Will too little sleep at night prevent 18 month old from transitioning to 2 naps

[meridot]

I guess my question is in the subject line of this post.  My 18-m-o  sleeps 8pm-6am, naps 10am-12pm, and needs another nap around 3:30pm.  Sometimes we have to wake her up at 5pm!  She goes to bed at 8pm.  So she's getting enough sleep generally.  But she's old enough to be on one nap and I'm wondering if the fact that she only sleeps 10 hours at night is impeding her ability to transition.  It's impossible for her to sleep later.  She sleeps 10 at night on the dot -- if she goes down 15 minutes earlier, she wakes 15 minutes early.  Overall, she's a Grumpy / Touchy baby who has teethed a LOT since she was about 7 months!

Thanks!

[Colin Macs Mom]

Well.... some LOs just can't do a 12 hour night or what not, and stick with 10 hours or 11 hours or whatever - because that's how they are wired. But then there are those who get too much daytime sleep and therefore it cuts into their night sleep. It can be hard to know which is which, and the only way to be sure is to cut back on the naps and see what happens.

I personally think that at 18 mo your LO is ready for one nap. BUT if what you're doing now works for you guys then don't feel like you have to change it for the sake of changing it.

[Vicku]

Totally agree with Jessica. It *may* be that the daytime sleep she's getting means she doesn't need more night sleep. I would try to gradually lengthen the am A time to push the nap later and see what happens. Let us know how it goes.

[meridot]

Thanks for the advice.  Yes, I have found that I needed to extend the morning A time because the morning nap started getting shorter.  So now she goes 4 hours in the morning before the first nap, then 3-4 hours until the second, depending on when she wakes up. 

I was thinking maybe I should work on simply shortening the second nap and try to add it back to her nighttime sleep.  Is that possible?  If so, how do you best suggest tackling it?  In short increments, obviously, but how many days should we stick with each increment?  We are aiming for a 7:30 bedtime and would absolutely love for her to sleep past 6am.  So far we have had not had success getting her to sleep later, so any suggestions there would be great, too.  Usually she wakes at 6am, sometimes a little before, but we don't get her immediately.  We give her one or two "chat cycles" until we go get her -- which seems to help her wake up, actually.  When we go in right away she seems to stay riled up.  Such is life with the Touchy / Grumpy One!  :0

[Colin Macs Mom]

Since she's touchy/grumpy, I would make an adjustment every 3 days or so, and go with smaller increments like 10 min at a time.

[Vicku]

Yep, me too. I think you need to push the 1st nap later as well as shorten the pm nap. Otherwise pm A will be far too long. So maybe push nap later by 10 mins every 3 days as Jess suggested, and see if she sleeps any longer for it. If she does you can then start shortening the pm nap until she no longer needs it.

Hopefully this will make her sleep more at night, but if it doesn't would you consider a later bedtime? Our DD has to go to bed at 8:30 to sleep til 7. When we put her down at 7:30 she always woke at 6 or earlier
See how you go though, thingsmight change and wake up get later as you get into the new routine of 1 nap, but just wanted to mention another possible way of getting a later wake up even if you can't get her to sleep longer hrs at night.

Good luck!

[meridot]

Hello,

So... it's our first week on one nap.  I can't believe it!  We started by cutting the second nap short.  We kept bedtime the same, at 8pm.  Almost immediately she started sleeping later in the morning.  That was our first surprise.  So, by waking later we were able to keep her up a little longer in the morning.  I let her "go" one day, just to really watch her cues instead of relying on the clock as I usually do (which I do because she doesn't really get sleepy, she gets hyper!).  The first day she went down at 10:30.  The next day, 11:15.  The next, 11:45.  Today and yesterday, noon!  I found that I had to keep her up a little longer in the morning so that she will take a longer nap and sleep late enough to eliminate the need for a second nap.  For a few days it was just awkward -- she wasn't sleepy, really, but needed to take a break, sometimes not falling asleep until after 5pm. That just seems like a bad idea.  The first few days though we stuck with it and I just kept the nap super-short -- like 15 minutes, just to bridge the gap.

I'd say we still have a ways to go until the process is smooth; I think she might be on the verge of becoming OT -- especially in the afternoons.  So my plan now is to just keep her old naptime as a quiet time, reading and playing quietly in low light (or even better, in her crib alone!) just to keep my sanity too.  It's a big adjustment for me -- I've lost about an hour and a half of downtime and boy, am I pooped! 

Thanks for the advice, as always.

[Colin Macs Mom]

You're doing great, keep at it!!!!