Toddler Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition Continued

[Flightmommy]

Jo, I would try again with the one nap, his body may just need time to adjust? Those nap lengths sound UT to me, but you know your Caleb best, especially when he woke so unsettled, that really doesn't look UT at all. It's so hard to figure out....
  Our nap situation isn't all that bad right now, but we're suffering at night...Caleb wakes and plays for hours, or wakes screaming because he's on his tummy and can't seem to turn over without getting his arm caught behind him, so he's all twisted and freaks out. He seems a little old to be going through this now, but he was never on the early side physically...i mean he started crawling at 10.5 months and is just now at almost 13 months starting to pull himself up on furniture. On the flip side, he's smart as a whip so i can't really complain. I just really hate these NW's....i naively thought that at this point we wouldn't be dealing with NW's....lol!!!

[gavinsmum1]

This cold is wreaking havoc on everything.  Alyssa, I can relate to your situation as Jesse is showing all the same symptoms as H.  It's really draining tending to a fussy, whiny babe all day.  I can't believe the hour I'm going to bed every night.
Our day was a little surprising today.  It looked like this:

wake 6:30 crying!

nap 9:25 (passed right out, but jolting through the first 15 minutes)-10:42 woke on his own

nap -Well, we tried putting him down after 3.5 hours.  He feel asleep in about 10 minutes, but woke up after 10 minutes!!!!  He wouldn't resettle even after we left him there for 30 minutes.  DH who was at home today took him out in the car finally and APOP a nap at 4:20-4:40  I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing to get that short little nap in. 

bedtime 7:05 he just settled, I guess it was a good thing, but we'll see how the night goes.

I'm utterly confused by this last nap.  Could he have been OT again?  Or did he fall asleep and then wake so soon after because he was UT?  I don't get it at all. 

My first was never like this.  I feel like such an amateur with all these problematic postings about Jesse's sleep.  It's almost as embarrassing as it is frustrating.

[*Jo*]

GM - I think it was fine to APOP that nap, i think personally he was OT at that last nap, but i wouldve thought he couldve handled it though after a decent nap, unless something woke him? pain?

well we are trying one nap again, i took him out this morning and let him go 4.5 hours A time, he went to sleep no problem and that was 15mins ago so heres hoping we dont get a 1 hour 10min nap again (or the likes thereof!) after his short nap yesterday we had him up till 7.15pm, he was fine, no crying, whinging etc so that was an A time of 6 hours, then he slept 12.5 hours and we had to wake him up at 7.30am, he was so hard to wake up, so i thought after a good night like that we will try another 1 nap day and see how we go.........

[gavinsmum1]

Jo, I remember the transition being very much the same with Gavin as it looks like with Caleb.  There were many days in the beginning where all we got was an hour and 15 minutes nap and he was sent to bed early.  Eventually, (perhaps within a month) he started lengthening that nap out and it ended up being a consistent 2 hour length.  I think that was honestly some of the best nap days for me, too, especially when I was expecting Jesse.

I have to agree with you about the early waking.  I suspect that it wasn't OT, but that he woke from something else and then just couldn't resettle and then got OT.  He's really touchy some days and he hasn't had a long am nap in a long time, so maybe something just disturbed his sleep and that was it.  Usually when he's napping, I'm in the basement doing laundry or catching a show, so I don't hear everything that's going on upstairs!!  I'm going to stick to the long am nap tomorrow until we're safely out of OT territory.  If we get a repeat of that ridiculous afternoon nap business, then I know something's up.

[Flightmommy]

Wow, Jo...i'm sooo envious of your 12.5h night!!! He must not have been too OT then, hope the one nap works well for you today!

[Nauvoo]

Me too!  We once upon a time (until a month ago) always had wonderful 12 hour nights.  Now 10hours is way to common.

Gavinsmum, can you remember with your DS1 if you just went to 1nap a day or did you have days with 2 naps?  My Lo will only take a 1hour 20min nap on one nap days and I feel like with mixing it up with 2 nap days that she isn't getting the idea that the 1nap should be extended.  In other words I feel like I'm not letting her realize that we're trying to move to one nap by having 2 nap days.  I'm really considering just going to 1 nap because 2nap days are just not working anymore as they used to.

[Flightmommy]

Nauvoo06, i know 1h20 isn't ideal,but i've read so many posts where it says that LO's eventually extend that nap after some time of being on one nap days.....you never know, it could happen.  I guess we're really lucky since Caleb takes long 2h+ naps when we do the one nap days.....but our nights are horrible right now, and I would,in an instant, rather have horrible naps than horrible nights....i must be rusty or something, cause these NW's are killing me!!
  Anyways, we're mixing it up here as well...i don't even have a set plan, i just wake up and see how his mood is and based on his night, we either do short am/long pm or just go for the one nap...lol!!! Poor Caleb must be wondering what happened to our nice, scheduled routine we once had!!!

[*Jo*]

 well we got 1.5 hours! and i think its only cos he pooed that he woke up, as soon as i went into his room i could smell it, so i think we will try again tomorrow though

[*Jo*]

oh my, Caleb just opened his mouth up wide whilst laughing and i saw a tiny part of a molar has cut through his gum, so apart from that squeal waking him from his nap yesterday I wouldnt have known he was even teething, hes been in the best moods lately! heres hoping the rest are this painless!!!

[Tweakster]

Ok I think we making some progress.  The day before yesterday he did a 1 hour nap the entire day - yes you read that right!  And he slept over 12 hours at night, one small cry out at the 10 hr mark but back to sleep.  Yesterday I capped his day sleep at just a tad over 2 hrs, a 15 min almost non-nap to get him to noon and then a 2 hr nap at noon - I woke him.  Asleep by 6:30.

And we got a straight, no nonsense 11 hour night.  Does this really tell me that he's low sleep needs?  I have never been able to figure it out.

So cross your fingers for me ladies, I am going to try to replicate this again today.

[gavinsmum1]

Nauvoo, I did mostly one nap days.  The exception was when he was really bothered by teeth or was sick.  Then we would nap together on my bed for about 20 minutes and I would still put him down for his pm nap at the same time as usual and he would zonk right out at the normal nap time, so his am nap was not enough to disturb the afternoon snooze. 

[londonmama]

Jo, it could be that the nonsense you've been dealing with over the last few weeks were related to that molar.  Once those little white points came through for us, the sleep was instantly better.  It was the weeks before that that were the problem.  Hope things get better from here!

[*Jo*]

couldve been!!!

anyway we had a 12.5 hour night again!!! so im gonna go for another one nap day again today and see how we get on, hopefully that nap gets longer....

Wendy, I think your boy really is low sleep needs, he always has been really hasnt he?

[Tweakster]

Jo I never really knew until now.  It was so hard to tell sometimes.  The problem is that he is probably lower sleep needs but also can't sustain high A times without being a cranky pants.  So the equation doesn't work.  So we do a lot of 'rest periods' now, with quiet time.   

The hardest part of this whole nap thing is that he hates being woken up...hates it.  And I hate waking him. And now I have to do it twice a day.   I really do a gentle wake now where I try to let the house sounds wake him...and then I sit with him in his room while the whole time he's upset and burying himself in my neck.  And it's nothing new, it's like 2 mths of me waking him from naps...he just doesn't get used to it lol  He would have slept longer at the PM nap, and was very very grumpy when I woke him...and for the rest of the afternoon.  I think with his walking now he's getting tired easily too.  We went out on a couple of errands and he yawned the entire time.  We'll see how the night goes I guess.

[*Jo*]

Wendy - have you ever just let him sleep as much as he wants and see what happens? especially with him being more tired with walking he may well surprise you and still STTN, that happened a couple of times with Caleb, he slept about 3-4 hours in a day period (which is ALOT for him) and that night he still STTN