To sleep in or not to sleep in...

[vegmom]

Quick question please.

Do I wake my 14mo in the morning at the same time everyday, no matter what time she went to sleep or do I let her sleep in to catch up on lost sleep but then risk messing with her regular nap times the rest of the day? Her nap schedule has been very unpredictible lately, and I'm worried about cumulative OT. I've been wondering this for a long time...thanks for any advice!

[skatty]

I think that is quite an individual decision but for me when my dd was 14 months she was on 1 nap and that was only about an hour so I let her sleep until she woke which was usually around 8am and used A times for her nap, this worked really well for her as she was a great night sleeper but not a good napper so we would get around 13½ - 14 hours a night and 1 hour !hr15 nap a day (she is high sleep needs). This worked for months but once the nap started to get shorter I started to wake her at 7am and things got back on track again. It sounds like your LO is still on 2 naps so maybe the reason the naps are wonky is because she is needing to transition to 1 nap, if you post your routine I am sure you will get some great help 

[Shellha]

I have ALWAYS let my LOs sleep as long as they can in the morning. I have always woken from naps if need be, but waking them up in the morning just seems so wrong ;-) My 14mo is on 1 nap as of the past 3 weeks and letting him sleep in has enabled him to move from a wake up of around 6/6.30 to more like 7.15/7.45, which makes getting the boys down at the same time for an hour or so MUCH easier!!!

I would let her sleep and that way you will eventually move to 1 nap if you haven't already. Just look at total sleep time over 24 hours.

[vegmom]

Thanks ladies. Yes, she is on 2 naps still, but I think she's slowly making her way to one. Here's her normal schedule on a good day.

Wake 7am
A 9:45-10:45 (I wake her)
S 2:45-4ish
Bed around 8 to 8:30 (I wish this was earlier, but she won't go down before that)

She gets about 13hr total sleep each day. For the past few weeks, sometimes she'll refuse her am or pm nap or like yesterday, her am nap was 20 mins long, and then for some reason, this makes it harder for her to do down and stay down for her pm nap.

What are the average A times at this age?? I've checked the boards, and came up with 4-4.5 which seems a little long. Ashlinn seems to do ok on the 13hrs total, but the less sleep she gets, the worse she sleeps, so this transitioning is soooo hard.

And just to update, I let her sleep in and she went to 7:40 which is about 30-40 mins longer than normal, and she went to bed last night about an hour later than normal b/c she wouldn't settle in.

[clazzat]

I have always been in the waking them camp - I found that if I let them sleep in then it throws off the rest of the day and they end up losing more sleep because they can't get in their proper nap.  By waking them at the usual time and then maybe giving an extra 15 mins or so at nap time for a couple of days if necessary, I have found that they catch up from OT more quickly.