2-1 Transition

[delancepants]

Hi there, I'm back again!

DS is getting close to 1 nap now and i need a little advice.  I've read all the 2-1 transition stuff, very helpful, especially the advice that you can do 1 / 2 naps on alternate days.  However, I'm still not sure quite what I should be doing right now.

DS is just over 13mo.  Up to a few weeks ago we were on:

7.00 wake
11.00 nap
11.35 wake
2.35 nap
4.00 wake
7.30 bed

Then DS was sick for about 3 weeks and for about the last 10 days I've been struggling to find his new A time.  One day he only took one nap of 1h15 after A time of 4h30, and I was hoping to experiment with one nap days here and there to see if I could lengthen it out, but he seems to be stuck in a long day / short night cycle, sleeping only about 11hours at night, so he's waking up too early for me to try only one nap!  Today, quite by accident we had:

6.40 wake
11.30 nap
1.00 wake
6.00 bed, but he woke at 6.40 and 7.10 and finally I got him back to sleep by 8pm for the night (lets keep everything crossed he doesn't have a rough night)

The long nap today surprised me as he only had 10h40 sleep last night, so I thought he'd be tired this morn and need a short A time!  But obviously the pm A time was too long as he was struggling this evening. 

Now I'm not sure where to go from here.  What would you suggest?

Thanks, Lia

[becky1969]

Hmmm. Those wakings tonight actually sound like discomfort.  Do you think there might be some more sickness disrupting his sleep?

Other than that, you're SUPER close to just jumping to 1 nap completely.  The best rule of thumb is that a LO can go to 1 nap when either a) they can handle 4.5-5 hours of A time and/or b) they can last until 11:30 before taking a nap. 

You're pretty much there! Waking before 7 am sort of messes you up, but if you can get him to sleep until 7, I think I'd try for a nap at 11:30 and then an early-ish bedtime if he manages to sleep until 1:00 or later.  On days where he wakes before 7, I'd probably opt for 2 naps if he's willing to do it!  He still will take 2 naps if offered, then that's what I'd keep doing on days where he wakes before 7.

So

7 am wake

11:30-1:30 nap (hopefully!)

6:30 bedtime

It usually takes about a week of having 1 nap every day before the nap will consistently get long.  My son definitely was stuck at 1-1.5 hour naps for the first 1-2 weeks, and then it gradually got to 2 hours.  Then we stayed there for about 6 months, and once he turned 2 or 2.5 (can't remember which) he started sleeping 2.5-3 hours for his nap!  Still will if I let him!   

[delancepants]

No, he's definitely well again, I'm pretty sure the evening waking is down to poor pm timing.  It's what usually happens if I get the timing wrong.  He seems to do better with long morn A then shorter pm A.  I think I should have put him down at 5.30 really.

Yes, he's still happy to take two naps during the day, it just seems to result in him only sleeping 11 hours at night, although it's a good 11 hours, no evening waking like last night.  I will do what you suggest, as your advice has been so useful in the past.  Maybe it's just a case of another week or two on 2 naps before we switch.

Good to hear that one nap extends in length, I was wondering how that worked as I was sure there was no way DS would sleep longer than about 1h45 for one nap.  I'm looking forward to more 'me' time down the road!

Thanks, Lia

[delancepants]

OMG!!!  Fantastic news!

So I had been wondering how the heck I was ever going to get DS to wake up at 7am or later in order to try one nap, as he just kept waking up way too early no matter what I did.  Somehow this morning he slept till 6.50am so I decided to go for it.  I put him down at 11.30am and heard him stirring after 35 mins and 45 mins and 1h05 (these are his usual stirring times) and each time he just rolled over and went back to sleep!  He's now been asleep for 2h25 and no sign of waking yet - hooray - I had 'me time'!!

So now I'm wondering how it works from here on.  His sleepy cues are absolutely useless, they're completely unreliable.  (At this stage I'm sure it's not me just being crap!)  So in the absence of sleepy cues, do I follow something like the old formula - if the nap gets shorter, lengthen out morning A time a little?

Thanks, Lia

[becky1969]

totally normal for them NOT to have sleepy cues at this point.  IN fact, for most LOs they disappear sometime around 6-9 months, which is why a lot of moms still have 1 year olds on a 6 month old routine -- the sleepy signs disappear except for some habitual ones at the normal sleep times!

So yes, when naps go to crap, most likely time to increase A time a bit.  Other things that might cause nap problems in this age group are teething and illness.  So, if you can eliminate teeth or illness as a cause, then increase A time and see how that works! And also, most need to increase by 30 minutes or more when they're ready to change.

GL! Glad it's going better!

[delancepants]

Aha, that explains why I feel like we went all of a sudden from 2 naps to 1 over night.  Thanks for this info. 

[delancepants]

Ok, so our second day of just one nap and DS only slept for 1.5hours.  I did all my best APOP tricks but couldn't get him back to sleep!  Currently I have him on 4h40 A, so you say I should leave  him on this for a week or two before the nap will lengthen out?  If I don't see any improvement after 2 weeks then should I try lengthening A time?  By half an hour?  It seems like a lot at once.

I just looked back at your first post and you're suggesting a longer pm A time than morning.  For some time now we have been doing longest A in the morning and shorter at lunchtime/eve, so I'm worried about switching things around - do you think I am right to be concerned or should I just go for it and see what happens?

Thanks, Lia

[becky1969]

1.5 hours when you're first on 1 nap is AWESOME!!!!!! Not even the sleepiest kid can go back to sleep with *that* mjuch sleep in them, tho! So don't even bother with nap extention techniques when he sleeps that long.  As I said before, it can take up to a week of consistently being offered 1 nap for the nap to get longer.  And, we were stuck with 1.5 hours for at least 2 weeks and maybe longer before he went to 2 hours.  And it was a year or so before he was finally sleeping 2.5-3 hours!

Just be patient! I think it sounds like nap timing is perfect.  Give it a week.

[delancepants]

Ok cool thanks!

[delancepants]

Aaaaarrgh!!  DS keeps waking up early it's driving me nuts!  I've been trying to stretch out his day so that he goes to bed later and so gets up later in the morning but it's not working.  He just sleeps less at night and wakes up at the same time in the morn, around 6am.  Yesterday we had:

6.15 wake
10.25 nap
11.00 wake
2.35 nap
3.55 wake
8.00 bed (and he was really ready to go to sleep)

but then he woke up at 6.15 again this morn.  After only 10h15 sleep.  And he wasn't even cranky - he woke up singing!!  I can't imagine that it would be habitual waking, it hasn't been going on that long and it's not precisely the same time every morn, and besides there's nothing happening that time in the morn to instigate it.

How am I ever going to get him to wake up later?

Lia

[delancepants]

...and actually, now I think about it, how am I going to keep him waking up late?  I've just been thinking about it and realised that it's probably impossible at the moment as on one nap days he's only doing 4h45-5h A with 1.5h nap, which is 11.25-11.5h, but then he doesn't need 12.5h sleep at night!  Am I stuck with a messy schedule for a while?

[delancepants]

Oh dear it just seems like it's getting worse day by day.  Last night DS only slept 10hours (he woke up crying this time, not singing) and woke up at 5.50am.  Yesterday during the day he refused his second nap in the buggy (he's never had a problem taking a nap in the buggy before when the timing's right, so I feel like now the timing must be all wrong).  By the time I managed to get him home for a second nap he'd been awake for 5 hours between naps and then the second nap was too close to bedtime.  I really feel like we need to be on one nap now but I just don't know how to get him to wake up at a reasonable hour in the morning.  This morning I tried walking him around to get him back to sleep (it's worked occasionally in the past) but still awake after 25mins.  I breastfed him and after about 15mins he was falling asleep, but I draw the line at feeding him back to sleep, so I got him up.

I feel completely lost now.  The last couple of months have just been so draining emotionally and I really feel like I'm at the end of my tether.  People keep telling me it gets better but I'm starting to wonder.

[delancepants]

....so it was 5.30 this morning after only 10 hours sleep again.  I managed to walk him back to sleep but he woke up quite quickly and then as usual he started to fall asleep on the boob.  I was so exhausted I let him.  He ended up waking up at 7.45am so we had one nap today, I'm just hoping that he manages to catch up on his sleep tonight to get him out of what seems to me to be a bit of an OT cycle.  Assuming he wakes up at a reasonable hour tomorrow in order for us to do one nap I have some questions about how this is supposed to work from here on...

DS is really struggling to take 2 naps now.  If he wakes up too early for one nap, what's the best way to get him through the day?  Do I offer one decent nap and one short nap or two medium naps or two short naps?  Do I try to lengthen his day out to get him to bed late?  I feel like I've tried all of these options over the last week or so and none of them worked.  (It was purely down to the APOP this morning that got us back on track and I'm just praying that I've got away with it.)

You said you need to offer one nap consistently every day for a week or so before the nap will lengthen out past 1-1.5 hours, but surely then they're OT at bedtime every day?  How do you avoid an OT cycle?

Thanks, Lia

[babybarr]

Hi

Why don't you try a fairly fixed nap time of 11.30am and and early bedtime of say 6-6.30pm - lots of bubs needs an early bed when they first transition.

Laura

[becky1969]

I agree with PP.  Also, I think you're going to have to eliminate any BF before 7 am.  That will reinforce an early waking, if he knows he's going to get a BF and mommy cuddle time upon waking.  He's old enough that you can tell him that "mommy's boobs are sleeping" or whatever terms you guys use.  He's old enough that he can make it until 7 without eating!   Granted, it may mean he wakes up, but you'll do WI/WO until 6 or whatever time you consider a reasonable waking time.