Support Thread for 2 to 1 nap transition cont.

[JaspersMum]

Do you know if she was happy/unhappy after that am nap?  If she was happy I'd say she was UT but personally I wouldn't be worrying about it as you can kinda guess she would have been UT considering she fell asleep only 3.5 hours after wake up (when she is used to 4 hrs A time).  I agree with Julianne that second nap was OT . . if she woke cranky/tired.  And bedtime is a mystery to me!  I'm still wondering if its pain?

DS was asleep at 7.15pm and went down easily . . he could easily have gone to bed earlier as he was cranky and tired but DH and I didn't get our s*&t together.  He's with my mum tomorrow so I'll advise her on naps depending on his night. 

[kayra]

ok, I'm really confused. I can't really post a routine because everyday has been different. DS was having trouble with pm naps, wouldn't even catnap, so i decided to try am 45min nap and then hope for a long pm nap. I thought it would work because one day he randomly woke up from his am nap at 45 min then slept 2.5 hrs (I woke him!) after 3.20 A time. But after that he had some messed up nights then we let him sleep on mornings when we were going to be out in the pm etc so we haven't really had it as a routine. some days he did 2 decentish naps but it seemed to shorten his night sleep, so anyway last thursday i cut his am nap at 45-50 min, was asleep by 3.5 a time and he did a nice 1.5 hr nap. and a nice close to 12hr night. next day he woke by himself at 45, and just would not sleep in the pm, it was crazy. so earlier bed time, 12 hr night, next day (sat) we were going to be out in the pm and figured he was sleep deprived so let him sleep in the am, then plans got canceled and he did  a decent  pm nap too, but then it took him ages to settle at bed time. sunday, out in the pm so let him sleep in the am and he slept over 2 hours!! earlyish bed time, again close to 12 hr night.
So today i thought i'd give the am 45 another try, put him down after 3.15 A time, babbled for a bit, fell asleep, woke after about 10 min, babbled very shortly fell asleep then woke up crying after 30min. settled, after 5 min started crying again, this happened various times, it really seemed like wanted to go to sleep. I got him up but he was so cranky i tried putting him down again, looked like he was going to settle, but no.
A 7.05-10.40
S 10.40-11.25
A 11.25-14.50ish and then haywire!
So what am i doing wrong? Sherry, on Becky's thread you mentioned he might be ready to cut to 35min in the am, but we haven't even been doing 45 properly, it seems so sudden after 2 decent (upto 1.5 hr naps) to suddenly cut 1 to 35, i think i'm a bit scared of doing that and then him refusing a pm nap! Should I up or decrease either A time? Usually his first A was close to 4 hours but today i did it at less since i thought if he's going to do a long pm nap i want him down by 3pm.
The funny thing is yesterday he seemed to do ok during the pm, he slept from 10.50-13.05 and went to bed at 7.20, so I'm almost thinking dare I stretch his first A time a tad and see if he'll just do 1 big nap in the middle of the day, but I don't know what I'd do with him the whole afternoon!!! aaah I'm so confused, and tomorrow pm i have to have a babysitter so i can go to a lesson, i have no idea how to advise her! I'm thinking maybe i'll just let him sleep as much as wants in the am so he gets a bit of rest at least and if he doesn't sleep in the pm he doesn't!
sorry this is long, everything was going so well i'm just really flustered by all this  

[deckchariot]

just a note that if you are planning on doing a short am/long pm nap approach, you want to keep that morning A time the same before the first nap - don't extend that A time.  It's ok if it's a shorter A time and a UT nap - you want a short nap anyway.  Most bubs can then handle 3 - 3.5 hrs of A time before the long pm nap - but that's just an "average"

If you are aiming for a long am/short pm nap approach, then you do want to extend that morning A time so that nap is longer.  Often in that case, the pm nap is quite late and your bub may only have 2 - 3 hrs of A time between the pm nap and bed.

And don't forget early bedtimes if naps have been wonky - that can be a real life saver.  As you have days that are all over the place, try to keep track of how much day sleep seems to result in a better day/better night - knowing that total can really help you as you're going through the transition because you have an idea what you're aiming for in terms of day sleep totals. 

I know it's frustrating and crazy, but there is hope on the other side and you will all get there.  I promise!

[kayra]

thanks Michelle, thankfully I don't feel hopeless-especially thanks to this forum.
I think around 2.5 hrs during the day is good, but that's kind of a guess i suppose. If I do long am nap, let's say he did
A 7
S 11-12.30/13.00
what should his next A be? i might try that tomorrow.

Also after a day of bad naps, should I let him/encourage him to sleep more the following day? That's generally my instinct but i'm not sure if that's apt to mess up the following night.

[Julianne1984]

(Will catch up on posts when I have a minute.)

S 18:40-05:30, no NW's! But tried to get him back to sleep at 05:30, no luck this time gr! I should have kept him up until 7pm

Todays plan... 10-11 nap, 15:30-16:00 catnap, bed 19:00. X

[shresmummy]

Hi ladies, hope all your plans went well. We ended up having a 1 nap day because DD had a good night (yay! despite that awful bedtime yesterday). She slept from 7:30ish - 6:30 this morning with one brief waking. She didn't want to nap at her usual Am nap time. So I gave her an early lunch and tried an hour later.

Today nap was from 11:35 - 2:50 with one brief waking inbetween thanks to our neighbour deciding to mow his lawn!! Grrr. Anyway she wokeup happy and went to bed at around 7:25. So far has been having a good night lets see.

Is it possible that babies reach a stage where they want 4hr A time regardless of the nap length? I've tried all the 3hr - 3.5hr A times after a short nap and it just doesn't work. I don't know what to do about that.
Any suggestions?

Hope everyone's days went well.

[AshleyB]

The time change has really changed everything for us the last couple of days. Chandler has been going to bed at her usual time but waking up an hour early. Because of this, she's been taking these MONSTER naps. Yesterday she slept nearly 3 hours at daycare. That is just unheard of in our world. However, it would be great if she could just keep this schedule.

[kayra]

DS did 2 1hr15min naps today, i was really pleased for the babysitter! as a result he went to bed a bit later than the last few days, it seems that the bedtime is going to change frequently according to what he does during the day. But thankfully it's been producing the same wake up time, which is rather odd really as when i had the bed time stable his wake up times varied upto an hour! I'm still not sure what to plan towards though, just going with the flow for now..

[deckchariot]

going with the flow is definitely the name of the game during the transition!!  You ladies are doing such a wonderful job supporting each other - I rarely even add anything   4 hrs of A time seems to be the hardest part of the switch because the day isn't really long enough for 2 naps with that long of an A time, but it's too long for just one nap.  Some mums do a later bedtime for a bit so they can stick with 2 naps, some mums cut out the catnap (or take it to just 15 min) and do an early bedtime.  I like my nights, so I did early bedtime and super short catnap.  I also did long am/short pm, so that made it a bit easier to cut out the catnap.

[kayra]

could you give an example of what your routine was with long am-short pm nap Michelle?

[JaspersMum]

Wow Priya your day yesterday was ideal with that big long nap!  Sounds like you are closer than ever to 1 nap land!

DS had a one nap day yesterday but not the good kind.  He had a fabulous wake up of 6.50 (I had to wake him!) so had done an 11.5 hour night.  I asked my mum to extend his awake time and he slept from 11ish til 12.30ish.  I knew he wouldn't be tired in a hurry and forgot to tell her to give him at least 4hrs A time so when she tried a catnap at 3.30 he just wasn't tired.  She didn't try again so when I drove home he fell asleep in the car, which was okay as it was his bedtime anyway.  He did have a few NWs though between 9.40pm and 10.40pm.  In the end I had to give pain meds and cuddle him back to sleep as I don't think his cries were due to OT.  He was awake this morning around 6.30am and I don't know what my MIL is doing with him. 

I'm definitely finding things easier to manage when I think about total sleep in a day and plan around that.

Thanks for your good points Michelle!

[shresmummy]

Hi ladies, Michelle you're so right about the 4hr A time just not fitting in with the day. That's the battle I"m having at the moment, big time!!

Rachel, hope MIL's doing ok with him today.. Fingers crossed!

Last night we had a pretty good night. she went to bed at 7:30 after a 1 nap day and slept until 6 Am, woke briefly but went back to sleep after a cuddle and I woke her up around 7:15.

I don't know if I have to do 2 naps today or 1 again due to the late wake up. She was happy and fine up until about 11:50 so that's when I put her down after an early lunch. Don't know how she will cope! She was happy though and didn't seem OT.

Let's see.

[Julianne1984]

why is he awake at 5:30!! Argh!! He had 2 naps of an hour each yesterday, bed at 7pm, no nw's...perfect... until now!! I'm leaving him in his cot in the hope he'll sleep again but its looking doubtful xx

[JaspersMum]

Julianne, what has his total sleep been in the past 24 hours?

[Julianne1984]

10.5hrs lastnight, 2hrs yesterday (12.5)

Previous 24: 11hrs at night, 1.5hrs naps (12.5)

We were getting 12hr nights and 1-2hr naps 2weeks ago when he was on one nap... xx