Toddler Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition Continued

[Manueli]

Thanks aimeeL and Sharon, I guess I will have to bite the apple and start waking him earlier from his naps, as much as I hate it. I am a big fan of having at least 11hrs of night sleep, but because he started being awake so long (and keeping his long naps) our bedtime got later and later. Now it is 9.30pm and he isn't even close to sleeping. We have the other issue that he gets hyper as soon as we put him into his crib, even though he was calm and tired before on our arms. Sleep is such a complicated thing. The nights are so bad because we have the bf as prop, but I am reluctant of doing PUPD right now since he is teething. On the other hand he doesn't seem to stop getting new teeth, so maybe I can find a way of weaning even though he is in a bit of pain. He doesn't seem to react to any of the meds we give.
I am definitelly happy to hold on with the 1 nap, I also don't think he is really ready for it (me neither to be honest). I will probably post in this thread later then. Thanks again for the help, and good luck to all of you with the transition.

[Manueli]

Oh, one more thing. When they get older, is it more about you setting the time for the naps or do you still go after when they are tired? Because I read in the 2-1 transition info thread that one way to tackle this is by keeping the AM nap at a set time so that it will shorten by itself. But how do you get them to fall asleep for that nap then? As I said our LO is super hyper in the crib, more so if he isn't really tired.
Also, how do you know if you should do a long AM or PM nap? I think I also read that for those LOs that like a short first A time you tend to do a long PM nap. Hayden would then fit into that category, even though I think he likes his long AM nap.

[marlowsmom]

Manueli-
Is your LO standing now?  cruising?  walking?   I think that since he is almost 10 months old he is too old to do PU/PD.   You will have to do one of these options
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=80750.0

I did WI/WO but it all depends on your LO.    Maybe you should do the quick quiz to see what category your LO falls under.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52283.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=52284.0

My LO is Angel/Textbook with a splash of touchy.    All of her touchy has to do with me leaving her at sleep time.   If I stay in the room she gets too excited that I'm there and wants me to play.    I left her and listened to her cries.    As long as she wasn't having a panicked full blown cry then I let her be.

As they get older it gets a bit harder to determine how tired they are by sleepy cues so have a set amount of A time.   The A time may vary slightly depending on if he just woke for the day or just woke from a 30 min nap.   

[~Jen~]

Ok, we went back to 2 naps b/c DS just wasn't having a good enough 1 nap.  But our days are getting really long with +13hrs.  I'm just running out of hours.  Such a confusing time!!

Did anyone get stuck on 1:20hr naps when they first transitioned to 1 nap?  That is the longest I can get right now. I'd like to stay on 2naps for as long as we can.. but I'm really struggling with how to fit it in and I think we just have to take the leap soon.  DS seems to consistently wake at 6:30am (can never get a 7am wake) and so is ready to go to sleep around 10:30/10:45am.  But wakes at 12.  I've been sticking a little catnap in at end of day (which he doesn't fight) to get us to BT.  We;ve been doing short am/long pm route for months with 2-1.  Do you think I should switch to long am/short pm to get him used to stretching his As in the morning?

[Tweakster]

HI there Jen, yes there were a few that got stuck and we suggested W2S - have you tried it?

[aimeeL]

Ugh, ugh and triple ugh.  These last two wks have been a bear... totally feel like I've lost the plot!  Yesterday, L fell asleep in the car on the way home from work - like she has been since we started this 1 nap deal - BUT woke when I transferred her to the crib.. first time that's happened.  It took 1.5 hrs of me holding her close in bed - her fighting and crying for much of it - until she finally gave in and slept.  For almost 2.5 hrs!  I woke her up finally at 4:20 p.m.  That made bedtime 8:30.. but woke up this am at 6:30.  UGH.  I did 2 naps today because I didn't want the wake-on-transfer thing to happen 2 days in a row.. and she did fine with it.. am just wishing this whole thing was EASIER.. =)  Don't we all?

Jen - I don't think switching to long am/short pm at this pt would work.. What happens if you push that 1st nap just a teeny bit, get him to sleep a little later, and then maybe continue cutting the pm CN? 

[hjrmom01]

Aimee, with you on the ugh, ugh, and triple ugh. That's exactly how I feel. H was doing fine for a while there, then got sick, went through a spurt of sleeping like 3 hr+ naps I was having to wake him from, doing long nights, and now we're shortening naps and nights. Could be the last molar, though. I though maybe he needed A increase since he's not sick...nope! Did 5 hrs after a 2 hr nap yesterday...10.5 hr on the dot night I can't win. So, just going to wing it and keep drudging along, grumbling all the way

[annette.xx]

Hi all

when your LOs wake early (say 5am!!) what do you do with your one nap? I cant go back to 2 naps cos it always causes lots of agro and too much thought and too many WI/WO!!!!

DD always has a shorter morning A time before her nap - around 4 1/2 hrs works best to get a decent nap which would mean a 9.30 first nap until 11.30/12 then what I have been doing is putting her to bed early at around 5 hours A after nap and now its causing even more problems cos day is now shifting to more like 4am starts!!!

work commitments mean its impossible to get her to bed until after 7pm half of the week so Ideally I would lie to be able to stretch her out to 7pm but how? I did early 5.30pm bedtime today but I fear that because of my 4am start its going to be another 10.5 hr night so could be 4am again!!

gosh this is hard!
Annette.xx

[~Jen~]

Wendy - I'll be totally honest, W2S scares me!  We've never done it but I am just so convinced that going into his room to give him a nudge will wake him. Whenever I go into his room to wake him from a nap, he jumps as soon as I open his door.  Not sure it would work for us.

AimeeL - sorry, I meant to say that by switching we would try for the later AM nap (around same time if we were having a 1 nap day) but if it turns out short, try and squeeze in a CN.

Good news is we managed to get a late wake up yesterday and so we tried 1 nap again.  He was asleep after 4.5hrs A and did 2:10hrs!    So excited to break the 1:20 mark.  We went on to have a short night (not sure why) but at least I know extending A time helped extend nap. 

Wake 7am
Nap 11:30 - 1:40
Asleep 7pm  (put him in cot at 6:15 but rolled around for 45mins)

Wake 5:45ish

Don't know why took him so long to fall asleep.  Was he already OT by time he was in his cot?

[Tweakster]

Hi there Jen, what if his sleep needs have dropped...has he always done 12 hours at night?  He might not now...so I think your day looks pretty good up there :-)

I think he was UT at bedtime not OT. 

[Tao]

Hi Ladies =),

It's been a while since I've been on but I'm proud to announce that my little Sophie is officially 1 year old =). We had her party yesterday and we managed to get through the day with one nap, a huge allergic reaction to shrimp that someone had, a house full of family and guests and a whole lot of OT and OS before BT. Haha. Thanks for helping my little girl get to this point...I DEFINITELY know that I would not be here happy and sane without your support.

On to more fun things. I don't know if it's because she is officially one now but things have gone wacky again. We tried the 2 nap thing a month ago, then had tons of pm nap refusal despite the 30 minute a.m. nap, then tried one nap for a while, became extremely OT over several days, and then went back to the two naps which worked all last week. We had her on 30 minutes a.m. 3.5-4 hours A time in between and then 1.5 hour p.m. nap. The past few days, she has been taking FOREVER to go down. Here's what our recent schedule has looked like:

5:30/6:00 Wake
9:40-10:10 Nap (wake her up to preserve p.m. nap)
1:50/2:00 (this is when we put her down for her p.m. nap and it will take her 45 minutes to an hour to finally go down, sometimes. Lately, after an hour she is still standing and laying, standing and laying, and whining the entire time until she is finally fed up and lets out a loud cry after an hour of trying. So I go in and get her if she isn't napping by now)
6:00 BT (goes down easily)

Also, might want to mention that we recently did WI/WO for a week and it really worked for BT but she is going through horrible SA during the day, extremely clingy so I'm wondering if this is what's making nap time so hard, or maybe I need to tweak into more A?

Thanks for taking a look at my schedule =).

[marlowsmom]

Your A seems fine but you could try a 20 min AM nap then maybe 3 to3.5 hour A.   Shaving 10 minutes can make all the difference.    I was giving Marlow 20 min naps, 3 hr A then she'd take a 1.5 hr PM nap.     Now we do 30 min AM nap, 4 hr A, 1.5 pm nap.     I had to play with her schedule and I bet that is all you have to do.   

[aimeeL]

Yup, I was going to say the same thing.. try cutting the am nap down to 20 min.. we were on 20 min am/1.5 hr pm for a loooong time, it seemed like.. 

L took a 3 hr nap today!  I was so stunned I don't think I did much but stare at the monitor for the last hr...! =P  She did wake - OT - at 1.25 and 1.75 hrs, but went back to sleep very quickly when DH went in to tell her to lay back down.  (I think it's so odd that she'll do that for him.)  Anyways - hoping she's caught up some and we can continue holding the major OT at bay...

[janecharlotte]

Sounds like there are a few of us battling the 2-1 at the moment.

I have posted a few times in the general toddler sleep but thought someone here might be able to have some fresh eyes in things.

We are alternating between 1 and 2 sleeps. Yesterday LO had 1x2.5 hour sleep (she woke at 7.45am so we were able to get her to sleep over the lunch period). Today she woke earlier so i thought I'd try 2 sleeps. I woke her from her first one after 30mins (she wasn't happy), then put her down for the 2nd one at 3 hours A as she seemed very tired but it took her 25mins to fall asleep, then she only had 30mins!

What do I aim for tomorrow? I figure 1 sleep if she wakes later than 7.30 but should I try and cut the am sleep to 20mins if she wakes early? So confused!

LO is 13.5 months

[Tao]

Hi JaneCharlotte,

My LO has done that before where I put her down a bit UT and she takes forever to go down so then she ends up being OT which is what I think may have happened to your LO. Have you tried increased A time from 3 hours A to maybe 3.5 hours A? I know that my DD needs more than 3 hours A after 30 minutes (in fact I'm learning that she needs close to 4 hours) and she's only 1 year old!

I would maybe try that first before cutting to 20 minutes...try 3.5 H of A and see if that helps. This might mean a later BT though. HTH