16mth old way off track

[Layla]

Ok, what I would do now is work towards pushing that nap towards midday. That nap is too long & she's at an age where she will fight the afternoon nap if her mornng nap is that long. You either need to cut the morning nap down to 30mins & offer her a pm nap around 1pm:

7am - wake
10-10.30 - morning nap
1.30-3pm - afternoon nap
7pm - bedtime

OR you need to stick to 1 nap but push it out closer to middle of the day. She's awake too long before bedtime & its causing all this overtiredness/crankiess/night wakings.

Thats what I would look at doing! If she's cutting molars (ouch ) I would give her some pain relief but still you need to work on her nap being about 5-5.5hrs from the time she wakes & beditme no more than 5.5hrs from the time the nap ends (my dd at 20months can only do about 5hrs before bedtime so she's more sensitive to A times before bed but in the morning she's good on 5.5-6hrs A time).

Try to add 15mins to her A time in the morning every couple of days. She's still going to be a little tired but if you do a longer windown to extend the A time she'll slowly get used to being up. Take her out of the house in the morning... tiredness tends to be cured by outdoors with us.... & once you are closer to nap time do a longer windown & put her to bed.

Let me know what you think
Layla

[FionaS]

It is already a struggle to keep her up for 3 hours in the morning, 3.5 is the max we've done so one nap in the middle of the day is just not attainable yet.  I guess I'll have to wake her from her morning nap but that is hard as she is always so grumpy when I do.

Her max awake time any time of the day before things totally fall apart is 4 hours.  She's always needed more sleep than other kids as she is such a full-on / grumpy kid and spends a lot of time fully engaged in things / grizzling.

[Layla]

If she's really hard to keep up then I would definitely wake her. She might be grumpy for about a week or so until she gets used to the new routine. Try 1hr in the morning with the pm nap about 3.5hrs later & if after 3days or so of that she still refuses to take the pm nap or takes it VERY late in the pm, I would shorten the morning nap to 45mins & do pm nap about 3.25-3.5hrs later.

[FionaS]

Ok thank you 

[FionaS]

We've been trying to follow your advice but I'm finding she's opting to do a longer nap in the mornings.  I'm extending her morning awake time as much as I can but the best she can do is 7am to 10.30am and that is hard work. She then sleeps 2 hours.  I've been offering a catnap in the afternoon and she mostly takes it though not always. I generally have to wake her after 40mins or an hour. She has been sleeping until 6.50 or 7am which is better but is still awake for hours in the night talking and playing which is exhausting for DH and I.

[Layla]

Try not to think about her being up at night & playing, especially if she's not crying for you... its something that some babies do. But I do think things will get better once her  nap is closer to the middle of the day. She might be up cause she is getting too much daytime sleep.

How late does the catnap end up being?

I found stretching Jasmine in the morning hard as well but distraction worked really good & I would only add about 10-15mins every couple of days. Also around her previous morning nap time there was a dip in her behaviour & thats when I would get a book or let her watch a dvd... something relaxing to get her over it as her body would be used to napping then & after about 30mins or so she was fine, we'd move onto early lunch or big snakc & it would then be time for the long afternoon nap (although in our case it wasn't always long ).

[FionaS]

I  guess it is just because our house is small so if she is awake so are we.  I've tried various brands of ear plugs but they don't work for me.  I'm pregnant with number 2 so it's tiring.  I think I'll start using her safety sleep at night to stop her getting onto her hands and knees as if she's on her back she sleeps more soundly.

I try to have her up by 4pm but occassionally it is 5pm.  She is still very ready for bed by 7pm.

Today we kept her up until 11.30am by going out so we'll see how we go.  I suspect she'll wake after 40mins as that is what she does when overtired.

Will keep trying.

[FionaS]

Righto so today she did the following:

7am Up
11.30am to 2pm Nap

She was too tired for her dinner and ended up in bed just before 6.30pm.  BUT she woke 30mins later very very upset (definately not night terrors...she was just awake and upset) and it's taken another 30mins to settle her. 

A couple of questions:

1.  Is it possible that at 17mths she does still need 2 naps?

2.  What is the rationale behind shortening the morning nap when the mornin one is her long one and the afternoon one is her short one?  Shouldn't I keep the morning one long and just push it back bit by bit towards lunchtime and then eventually cut the catnap?

[Layla]

If you think she still needs 2 naps then you can always try & go back to her old schedule but if you see that in about a week she's still waking up at night or not sleeping too well for either nap then my guess would be that she needs to transition to 1 nap

Usually they say to shorten the morning nap because alot of toddlers don't end up taking the afternoon nap if they've slept 1.5-2hrs in the morning (or even as short as 1hr) & so if the afternoon nap is missed, the child is then awake for too long before bedtime, which causes some overtiredness. Or the child might fall asleep but very late in the afternoon, which then messes with bedtime & overall nightsleep.

But if your lo is sleeping better in the morning then I would keep it & push it back bit by bit as you have been doing. Keep offering her a catnap & if she won't take it then do an earlier bedtime. This is the way Tracy's book says to do the transition. It didn't work for us so we did the short am, long pm nap but that doesn't do it for everyone....

[FionaS]

We've managed to have 1 nap at 11.30pm to 2pm for the last to days and yesterday she was able to stay up happily until 6.30pm. 

She seems to still get tired at 9 or 9.30am and it is a stretch to get to 10.30 but after that she seems ok.  If in the car she'd fall alseep though.

Should we stick to this nap time for now?  Tempting to go backwards to the 2 especially since she is still doing several hours of playing in the night.  When would you expect that to stop if it was due to her daytime sleep pattern?  Poor DH is so exhausted at work this week from lack of sleep.  She's been playing from about 12am to 2.30am.

[Layla]

I would stick to 1 nap to be honest.... she's sleeping well for that nap & the waking up at night & playing is not really that uncommmon. It could be that she's sleeping too much overall or it might just be a developmental thing. Isabella did it (although not until she was 28mo) & she was up for a good 2 hrs sometimes as well just laying there awake!

I actually tried to avoid car rides in the morning when we were dropping the nap cause mine would 99.9% fall asleep as well.. I think I mentioned before around her previous morning nap time (around 9.30am) I would do something low key until she is well & truly used to being up all morning. We would watch a dvd or read some books.

What time is she waking up in the morning?

[FionaS]

She's waking up at 7am give or take 15mins either way which is excellent. 

I will stick to one nap.  This is crazy but I almost feel guilty for making her stay up when she is so tired but I guess her body will get into the rhythm of it.  We have to go out in the mornings now as dd is a really bright button + spirited and gets bored very easily at home.  Would you believe she reads books so carefully that she knows which we've read recently and will go through the shelf and make a pile of the ones we've read in the last week or so and then select one to read from the remaining books!

I really appreciate your help.

[Layla]

This is crazy but I almost feel guilty for making her stay up when she is so tired but I guess her body will get into the rhythm of it.

Yes it will!

Would you believe she reads books so carefully that she knows which we've read recently and will go through the shelf and make a pile of the ones we've read in the last week or so and then select one to read from the remaining books!

What a clever girl

So the playing at night might be developmental but it could be that she's in bed for too much. She's napping for 2.5hrs & she goes to bed at 6.30pm & waking up at 7am... but really she's up at night for up to 2hrs so she might only need 2-2.5hr nap & 10.5-11hrs at night.

Don't know how comfortable you are playing around with her A times but you could try pushing bedtime 15mins or so until you're at 7pm to see if the night waking sessions will get better. But see how you go... maybe give her some time to adjust to 1 nap & then work with A times

Keep me posted

[FionaS]

Her bedtime was 7.30 which we were happy with. It's only 6.30 as that is the absolute longest she can last from 2pm.  Today she was so hard to stretch to 11.30 and then woke at 1.30 and was grumpy from then on.  I had to give up at 4pm and put her down for a catnap as she just couldn't cope

Gosh this is a hard stage!  All our friends transitioned ages ago and yet we are still struggling.

[Layla]

It is a very hard transition! If she's totally pooped then offer her a catnap... we had 2 nap days about once a week for a few weeks.