set nap and bedtime. Experience? Please share your thoughts

[hjrmom01]

H is almost 21 months and tbh, I'm really sick of the inconsistency in naps and nights.  I'm tired of trying to find the right A time and figure out when nap needs to be and bedtime. Frankly, I don't know what he needs. Nothing produces anything similar. One day I will have to wake him after 3 hrs, the next he doesn't even sleep 2. Sure it could all be teething as he has white spots on a canine gum but it could be months before anything happens! We're back to waking up shortly after bed (even after good naps) and usually it's just a matter of me going in, telling him to lay down, and then I lay on the floor for a bit but he usually doesn't even roll over to check and see if I'm there.

So my question, how do I go about a set naptime and bedtime if I have no clue what he needs as far as sleep?  Anyone else done this? What is your experience.  Any help is really appreciated as I'm losing my mind. It stresses me out every day and I just can't be this stressed and have a difficult pregnancy at the same time!

Here are a few past days to give you an idea:
5/19 NW 2:50, Motrin and Benadryl and rocked back to sleep 3:20. Awake 7:20
nap 1:20-3:15
bedtime 8:30 (was having hard time settling)
NW 10:10 in for 10 mins to resettle
NW 12:00 in and laid on floor, slept in there until 2

5/20 awake 7:00
nap 12:35-3:40 (had to wake)
bedtime 8:45
NW 11, in reassured and laid on floor asleep by 11:30

5/21 woke between 7/7:30
nap 12:50-2:45

And yes, I know I have gone in and rocked him back to sleep in the night because I am so flippin' tired. I do all the NW's and EW's since DH works midnights.  There are times where I've been up all night getting sick so when H wakes up I'm so exhausted I take that opportunity to fall asleep. Bad, I know.

[aimeeL]

LOL, Alyssa - because your post sounds a bit like mine did a few wks ago... I think so many of us get to the point where we're tearing out our hair and expending waaaaay too many brain cells trying to figure out the magical solution for our tricky LOs!

Here it is - http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=170526.0 - just in case there's anything to glean from it.. Can't really say that we arrived at any brilliant conclusions, but sometimes it helps just to hear other people "thinking out loud", iykwim..

I think one way that you can go about figuring out how/when to set the nap/bedtime is to start by figuring out how long of a night you usually get out of H.. Is he more like a 10.5 hr-11 hr sleeper?  11.5 hr+?  So approximate when you want him to wake, and therefore, when you need to get him to bed...  And then from that approximate wake time, you can also set your nap - again, going with a nap length and A time that H can do.  I know it's really hard when they've been all over the place and napping inconsistently, plus seeming to need different A times.. but I think you just ballpark it and go from there. 

We've sort of taken to set times ourselves - give or take a bit.  I almost always get L down by about 12:15-ish p.m.. mostly because that's when I'm driving home from work 5 days a wk and she falls asleep in the car..  Bedtime varies a bit from when she wakes up.. so I guess I do more of a set naptime and calculate-bedtime-from-wakeup....  I still have my "boundaries", though, of not putting her down before 6:30 p.m... and usually no later than 7:30-7:45 p.m..

I don't know if that helps any - but I DO know that it has felt much saner for ME...   L hasn't seemed to fare too badly and at least in this last wk, has seemed to be compensating for short naps with longer naps.  Of course, this could all change in the blink of an eye.. but I think that's also partly toddler sleep for you.  We have laid a great foundation for our LOs and tbh, I don't know if there's a ton to be gained from tweaking every little E/A/S time like we used to, ykwim?  Just such a different age and stage now...

Obviously not saying to ignore all cues and become super militant (I know you wouldn't do that anyways!  ) but... well.. ykwim... 

[*Liz*]

And yes, I know I have gone in and rocked him back to sleep in the night because I am so flippin' tired. I do all the NW's and EW's since DH works midnights.  There are times where I've been up all night getting sick so when H wakes up I'm so exhausted I take that opportunity to fall asleep. Bad, I know.

Alyssa - that is NOT bad given your circumstances - it is a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with a teething toddler with hyperemesis. Goodness me - if you even suggested hardcore sleep training I would be giving you a right ticking off!! You HAVE to look after yourself.

I agree with Aimee about the night sleep part - J sleeps 11-11.25hrs and an EW is 10.5hrs from too long of a nap. So we can get bedtime to stop us being up at silly o'clock that way.

[hjrmom01]

Aimee, I have popped in and snooped a few times on your thread  I'll have to give it a good reading tonight!  I definitely want to stick with set times because it's just so much easier for me to tell DH " nap at X time, bedtime at X time" instead of "if he naps X long then bedtime is at Y time.." ykwim?

Liz, oh thank you for understanding and not giving me the lecture about AP, I feel guilty when I do it    I don't know if H just does 10.5 hrs no matter what, from teething, because it's not from too long of a nap, he does it after short naps too!  I swear I can add up 2 weeks of naps and 99% are 10.5 hrs

How do I go about setting a naptime and bedtime?  If we want wakeup to be 8, which it used to be, then nap 1:30? If nap is 2 hrs then bedtime 8:30 or 9?

[Nauvoo]

Alyssa,
I was just coming on to post this exact subject. 
If you don't mind, what I'd like to know from those who have experience, when you say set nap/bed time do you mean give or take 10 minutes or is it more give or take 30min?  I'd love to have a set bedtime, which is what we have at 7:30pm only it produces the most inconsistent wakings.  How long does it take for set nap and bed times to bring on something consistent?

[hjrmom01]

I'd think that you'd have to have some leeway. I mean, if you have a SUPER Ew then I'd probably shift 30 mins?  We're having inconsistent NW's here as well.

After today's shotty nap I just couldn't get H to bed  Granted he really wasn't in that bad of a mood. Went to a bday party, was in a fine mood when we got home. I tried to have him in bed before 5 hrs but he was just not closing his eyes!  He screamed for a good 5 mins after I put him down and it took him until 8:05 to finally fall asleep...5hrs20 min!  I did have to stay in there and keep my hand on him.  The good news (could there really be any?!) tonight while I was brushing his teeth I noticed a canine starting to come up!  I wasn't even looking at that one because I hadn't seen a white spot!!  So we officially have one moving up and I guess will start cutting in the next few weeks...and one with a good white spot.  So maybe some of the answer???

[aimeeL]

L hasn't seemed to fare too badly and at least in this last wk, has seemed to be compensating for short naps with longer naps.

Oops - I mean short naps with longer NIGHTS.  I think you got what I meant, though...

Yay for the canine moving up already!

And that sounds decent to me:

8 a.m - wakeup
1:30 p.m-3:30 p.m. - nap
8:30 p.m. - bedtime

Nauvoo - I think like a lot of things, how much leeway you give is more dependent on you and/or your child's personality!  If you're a real stickler for things or HAVE to have things scheduled just so due to work/lifestyle/etc, then probably 10 min, give or take... Like I said, with us - our naps are pretty set due to my work.  And on wkends - we've found that it's still generally around that time - maybe give or take 15 min.  But bedtimes are probably more like 30 min, one way or the other.. and that's mostly, I think, because I haven't gone the cutting-naps-route yet.  So when her nap DOES go long - (every once in a blue moon) - bedtime has to be changed accordingly..  Our "ideal" time is around 7-7:15 p.m. (I have found that this often produces the best nights for some reason...), but we've done anywhere from 6:30 to 8 p.m.  But someone who does do set bedtimes strictly would probably have a totally different answer...

[hjrmom01]

I know your circumstances are different, Aimee, because of your work. So do you just "forget" what time L wakes in the am? Like for me, H doesn't (usually) make a sound when he wakes up. I just happen to either be awake or I check every so often in the morning. Apparently I have a habitual wake up of 7am and then I just doze from then until 8 when we get up   So if I didn't check the monitor I'd have no clue when he woke, we just always get him up at 8. If for some reason he's had a rough night and is still sleeping sometimes we'll let him go to 8:30 and then we just push the day back by 30 mins but usually will cut the nap so bedtime isn't past 9. 

So I guess, if H wakes at 7 do I still just ignore that and push on to nap...maybe adjusting it a tad earlier? I'd obviously add some quiet down time because that's a long time to be up, even I'm tired by that point!

[aimeeL]

Yup, that's exactly what I do.. our good mornings are when L wakes up from around 6:30-6:45 a.m... those are the days where I don't have to feel guilty for having to push her to 12:15 p.m. for a nap.. but we've done the same nap time on even a 5:45 wakeup... I think on the couple of days it's been earlier than that (since committing to this set time thing), I've done 2 naps, and it's worked fine to get us back on track. 

So I think if I were to have the flexibility of putting her down earlier, I would probably still keep it to around 10 min of the "set" nap time - even if she were to do a 7 a.m. wakeup... if it were earlier than THAT, well... it's probably too late in the game for you to do 2 naps.. so maybe just a 30 min earlier nap and hope for a really long one?