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

[2Pam]

He is pretty good just amusing himself in his crib. He will chat for a long time before he falls asleep sometimes so I will try the earlier bedtime tomorrow.  Tonight, he seemed happy all the way to bedtime.  I thought I was going to have a huge cranky boy but he surprised me.  I will also stick with the 4.25 A time tomorrow.  Thanks so much for your help!

[katemom]

Hi again, my lo is not sleeping any later in the morning on this new routine of 2 naps (1:30 in the a.m., and :30 in the p.m.)  How long should I keep trying this?  She is getting under 13 hours of sleep on this routine and I'm worried about her getting OT, or just plain used to sleeping less!  Should I just accept that 6:30 is her wake up time?  Or should I stick with it?

2Pam - my lo is 13 months old - glad to hear I'm not the only one with a youngish one!  I do wonder about the catnap causing early wake-ups.  Although I think I've come up with about a million reasons for why she does it and maybe that is just her?  It confuses me though, because before daylight savings, she was doing 7am wake-ups for awhile.  She was a habitual early waker since about 3 months old - and we slowly fixed it, so I'm used to this stuff!

Anyway, I'm wondering if I should go back to one nap, or stick with this current plan?  My only concern is that she's been waking up at 1:30 on her own pretty consistently.  I don't know if its because I've shortened her A time back to 4:30, when she used to do 5:00 on one nap days.  Either she is not tired enough to sleep longer than 1:30 on that A time, or she is just habitually waking then?

any advice appreciated (again!)

thanks, katemom

[sorayas mom]

Well, I have a mess and am in need of some help     We finally went to one nap about 2 1/2 weeks ago.  The evening catnap was starting to cause nw.  She had been doing great!  We had an occasional 1h 15m nap, but sometimes it was cause I put her down too early!  Well, Sunday messed us up. In the past, she had been napping at church in a crib there.  Well she slept in that morning so I thought we would just put her down when we got home, it was the right time, however church is definitly overstimulating for her.  So we rushed home and put her down and ended up with an OT nap.   I didn't get her down quite early enough so we ended up with nw and another OT nap the next day.  Well I got her to bed plenty early that night and so yesterday we ended up with an 2.5 hour nap!!!  Well, she still woke up early this morning, so I put her down earlier and she woke up after 40 minutes and would not go back to sleep!  She hasn't done that it forever!  So I had to squeeze in a catnap with me holding her.  She slept 40 min.  Well, I put her down at 6:20 and after much crying she finally dozed off for good at 7:15!  So I am expecting a rough night but what should I do tomorrow!?  Seems like two naps really threw her off tonight (as she has not acted like that at bedtime in a long time) but she is OT.  She had been napping really well on a 5 hour or 5 h 10m A time. Thanks!

[Gizmojen]

Hey ladies-
I am new to this site. Looks like you guys have some great advice. I would love your input regarding this nap transition thing. DS is 14.5 months old and a few weeks back I was sure he was ready to transition to one nap. We had early waking that were not due to OT, short naps, and days when he refused to take either his AM or PM nap. I wanted to push his bedtime back also because I had tried everything else and I thought it may help with the early wakings. It seemed he was stuck at 5am and needed to get unstuck.

Anyway, what ended up happening is that he is now taking 2 naps a day, but taking them later in the day and going to bed later at night. He is also waking up later in the morning. Here is what our normal day has looked like the past week:

6:30/7:00- wake up
10:00-11:00/11:30- nap
3:00-5:00 nap
8:00/8:30- bed

He is sleeping 13-14 hours a day still but getting less sleep at night and more during the day. Plus the past two afternoons I have had to wake him at 5:00 so he'll get to sleep at a reasonable time at night. I don't know if I am making a problem where there isn't one since he is getting the right amount of sleep. It just doesn't seem that 10ish hours a night is enough for some reason, and I feel like it is odd that he takes such a late PM nap.

On the days prior to this when he was taking one nap, the one nap varies between 1-1.5 hours. Definitely not long enough. On the days where he wakes at 7:30 or later I don't even try for two naps.

So my questions are:

Should I stick with this schedule OR get him on a one nap schedule to better his nightsleep?

If I do go to one nap, what time should that nap be based on a 6:30/7:00 wakeup?

How long should that one nap be? I would think it should be at least 2 hours. Does it naturally lengthen once he is used to it?

Will he sleep later in the morning with the one nap or is this just a toss up?

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Jenny

[debo620]

Jenny,
you could try to cut the am nap a bit, which will move the pm nap earlier. eventually just keep cutting the am nap and moving the pm nap unitl it is occuring maybe 12:30-3, sleeping from 7:30/8pm -7/7:30 am.

so perhaps:

wake 6:30/7
nap 10:15-11---so 45min
next nap 2-4pm
bed 7:30

[NiknLily]

Katemom - If its not working out and she still isn't getting anymore sleep then its probably not worth continuing with it, it's a whole lot of trial and error this transition  Was she doing OK on just 1 nap, just her wake up getting earlier? If so maybe you should bend on your target bedtime.  I would start by working out her average amount of night sleep, when things are going well and work her day from there.  For DD for example she will do a 12hr night, so we get a 12hr day.  She seems to only need an average of 1.5hrs day sleep, sometimes more but mainly 1.5hrs.  Generally wake up is now at 7am so I know bedtime is 7pm and her nap now falls at 5.5hrs A so it works quite well.  When her nap was still earlier it did make the longest stretch before bed, if I knew she was tired any particular day I would put her down at 6.30pm sometimes 6pm if very bad nap. We would do low key activities in the afternoons anything that meant she couldn't burn too much energy plus I started doing quite time with a warm sippy of milk (coffee for mummy) and we would cuddle up on sofa and watch baby einstein dvd this would help get her through to a 7pm bedtime.  When her day was starting at 5.30am I did the same, bedtime was 5.30pm.  I found that once I made things more consistent with a nap at set time her wake up jumped up to 6am so bedtime 6pm then I pushed her day up by shifting 10Min's a day to a 7am wake up.  So I guess what I'm saying is its sometimes best to just start with the times they naturally wake up get the day working well from there, even if slightly earlier than you would like and go from there, rather than trying to fix it all at once. HTH

Sorayas Mom - all I can say is it happens! too often during this and all too easily    I just used to roll with it, trying to get her down for a nap slightly earlier (which generally gets a better nap when OT) then follow up with an early bedtime.  Not too early because if she has a good nap, albeit earlier than normal, then she won't need any extra night sleep as such.  Just don't give her any more A time than normal for the afternoon A time.  So if normal nap ends at 2pm and bedtime is normally 5hrs later at 7pm, then if good early nap ends at 1.30pm then bedtime at 6.30pm should be fine.  And I can't guarantee anything I just go with my own experiences with Lily but she would generally still wake up at normal time next day.  Sometimes she would wake between 5-6am but normally she would go back down with a PD and sleep till 7am.  In this way she would get over the OT.

[Sima]

   Hi, my lo is 12 months.  Just like a week ago, she was doing 3 hour-3.25 A time for morning and would take 1 hour nap.  However, today at 3.25 she slept 35 min and woke up happy which means not tired enough.  I did not know what to do.. Should I extend morning A time and keep afternoon at the 3.5 or extend it too? Confused.  Anyone know???

[Bryony]

Siria - others are more experienced with this 2 to 1 business than I am, but in my view, if it happened just once I would ignore it and carry on as usual. One-offs do happen - only if it happens 3 days running would I change something.   35 min naps would also be more likely to mean overtired or insufficient wind-down in my experience - or it could mean something just randomly woke her at the 35 mins mark!

Bryony

[Bryony]

Hi all, and Happy New Year!

Thought I would post an update of where we are, after all my dilemmas about short AM + long PM versus long AM and short PM!

We are currently doing long AM nap (currently 10:45 - 12:15, but pushing it back by 5-10 mins every few days if she doesn't look tired) and short PM nap (currently 4-4:45pm) with a getting up time of 7am and a bedtime of 7:30pm.  We are getting a few NWs but I think they are teething-related rather than to do with the routine.   It's otherwise working fine so thanks everyone for the advice!

I assume once the naps move any later, I will need to limit that last catnap to 30 mins if we are to keep the bedtime constant - which will mean she only has 2hrs total daily sleep.    Does that seem enough?

Bryony

[Raquelx]

Hi there i have tried reading thro these threads in hope that someone would have similar problems to me; however impatience crept in so i am posting instead.
DS was having 2 really good hour and 1/2 naps prior to christmas with 2.5hrs activity time.  christmas has buggered that up and he is really struggling and so am i.  He is nearly nine months old (on the 9th) so should i be considering heading more towards 1 nap?

here was his routine:
7am up
7.30 bottle
8.30 breakfast
9.30 sleep
11 up
11.30 bottle
12.30 food
1.30 sleep
3 up
3.30 bottle
5.30 food
6.30 bath
6.45 bottle
7 sleep

obviously activity times in between all the above.

please help

xxxxx

[Bryony]

Raquel - what is the problem at the moment?  It sounds far too early to go to one nap, but you will probably want to shorten the morning nap to make sure you still get a second nap in the afternoon.

Bryony

[Raquelx]

thank you for the quick response bryony.  Sorry i didn't make myself clear in my last posting. DS was screaming as i was typing.  The problem is his routine is shot to bits cause of the mayhem of chrimbo and his routine has fallen apart.  he only slept for half hour this morning and i have just put him down again, hopefully not to late.  It does seem that my DS WAS a textbook baby. when he only naps for 1/2 hr it does mean he is overtired and 45min nap means activity time wasn't long enough - you could time this to the minute before christmas, but now i'm a little lost to be honest.

is any of this making any sense?  I'm desperately trying to get some routine back in swing as i have to return to work on monday cause its the end of my maternity leave and i really don't trust the mother/mother-in-law to keep to the routine i have him in so - i'm well stressed and really don't know what to do for the best.

finges crossed he sleeps on this nap.  Do you have any recommendations that can help me - other than me taking a chill pill!

Thank you

[sarah13h]

Happy New Year all!  Raquelx, I'm with you - xmas has messed everything up.  That, and teething (why is it only his bottom teeth that cause any problem?).  Ds is now 11mths, and I've been attempting to persevere with 2 naps, but can't seem to get the timing of the pm nap right.  For the past week and a bit, we've been lucky to get even 1 nap in (thus, EWing & NWing have crept in).

We aim for a 6am wake-up so I put him down for his 1st nap when I start seeing yawns, at 8:50.  This lasts for anywhere between 30min-nearly 2hr.  I have absolutely no idea of when to put him down for his next nap though, as he will rarely sleep in the pm - even with a 2hr walk!  Currently, bedtime is at 6am, though it's often 5:30 if we've had a particularly grumpy day.  Can't get him into bed much earlier than that because he's still on 4 bottles a day, and just won't take his last one much earlier.

Any suggestions?  Please?

[Raquelx]

You poor thing Sarah13h, Teething is such a pain for both baby and mother!  My DS looks like aunt sally!  I really wish i could help you but its like the blind leading the blind i'm afraid.

Try to keep smiling tho and fingers crossed we get thro this.

Ta Ta

[Bryony]

Raquel - it sounds like you have more of a getting-back-on-track issue rather than a 2 to 1 nap issue - you  might want to post on that board as you may get more advice there. It's a bit tricky to keep track of posts and more complex queries on this thread! I share your pain about the going-back-to work though - my LO starts nursery next week and I am dreading what will happen to our routine    Yes I expect I need to chill too!

Sarah13 - I am no expert on this 2to1 thing - I am struggling with it too - but as your first nap is still pretty early I would try cutting it shorter eg to 1hr, to see if that helps with getting a nap in the afternoon.  Others may have other advice!

Bryony