make sure you give some rest time mid morning and a snack to help her get through the long A times in am.

Radmer22 - can you put her down for a short catnap maybe 15/20Min's at 5pm to help see her through to bedtime 1.5-2hrs later.  She is waking after 45Min's because she is OT at bedtime.  DD does this everytime she is OT.  I would say the molars are not helping with the NW's, they tend to bother them more at night than day time.  I would say the 1nap days are causing some OT, the teething is aggravating and the EW are a result of the OT.  Early bedtime is generally the way to conbat OT, but maybe for her a late catnap will help.

Lauren - give it a few days more to settle then I would shift his day.  His nap at 1-1.15hrs is an OT nap so an early bedtime by at least 30Min's is the only way you will get him to catch up with his sleep.  Sorry got to run DD just woke up grumpy