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

[jogym]

Hi my DD2 was 1 last week.  She is usually on 2 naps a day sometimes 1.  Friday she slept 1/2 hour all day.  Put down at 7 p.m. and woke at usual time Sat. morn 7.15.  She is with my aunt Fridays and she will usually sleep 1 1/2 hours in the morning around 10.30.  This Friday she couldn't get her to sleep a.m and my husband could not get in p.m. nap hence early bedtime - usually 7.30 p.m. Saturday night the clocks went back, I think I should have put her down an hour later but her bedtime was usual time.  Sunday morning woke 7.15 as usual (6.15 adjusted time) a.m. nap was a little later and slept for nearly 2 hours.  No p.m nap put down at 6.45 p.m. but woke this morning at 5.45 a.m talking for about 10 minutes then got more desperate and eventually as I went into her room screaming until brought into our bed.  DD2 had no intention of going back over.  Held off morning bottle until nearly 8 a.m.  She has been a habitual 7.15 a.m. for around 6 months now.  What has went wrong?? 

I am with my DD2 2 days a week.  I can usually fit in the 2 naps in her cot (nowhere else) a.m. nap usually took up at 10.30 a.m. but will sometimes lie awake until 11 a.m.  pm nap has been about 3.30 p.m. for about an hour and bed at 7.30 p.m.   The difficulty is that when my mum has her Monday/Thursday she doesn't quite grasp the need for particular time nap etc.  She usually doesn't have a p.m. nap these days as she doesn't try to put her down (so these days are 7 p.m. bedtimes and not 7.30 p.m) problem being that DD2 wont sleep in travel cot and they try to get her to sleep on the bed - don't know how they get this to work!! so her naps are not really regular because of different childminders.

Am wondering if transition to 1 nap is likely to be now but I don't want to try to do it if she isn't ready.  How do I know?  Will I see if tomorrow morning is another EW?  If so could it be time to transition?

Oh sorry one more thing if her awake time this morning was 6 a.m. (earlier than usual) does that mean that I have to put her down earlier this evening (usually 7 - 7.30 p.m.)

[NiknLily]

At bedtime, she doesn't try to get up but whines and calls out and sometimes it's 1/2 hr or 45 min. after put into crib before she's asleep (w/ me going in every 5-10 min. to put a hand on her and say "night night.")  She stops fussing as soon as I go in.  Sometimes starts the second I go out, and sometimes doesn't start for a few minutes after I go out.  Is this AP?  SA?  OT?  (love all the abbreviations, eh?) 

Amy this is kind off where we are at too, Lily keeps calling me back in but its not because she is actually upset.  Have decided its time to get tough on this as I think its largely AP, its not that she needs me at all, its just that she wants me to come see her.  The trouble started when she was severely OT and at that time I didn't want to leave her to just moan & moan because I wanted/needed her to go to sleep, its just never got fixed 

[NiknLily]

Hi Lesorl
It's hard to say without knowing how she was during NW's.  Did you rule out teething, its always high on the list of culprits. 

NW's can be caused by too much daytime sleep, so you need to look at how much daytime sleep she has been getting and how much night sleep.  I can't remember how much day sleep DD was getting at that age I think about 2-2.5hrs total with 11.5-12hrs nightsleep. 

If you think too much day sleep is affecting her night sleep then try cutting back her naps so she only gets 2.5hrs day sleep and see if this helps.  At her age I would try to keep the naps at a fairly equal length so maybe 2  1hr15min naps.  I would also go with the flow on length of A time if she needs less give her less, if she wants more let her take it.

If you get the time have a read of this whole thread, we've pretty much got every sleep scenario covered and most of the LO's currently going through transition on this thread are quite young too.

If things don't improve come back and we will have a closer look at your routine for you

[NiknLily]

Hi pmitchell.

I would say to hang onto 2 naps until it just doesn't work anymore.  So keep offering them on days you think he will take them.

On days when you feel 1 nap will work better put him down after 4.5-5hrs A time.  6hrs works for a few but for most 5hrs is average for quite some time.  I would be inclined to try 4.5hrs next time and if this is a little too soon try 4.75 next time.  Hopefully then he will take a good nap and then if necessary put him to bed early.  So if he wakes at 7am and goes down for nap at 11.30 and sleeps for 2hrs till 1.30 then put him to bed by 6.30pm.  Generally the early bedtimes don't affect wake up times.

You will find that when you start with the odd 1 nap day thrown in here and there that they take a really good nap.  But this can't be maintained which is why the next time you tried a few days later he won't have actually quite got over the last 1 nap day and will get OT a lot sooner than you think.

[NiknLily]

Hi Jogym
First things first, her body clock is not going to easily reset itself for the 1hr time change.  She will naturally now wake 1hr earlier than she did so her bedtime should come back that 1hr as well.  If you want to move her day back I explained how to do this a few pages back.

On the day she only slept 1/2hr all day I would of tried to get her to bed at least 1.5hrs earlier than normal.  After this day of poor sleep you can bet she was still OT the next day which is why you would of then struggled with naps the next day, so probably another early night was in order.  When they get OT you will see night wakings and early wakings and poor naps, although not always all of them together.  For you it has resulted in an EW.

The same applies on the days she doesn't get good sleep because she's not at home.  Always put her down to bed early.  How early you can put them down depends on how much sleep they missed, so if shes averages 2hrs nap time a day total and only gets 1hr nap then put her to bed 1hr early.  Don't be afraid to do this its very unlikely to make her wake even earlier she should wake up at her normal (albeit an hour earlier now clocks have changed) time. 

If she wakes early tomorrow it will most likely mean she is OT and will definitely need some good naps and/or early bedtimes to get her out of being OT.

At 1yr old she is still very young to transition to 1 nap so try to hang onto 2 naps as long as possible, at least on the days she is at home with you.

[lesorl]

Newmum-

I've been reading the 2-1 thread, but haven't found any solutions.  I'm pretty sure her NWs are caused by naps, but I don't know  how to fix them.  She's never been a great napper, and usually has about 2 hours worth of naps a day.  Yesterday went like this:

6:50am Awake
S 10am- 11:05am (woken from nap)
S 2:30pm-3:15pm
Bedtime at 7pm

NW's at 7:43pm, 8:26pm, and 10:40pm and then woke this am at 6:40am.  Her nw's are short- begins hard crying, I go in and put my hand on her back or pick her up if she really won't settle, and then leave.  I'm in there less than a minute.

What is going on?

I'm going to lose it- I used to be able to depend on night sleep, as naps were short and erratic.  Now that naps have lengthened some, we have nw's.

[skatty]

Hi Leslie, sorry to hear you are still struggling. Those kinds of NWs in our house are when L is OT, she had them for weeks once (possibly months) after a 10 day trip to London. I think it was actually accumalated OT so perhaps M is OT from weeks back and not just from recently?

[NiknLily]

I would say the same.  In this house if DD wakes 45Min's after going to be its classic OT behaviour, she also will sometimes wake every 40-45Min's after this.  On the whole if DD has night wakings they are generally in this part of the night.

I think I would start by giving a few early bedtimes.  If it is accumulated OT then she shouldn't have too much trouble going to bed early and it shouldn't cause her to wake earlier than normal in the morning.

That routine looks OK, did you wake her from that am nap, thinking it maybe too much day sleep? If a 3 days of early bedtimes don't seem to have any improvement then I would try letting her sleep as long as she wants in am then if necessary give a shorter pm nap so as to not interfere with bedtime.

Hope that helps some, you know where we are 

[lesorl]

Thanks Katt and new mum-

I was limiting am nap, as we were running out of time for pm nap, and even a catnap was interfering with bedtime.  Maybe the interference was more OT than undertired???... or maybe it's the accumulated OT from the one nap trial a couple weeks ago?

Thanks for the guidance- I knew I came to the right place!

[lesorl]

One more question... should I continue to limit the am nap to about 1 hour?  As it is, the 2nd nap begins about 2:30pm and I'm still only getting about 40-45 mins.  If I let her sleep more in the am, then she won't take another nap until after 2:30pm, and even if it's 3pm-3:45pm, won't that interfere with an earlier bedtime?  And what time should I try putting her to bed?

OK, sorry- that was more than 1 question.  Just desperate for help...

[nona]

i'm just marking my spot. haven't had time to read thru some of the post. i think we are def in the transition phase - just started this past week. some days we refuse the am nap, some days the pm nap. i try to squeeze in a am nap and cut it short. however, that is now working well as of last. thinking of pushing him until noon....cade can stay up at least 4 hrs.

ok, just kinda rambling! be back soon i hope.

[skatty]

Hi again Leslie, I just read your other post and although it's early I think you should start the transition by letting DD sleep as long as she wants for her AM nap. After 4.5 hrs A time I can get L to sleep again but wake her at 20 mins and this gives us another 2 hours to get her fed,bathed and into bed. Some days, well if she sleeps until after 1, I just put her to bed for 6pm but every few days she seems to take her AM nap early and then we give her the catnap too and so far we have avoided OT wi´hich is amazing because as you know she is the queen of getting OT immediately! I hope I havent jinxed myself 

Welcome Nona, here's whishing you a smooth and painfree transition 

[skatty]

BTW Leslie, L has been teething molars for the last few weeks and the nights she doesnt get any pain relief she cries out all through the night (probably not a coincidence that these are the nights that are followed by days with shortened A times but what can you do? We are worried about giving her meds every evening) I think the only way you can see is to goive her some meds before bed and see if she sleeps better 

[LauraRose]

lesorl,

Your schedule looks just like my ds a while ago.  His chronically short naps suddenly began causing NW and super early mornings--accumulated OT.  We have really gained by giving him an early bedtime--6 pm most nights, earlier if it's a really bad sleep day for him.  Now the naps tend to be better (45 min up to 2 hours!) and we have no NW.  Good luck!

[LauraRose]

Do you all stick to an exact schedule?  As I look back and think about it, DS's naps and bedtimes actually vary by about 1/2 hr on any given day. Is this really bad? Also, he takes a long time to wind-down to actually sleep--anywhere from 10 minutes to 35 minutes.  How should I deal with this? The only thing that's really been precise lately is 5 am awake happy, 6 am getting unhappy and calling/crying for me to GET HIM UP!