Support Thread for 2-1 Nap Transition cont'd pt 3

[Khalam's Mama]

I am not used to early mornings we used to have a lovely 8-8 routine. I have always avoided short am because I read that if they have short A in the am they do better with long am nap short pm and also activitywise long am suits us better. But I did give it a go today.
Last nighht I had a NW at 2.20am for 1hr 10 which was annoying. I did W2S at 4.30 and he slept until 5.40 and then went back to sleep util 7.4O when DH got up. This set us  up for a better nap day so we did 50mins at 11.10 (A = 3.5) and he has just gone down now at 3.15 for a second nap but it seems kind of late. Normally I avoid sleeping after 4pm. He went down ok at 3pm (A = 3hrs) though was disturbed by some rather handsome firemen knocking to offer me a free fire alarm and took a bit of settling and finallly went down for good at 3.15pm. To be honest he didn't seem that tired but it was getting late. I might aim for BT 8.30 as a 10hr night will give me a 6.30 WU which I need as I am back to work tomorrow and this would give us a 13hr day.
Do you think it is a problem if we alternate long am/pm? I know likely it will be, but it would be nice to have some flexibility.

[Khalam's Mama]

Anyone still out there?

We had a 6.50 and a 5.50 and a 6am the last few days. The 6.50 was after a short ama nd long pm nap though may be coincidence. TBH I give up! Tried short am this morninga nd he went back to sleep on the sofa after I eventually woke hima nd brought him down which he has never done. He then slept for 2 more hrs. i let him because he is teething 3 molars and I wondered if he needed it as he is normally wide awake as soon as I walk in. I hope it will not mean an EW.

[<Catherine>]

I am! Just have no idea what advice to give you, I think we are just winging it at the moment and are lucky. We're having 1 nap days generally now, but it's anything from 45 mins to 2.5 hours, if it's shorter then I tend to do an extra nap later but he seems to be doing 1.5-2 hours these last few days which is fine. nights are a little shorter than they were but still around 11 hours so definitely not complaining!

Sorry you are still having a rough time with it, wish I could help

Lovely on the fireman visit tho! We had this recently, but I had 3 handsome firemen!!! When I came back from the weekly food shop the fire engine was parked outside my house, I live on a MASSIVE hill so had to park away from the house and struggle with DS and all the shopping - until the lovely firemen in question felt sorry for me and bought all my shopping from the car for me!!

How did last night go? Did you end up with an EW?

xxx

[nelliestar]

Khalam's M - I am still here and wrote you a long reply to your july 14th post and then when I tried to post it something went wrong and it was wiped. Didn't have time to do it all again as was heading to my folks for the night  - sorry!

The general gist of it was that we used to alternate as to which nap was the long one depending on what we had to do that day. 2 days a week were nursery days so the long nap was pm on those days but rest of the time changed. That was fine until we started to get EW's around 1 year old and the advice on here was to do the same with naps every day so things stabilized a bit. we tried but tbh it was hard some days.

Sorry things are still upside down for you! And its almost impossible to get into any sort of routine when teething is going on. Usually teething alone is enough to cause EW even though naps may be going well. When we were going throught the bout of EW I mentioned we did do W2S which seemed to work for us.

 EW are soul-destroying aren't they? I felt so down when we had weeks of 5.30am wakeups especially as it was in the depths of winter and so dark.

Am always checking in to see whats happening even if I haven't got time to reply. How did it go last night/this morning?

Bram has canines coming through and has teething symptoms which we never seen before - nights are either fine or just 1 NW for meds and in the daytime he is hot, angry, not hungry and has horrible nappies that leak!! Ugh!

Hugs,

Nell xxx

Ps - don't know your name - sorry! x

[Khalam's Mama]

Thanks guys. Not to hassle you. Just feel better knowing I am not the only one not getting it perfect.

Lovely firemen helping with the shopping. When my MIL moved house once we were carrying some furniture up the stairs to her 1st floor flat and they came to help usfrom the station a few doors up. How nice!

This morning we got up at 6.30 but he was awake 3 times between 3 and 4 am and I had to medicate. I fed him because he was so upset but he kept coming off and crying then when I got him to sleep I would be back in bed less than 10mins and he would be awake again really crying. He seemed to wake crying rather than the fussing turning to crying we usually get with OT so I am sure he was in pain. After the calpol kicked in he slept 4 til 6.30. So not too EW but less than 10.5hrs sleep in total.

Today he was off his food. Kept putting it in his mouth then spitting it out and at one point cried hard like he had really hurt himself while eating. We went shopping this morning and I thought he would take a short nap in the buggy but he took 1.5hrs then he seemed tired after only 3hrs but I was cooking dinner at my Mums so took a while to take him up. He was a little OT but went down ok considering it was at his nana's house. He took another 1.5hrs. It sounds dumb but my mum's clock stopped and I lost track  of time eating my dinner so I didn't wake him earlier. I still had to wake him at 1.5hrs though so he must have needed it. He went off ok after 3.25hrs A this evening at 8pm. I guess I will see what happens in the morning and if the long naps will come back to haunt me.

Lynds

[nelliestar]

Arr...poor little guy. He is really suffering. Hope tmrw is a better day for him xxx

[Khalam's Mama]

Last night he woke at 10.40 and took 15min to settle and at 4.20 I fed him because I was tired and couldn't face more PD but he went down ok after 10mins and sure he fell asee soon after as I didn't hear from him until morning. He only asks for BF sometimes and it was so hot last night I am sure he was thirsty although he took a full one sided feed. But I then had to wake him at 7.05 to get him ready before I went to work which is the first time in ages he has slept after 7am without being awake for hrs in the night.

[nelliestar]

Thats good news!! : )

N xx

[<Catherine>]

That's great, glad you are getting some success finally! xx

[Khalam's Mama]

We are ranging between 5.55 and 6.40 wake ups last few days. I must say the later wu's seem to come when he has more rather than less sleep which makes me wonder what I am achieving by nap cutting. The days he has less naps he doesn't sleep any more than 10-10.5hrs he alwasy dose and then he just ends up with less sleep overall in 24hrs. After 3 weeks of 45min and 1.5hr naps we aren't really any better off so i am going to try something else. In Tracy's book BWSAYP she says let them sleep for the main nap slowly working it later and if they need a cn let them have a short one so I am going to try moving the am nap later, letting him sleep as he wants and then a v short CN to keep an 8pm BT. Today we did this:
5.55am WU A = 3.75hr  this is usually 3-3.5hrs
9.40am nap (2hrs 40)
12.20pm A = 4hr 20
4.40pm CN (20mins)
8.15pm BT
He went down well for all sleeps.
Am I mad? I guess we will see.
 

[Mom to M&M]

I don't think you're mad KM. We used to do the same thing for the most part with DD. Her days were often:

W: 5:40 am (ugh she was stuck at this exact time for ages)
S: 9:30-11:30
S: 3:30-4
Bedtime: 7:30

You'll just have to see as it doesn't work for everyone. DS will happily take a long AM nap but then is way cranky after the short PM one and early wakes the next morning. So for now I'm doing short AM (20-30 minutes), long PM (2 hours tops) and bedtime 5 hours or so after PM nap (as long as it was at least 1.5 hour nap or more). He seems in a better mood this way and wakes a BIT later the mornings (usually 6:35/6:40 instead of 6:10 or so). This morning he woke 6:10, napped 8:55 (fell asleep on stroller during my exercise walk with friend) until 9:23, then napped 12:35-2:35 and shooting for 7:30 bedtime.

[consmummy]

KM, sounds like you're doing well, it's such a balancing act isn't it?

We're steadily getting towards consistant 1 nap days. Sat, yesterday and today so far this week. Sunday would have been a 1 nap day too but he was woken early by his noisy broher!

And with the 1 nap days, longer nights are appearing too! We're now getting 11 hours or so, waking at 6.30ish as opposed to anytime after 5-5.30 which we had for soooo many months!

[nelliestar]

Lynds - good luck with your new routine! Hope this works for Khalam....

Con's Mummy - glad things are gradually going in the right direction for you!

Nell xxx

[Khalam's Mama]

It has all gone a bit wrong on the nap front in that I have returned to work and DH and my Mum are not so good at controlling for A times or waking up from naps so we are kind of going with the flow. We are getting variable wake ups. interestingly we had 45min naps and late BT's over the weekend while we were away and he slept in until 7.45 and one day I even had to wake him at 9.15! i don't know it would work long term though. We are getting one 1.5hr nap and a 45min nap most days but sometimes more and sometimes less. It doesn't seem to impact the EW much. If I do w2s he will get up later but it doesn't last so i can't keep doing it forever.. I did it for 1 week.

[hsunuks]

I am new to this discussion, and I do appreciate seeing everyone's journey on this 2:1 transition.  It is also encouraging to see those who are finding success, so thank you!  My DD (14 months now) has been a pretty good sleeper since birth, so we have been quite blessed.  However, about 2 weeks ago, she started refusing her p.m. nap for at least 4 days in a row.  I took this as a sign that she was ready to move to 1 nap.  We had a couple of rough days where she only took 1 nap and was a little OT before BT.  

She has also been waking up between 6-6:30 rather than her usual 7. She has been able to tolerate a 4.5 hr A in the a.m., but then sleeps for 1.5 hrs, rather than her usual 2.  The afternoon is then variable (sometimes no nap, sometimes naps).  After reading your posts, I am trying out a 30 min p.m. nap and will see how it goes.  She used to be a regular 9-10:30/11 and 1-2:30/3 napper, so we have significantly cut her sleep time.  I am worried she isn't getting the sleep that she needs.  I am also unsure how to push back the a.m. nap further, since her wu time is earlier and she is pretty tired by 11am.

Any thoughts??