Ways to extend naps???

[donvitol]

My 2 1/2 year old son generally would sleep anywhere from 1 1/2- 2 hours for naps, but now it is more like an hour or an hour and 15 min. 

Current Schedule:
Wake 6:30- 6:45
Nap:1:00
Bedtime: 8

Am trying to get him to sleep in later, but is hard to do when he isn't getting much sleep for naps. 

[louis-mummy]

Hmmmmmmm i'm not sure if 1-1.15hrs might be OK as a nap at that age?

How does he seem generally? do you think he needs more sleep?

Have you tried WTS for his nap, gently 'disturbing' him before he is due to wake (maybe around 50 mins).  This should re-set his sleep cycle and hopefully extend it, you would need to do this for a few days to establish a new pattern.

Another thought, could he be OT for his 8pm bedtime? it might be worth making that earlier as OT can cause early wakings......is waking at 6.30 early for him?

sorry for all the questions but HTH some!

[clazzat]

I have just been going through a huge amount of upheaval with my 2.5 year old's sleep - she was sleeping 2+h for her nap (bliss!) and then it all started to go wrong.  Having gone through various permutations of getting up/nap/bed times, we have settled on this which has worked for 3 days now:

up 6.45
nap 12.30-2.15
bed 7.15 (generally asleep by 7.45)

I had lots of input from lovely ladies on this site, and the average sleep for this age is 12-14 hours - it seems that your lo is getting about that, and 1h30 is a reasonable nap for this age.  I was convinced that my lo needed more than that (she has always been on the high end of sleep needs, and was behaving as if she was very OT) so after trying later bedtimes and shorter naps for a week I decided to try earlier bedtimes and longer naps which has got things back to normal.  If you think your lo needs more, then you could maybe try an earlier bedtime to see if he sleeps later - dd was waking at 6/6.15 until I tried the earlier bedtime.

[donvitol]

He does need more sleep than a little over an hour.  He wakes up crying and cranky, but I just can't get him to go back to sleep, once he is up, he is up. 

he used to wake up around 7, so that is why the bedtime was 8.  We just got used to him going to bed at that time, but i guess I do need to move it up a little bit.  We are going on vacation next week and are going to be on a 3 hour time difference, so I was hoping to inch his bedtime later to get him ready for the time change.  So much for that

will try WTS today too.  What is the rule for when you are supposed to go in and do it?

[donvitol]

So i tried to do WTS for his nap today, but it looks like he did it on his own?  I checked in on him at the 50 minute marker, and it looks like he had stirred since he first went to sleep (as usual) but went in at 60 min. marker to do WTS, and he had moved again?  He then stirred again at 1hr 30 minutes, and finally woke up 5 minutes later.  So at least it was a longer than usual nap.

But how do I do WTS, if he himself is stirring several times throughout his nap?

[louis-mummy]

How are things going now?

He probably is moving around during his sleep but the 45 min cycle is too much for him to get through.
 
The other thing to try is, wait outside his room when he is due to wake and as soon as he stirs go in quietly and try to settle him off again - does he like white noise, shush/pat etc? if so try something like that just to get the longer nap established.