Playing in crib

[dbnighting]

I haven't posted before, I've just read what everyone else has to say so I hope I'm doing this right...

My son is almost 17 months. He's angel/textbook. He's very pleasant and has slept quite good since he's been born.
However, the last about 2 months I have had a really hard time getting him to go down. He eats, we read a couple books, sing a song and then I lay him down. He lays for about 10 minutes and then he's up playing for 2 hours. Sometimes for his naps he will finally fall asleep for 30-60 minutes and then wake up really tired. He's plays very happily almost the whole time but every little bit he'll fuss and I'll go in and lay him down and then leave. He usually will stay laying down for a few minutes and then he's up playing again.  He'll have a day or two where he sleeps just fine and then it's back to not going down.

He does the same thing at night but eventually he goes to sleep, it usually takes about an hour. During the night he sleeps really well, he has one bottle at night (doctors orders because he's so small) and sometimes wakes up one other time but goes right back down when we go in and lay him down.

I don't know if I need to switch to one nap during the day. My concern with that though is that he is really tired during the day and I don't want to switch him to one nap and not have him sleep. But it's not like he's sleeping as it. Perhaps there is something I'm doing wrong. I've tried to think of anything that could be preventing him from going down but I can't thin of anything. He just has so much fun playing in his crib. He doesn't have any toys in there, just blankets.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[schristen]

Hi there! Unfortunately I don't have much advice, however, my 6 month old does a lot of playing in his crib too! He is perfectly content to play there in the morning for an hour before he wants to get up for the day! He too is angel/textbook. I'll be interested to hear what someone with a little more experience with this issue has to say to you!  Welcome to the boards!

[elmarie]

He might be ready for the 2-1 switch and need more A time,  Would you mind posting his routine for us so we can have a look at it...

[dbnighting]

7 am--Awake and has breakfast.
Activity
8:30--Eats snack. 
9:00--Down for nap
11:00--Up from nap after not sleeping
11:30--Snack
Activity
12:30-1:00-Lunch and then down for nap
When he gets up from his nap varies on when he actually went down and if he happens to fall asleep.
Regardless, if he falls asleep,we never let him sleep past 4ish
4:00 Snack
Activity time
5:30 dinner
6:00 bath
6:30 bed
11pm--bottle

How do I know if he needs to go to one nap? If he's not sleeping well for both naps? If he does need to go to one, how do I get him on the new schedule? Thank you!

[elmarie]

How long is the naps and if you say you put him to bed at 6.30 what is the average time that he falls asleep?

 At 17m you can start making the switch, but remember not to rush it.  You can start by cutting the am nap.  The am nap seems to be 2h? which is long.   You are moving towards getting the pm nap long. Start by waking him after a 1 1/2h and then 3-5days later 1 1.15 ect. until it is down to 20-30min.  You will then put him down for his pm nap 2 1/2 -3h A later. I do think his A time needs to start being a bit longer,  .  Once the am nap is down to 30min you will put him down 2h A later as the 30min is not enough to make him rested and you don't want him OT.  Once you have made the switch you will do the am nap at about 11.30ish (5h A) and then do a early bedtime until you have pushed the nap time a bit later...

I also think that maybe you can start considering not giving him the bottle at 11pm.  You are on a good routine eating wise so he should have enough calories to go through the night.  If he is not waking up for the bottle at 11pm I will stop it...

[Layla]

I also think that he might be ready for 1 nap, especially if he's up and playing for 2hrs in the morning (I believe Elmarie might have missunderstood your post & thought he was taking a 2hr nap .

You might want to try for a morning nap at around 10-10.30am (since most 17mo's can handle 3hrs in the morning) & if he falls asleep then great.... but wake him up about 30mins into the nap to preserve the afternoon nap OR if he's not asleep then you would want to aim for 1 nap but it would probably have to be earlier than 12.30-1pm.... & more like 12pm.

So on 2 nap days you would have something like this:
7am - wakes
b/n 10-10.30 - morning nap (30mins)
b/n 1.30-2pm - afternoon nap (about 1.5hrs long)
7.30-8pm - bedtime

The reason he is taking a long time to fall asleep in the morning is because he is not tired enough (so this is where you lay him down 1hr later).

The reason he might not be falling asleep in the afternoon is because he is too tired (awake for 5.5-6hrs for someone who is just at the start of the transition is long).

The reason he might not be falling asleep at night is because bedtime is too early... he doesn't need to be going down at 6.30pm if the afternoon nap ends at 4pm.

You could try 2 naps for a while or you could go cold turkey down to 1 nap... give him lunch around 11am & have him in the cot by 12pm. He might sleep for 2-2.5hrs & then you would have bedtime around 7pm

Edit to add - I also agree with Elmarie in that the 11pm bottle is not really necessary & its probably a good idea to start weaning it. You might have to do some wi/wo... at this age its more habit hunger than real hunger

hth
Layla

[elmarie]

Yes,sorry Layla is correct.  I misread that he is having a 2h nap in morning...

[dbnighting]

Thank you. I will definitely try that....switching him to one nap. It sounds like that will fix the problem. Most days he ends up not sleeping at all until bedtime and then he's so tired he can't fall asleep. At least he sleeps good during the night!  :)So I think this should help.
As for his bottle at night, he is 17lbs (at 17months) so he's very small. He wakes up very hungry for it. He still mostly eats very pureed foods. He doesn't like anything we texture so the dr wants him to get some extra calories to get him growing. He's started eating better in the last couple weeks, eating some foods with more substance to them. So hopefully within the next few weeks he will be doing better and then I can cut the bottle. I cut him down from 8 oz to 6 oz last week and as he eats like he has been, I plan on cutting it more and more.
Thanks again. I look forward to trying your advice!

[Layla]

Good luck & let us know how you go

[dbnighting]

Ok. So yesterday and today have gone much better. He went down just fine every time. Only played in his crib one time and only for about 10 minutes! Yay! Hopefully it keeps up. However, I don't know where to go from here. I currently only let him sleep for 1-1/2 hours for  both naps. He has been really tired today and yesterday. So I don't quite know what the next step is. Do I keep working towards one long nap? If so, what would be the next step?

[Layla]

Can you write down what the naps were like today? Its ok to limit total daytime sleep.... he probably only needs 2-2.5hrs during the day & about 11hrs at night (av 13hrs total)

So did he sleep 1.5hrs for both naps?