Help!!! going insane about this short nap business!!!

[*Jo*]

every single day, only one nap and usually only 1-1.5 hours, most days its around 1 hour 10mins, theres NO extending any of these naps, ive tried, beleive me ive tried, weve done WI/WO, patting, W2S, everything! its just simply not enough sleep for him to withstand a whole day on. its been three weeks of this now and I dont know what else to do, if he sleeps for more than an hour then he just wont extend a nap at all!!! his nap is at 12 so by the time he wakes up (around 1.15) its not enough sleep and then he goes another 4.5 hours or so till hes ready for another nap but 5.45 onwards is too late for a second nap, and he just wont have it. so we put him down earlier for bed....hes so tired come bedtime, we cant eat dinner together anymore because his dinner is earlier than ours because he has to go to bed earlier and of course he wakes up earlier adn the same thing happens again the next day

Im getting really sick of hearing him cry out after such a short nap, like I want to go into his room and yell at him "Just go back to flipping sleep!" we spend ages trying to get him back to sleep but nothing is working. how on earth do I get a longer nap??? I feel like Im goin mad!!!!

[nona]

is he 13 months? what time does he get up? what time do you put him down for bed?

what if you push his morning nap a little later ?

[*Jo*]

He will be 14 months this week, we've let him sleepin till 8am at the latest to allow for one nap, today was 7am wakeup, nap was at 12 til 1.10pm and bedtime will be about 6.30, this is how most of his days look like. However we have tried putting him to bed earlier and get a wakeup as early as 5.45am he nex morning

[*Becky*]

This is exactly the same for us Jo - it drives me crazy. I can't relax at all as I am just waiting for the wake up cry! I just don 't know what to do either and it is so frustrating when you hear about other babies going to one nap and sleeping 3 hours! The other day he was up at 6am, napped 12-1.05pm and then went to bed at 6pm and of course was up at 5.40am which is just horrible! I was wondering whether it was because I had not done one nap for a few days so he head a chance to get used to it but tbh if he can't nap properly for one day then he will get tired and so the next day I have to do something about it! I will be listening in but hugs - it is so maddening!
Becky x

[nona]

so when did you switch him to 1 naps? do you think he could do 2 naps if you put him down a little earlier? when did he make the switch?

when we made the switch, which was around this age b/c DS refused 2nd nap, he would practically be falling asleep during lunch but would only take a shorter nap. then after a while, his one naps started gradually started getting longer and longer.

[Tweakster]

How many hours is he doing at night?  I heard mention of others having to cut their nights (eeek!) to keep decent nap intact because LO needs a decent nap still to keep mood and disposition intact.  If he's getting a lot at night he won't be inclined to do more during the day, no sleep drive.

[koe2moe]

Have you considered UT?  For us, the biggest mistake I did was too worried DS would be OT and always tried to put him down earlier than he's ready.  I've learned to just watch him.  When he's tired, he would sleep long and at 14 mo now caleb can probably do much longer A.  DS sometimes does 6 or 7 first A since 12 mo when he's not ill.  Not sure if this is of any help to you.  Good luck! 

[*Jo*]

thanks ladies, we had a terrible night last night, he woke up at 9.50 and was awake till 11pm, we tried patting and he would fall asleep but then wake up 5 mins later, gave nurofen for the pain at 10pm but it didnt seem to work, he cried so much that his sheets were wet so i had to move him around the bed where they werent and then he finally fell asleep. he then woke up around abuot every hour after that and up for the day at 5.30am!!!!! I am going to try and put him to bed at 4 hours A time today instead of the usual 4.5 that I do because yep i have tried a longer A time, and still got a 1 hour 15min nap. hes gonna need alot of sleep today to catch up on what hes missed on the last few days... he is teething at the moment though so i cant do wi/wo to extend a nap.

Koe2moe - hes only just gone up from 4 hours A time to 4.5 in the last month so Im not sure if he needs more A time but i have tried more and that didnt work either.

Wendy - his nightsleep at the moment is around 11 hours, so if you count daysleep thats around 12-12.5 hours in total, just not enough I feel

[Tweakster]

Wendy - his nightsleep at the moment is around 11 hours, so if you count daysleep thats around 12-12.5 hours in total, just not enough I feel

Ah ok I remember reading about some stellar 12 & 13 hour nights, if those are gone then yeah it's probably not anything you want to cut.

[*Jo*]

yes, they are gone *weeps at the memory*

[squeakersmum]

Hey we had a similar problem a few weeks back - what worked for us was actually putting him down earlier for his nap (seemed backwards to me as I thought he would just wake up even earlier iyswim).

He normally napped at 12 but I put him down at 11 - so instead of 5hr A as he had been doing he had 4hr A on that day - and he slept for 3 hours!!!!  (this was after his nap getting progressively shorter and shorter until it had got to between 45mins and 1hr)  So actually he woke up later than he had been doing anyway.

I think for us, he had got OT and needed that early nap to reset.

Not saying that it would work for everybody, but he's now back to napping for around 2 - 2.5hrs after 5hr A.  

HTH

Steph XXX

[babybarr]

Haven't got time to read right now, but will be back at some point as we have king of the short nap here! 

Big hugs to you though - it's hard work only having a short break in the day.

[*Jo*]

Steph, yep we are aiming for a 4 hour A time today too, he doesnt succumb easily to OT so i think it has built up over the last few days/weeks and having the molar issue doesnt help im sure, he was still short napping before the molar but this has just made the issue worse

[koe2moe]

big hugzzzz to you!  Sorry for not reading it properly.   molars are just down right problematic!!!  are u medicating? 

[*Jo*]

yep we are medicating, doesnt seem to be working at all