12.5 month old - Short AM ok - fights Long PM

[marlowsmom]

Hi Ladies,
Marlow is 12.5 months old.   She is teething.   Teething has yet to be a problem to her sleep.   She's been on this schedule for 2 months now.

awake 6 to 630am
AM nap 1030 -1050
PM nap 2pm-330pm
Bedtime 730pm

The past 3 days she has short napped for her Long PM nap. Today I tried

Awake 615am
AM nap 1020-1040
PM nap  I aimed for -- 230-345pm
            What I got  230 - 310pm
Bedtime 710pm

The OT is going to build after this day.    Do I make the leap to one nap and early bedtime?

[brenda2]

i think you need to keep pushing the morning nap later.  but it's already pretty short ...and she did 4 hours A time after a 20 min nap and still did a short nap...it's probably time to just go to 1 nap.  have you tried it yet?  do 5 hours A time, nap then 5 hours A time again and bed.

[marlowsmom]

I've tried 1 nap about 2 or 3 weeks ago when DST occurred.     The first day she had a 2.40 min nap, next day 1.5, next day 1.20 so I stopped and went back to the original schedule.     I'll give it a go today.   Thanks Brenda.

[marlowsmom]

Brenda,
Today:
awake 615am
Nap 11-1
Bed 630pm

I know a touch late but I had to take DD1 for her 4yr old check up.     By the time we got home, had dinner, bath, and got ready for bed it was 630pm.    It was so much easier to feed them when you spooned the food in their mouth.    She can be a painstakingly slow eater.   

[Tao]

Hi,

I'm just curious when you pushed her A time this morning till 11 p.m., did she seem fussy as if OT was starting? I think this is how I know my DD is not ready because after about 10:30 she starts to melt down and needs to sleep. Maybe give it 5 days of 1 nap days to see how things go? Hopefully this time she will not have shorter and shorter nap times...

Best wishes.

[brenda2]

sounds like a good day today.

you may need to do 1 nap some days and 2 nap on other days to let her catch up.  with dd1 we went back and forth between 1 and 2 naps for about 3 mo before she was every day on 1 nap.  kwim?  by the end she was having 2 naps once every couple of weeks as it slowly caught up with her.  just go with what feels right and if she has a bad night or an ew then 2 naps on that day.

i'm going through the same thing with my lo now too.  she has really long A times but when i try to go for 1 nap nearer the middle of the day she does a 30 or 40 min nap and then i have to do another one later.  but she's a chronic short napper.  just finding it frustrating...today she did wake at 7, nap 11:40-12:20 and nap 3:10-4:20, bed at 7:40.  sigh.

[marlowsmom]

Tao- No she doesn't get fussy and have a melt down.    She gets fidgety and is always on the move.    She's a mellow baby so when she starts moving non stop I know she is near her breaking point.

Brenda-
Last night she slept 630-530am.   I thought 530 was too early so I gave her a bottle and she fell right back asleep until 715am.   I'll put her down at 1215pm and hope for another good nap.   

If she short naps then a CN is impossible to achieve, due to timing, and sometimes interferes with her night sleep.    I keep it as a last resort.

[marlowsmom]

The last few days I've done a long am and short pm CN and she has had NWs.    If I do short AM and long PM I get nap refusal for the PM and this will result in a 30min PM nap.   She had a NW last night from 345 to 420am and she woke at 630am.   I pushed her nap time today until 1130am and she was beat down tired.   My ultimate goal to make sure she has a solid night sleep with no interruptions.  
She usually wakes at 545am lately which stinks.   Do you think this is OT?
Any other suggestions?

[brenda2]

might be ot.  might be teeth?

i wouldn't go more than 5 hours a time so if she is waking so early i would aim for 2 naps.

[marlowsmom]

OMG Brenda I want to give your baby a big smooch!   She is soooo cute!   

I'm thinking the EW is OT; before she changed her schedule she was waking at 630am.   I just think 2 naps just doesn't work for her. 

[brenda2]

thanks 

it is a hard transition.  as she gets older and is able to do longer A times more easily she will settle into the 1 nap day.  some babies are just early wakers too.

we are struggling with the transition too,  today was 1 nap and early bedtime so i bet we have an early wake up too!

[marlowsmom]

So on the days she EW do you do a short am and long pm?

[brenda2]

no that never works for me because if i wake her up from nap 1 she just ends up with 2 short naps.  so i do a long first nap and then a short second nap.  it didn't work so well yesterday, nap 2 was too late and then she had a few nws which may have been due to too late a catnap or because she was congested - head cold.

so usually 2 nap day looks like this:
6 awake
10:30-12 sleep
4-4:30 sleep
7 to 7:30 bed

1 nap day:
7:30 awake
12-2 sleep
6:30 to 7 bed

i kind of decide based on wake up time what i'm goign to aim for.  it's not perfect, i still have a few nws sometimes (like i said she's had a cold for a couplr days so may be that), but she's pretty happy during the day and doesn't fight naps so that's something.

[marlowsmom]

Ok so that looks like what I'm doing.     The only thing is for me is that if I give her a long am and try to CN (all the same times as you) the CN is too late in the day and she has a NW.     Also, starting at the age of 10 months she started refusing her PM nap.   At the time she was doing long AM and long PM.    If I tried to do long AM and short PM, she would have a major EW.   So I did short AM (20min) and long PM.

So long PM and late afternoon CN both cause issues.   If she's going to have a CN she would have to be asleep by 3pm and only nap for 20 min.   That is not happening; she won't do it.   

[brenda2]

yeah.  yesterday my lo had a very late CN but i knew she couldn't make it to bedtime so i just let her have 30 min but it was way too late - 4:45-5:15, and i think that is why she had 2 nws.  but they weren't too bad, she was up for 2 min at 12 and 2 min at 3 and slept until 7:15 today.  so i'm just going to continue doing it this way because the short am nap and long pm nap (which i think is better) just doens't work for her, she'll do 2 short naps which is worse.  i've tried it a bunch of times and it doens't work.  so a couple nws is better for me i think.  it's temporary anyway, it'll all iron out in a few months so i'm not worried about it.  my dd1 had a terrible time with 2-1, she was fighting naps and had ews and fighting bedtime and crying a lot, so really a couple of short nws and a happy baby during the day is way better than what i went through with dd1.  it's all relative!