18 month sleep regression support thread

[Mama_Mia]

We had a good day today..

WU 6:35
Nap 1:30-2:30
BT 7:30.... In bed playing, hope he goes to sleep soon.

[lily528]

I put her down at seven and she went right to sleep. She woke at 6:20 AM ugh. Same as yesterday. Yesterday she took a nap at one and only slept one hour. OT I guess. What naptime should I do today?  I hate to make it earlier and start that early cycle but I don't want another overtired nap. Sigh not sure what to do you don't want to encourage this early Waking. Maybe do 1230?

[stardust599]

Girls.  After a few days of 2hour nap LOs WU gets later (7am this morning 12hour night) and then i.dont seem to have enough daytime left to fit in a nap and reasonable BT. Today I have PD at 12.45 knowing it will.be.gone.1pm before shes actually asleep.  If I let her have 2hours until 3pm it'll be after 8 before she.goes.to.bed.which is way too late for us and shell.probably EW!! So for today i will cap at 1hr30 which really isnt.good for more than 1day??

 What routine should i have? I want a 6.15-6.45 WU and a 6.45 - 7.15BT.

[clairebear79]

Mama_C - yay!  Is the later nap helping?  Are you letting him sleep for longer now?

Melissa - not sure I've reached you in time, but look at the positives - she slept an 11h 20 night, which is pretty reasonable at this age.  OK its earlier than you would like, but she had a longer night so should be more rested.  IIWM I would push as far as possible, 12.30pm absolute earliest but closer to 1pm if she will do it.  Then I would allow her to sleep for 1h 45 absolute max.  If its 1hr again then 7pm BT again, if its more, push her closer to 7.30/8.

stardust - capped nap is ok if your dd regularly pulls 12hr nights - its still 13.5hrs in 24 which is bang on average sleep needs.  However, you may find she'll struggle to last the day on a 1.5hr nap if she had it every day.  You don't know these things unless you try them, but I will admit hands down I was sure my DS needed a 1.5hr or less nap 2-3 months ago & look how he proved me wrong! That said, I was prepared to accept a shorter night (nearer to 11hrs) and was also prepared to wake him in the morning/from naps.  Is that something you would be willing to do

Based on what you are wanting I would say aim for something like this:

Wake: 6.15am
Nap:  12.15-2/2.15pm
Bed:   7/7.15pm

I think you will need to wake her in the mornings if you want any chance of sticking to this.  But it may send her into OT if she's been waking at 7am & you suddenly wake her at 6.15, so you may need to wake her say 5mins earlier every day/few days until she is getting up at your desired wakeup time.  Does that make sense?

[*Kara*]

I just want to say a huge Thanks to Claire!

We made it to our goal of a 2 hr nap yesterday.  She was clearly more tired in the evening so I did PD at 720 and she was out by 725pm (only 5 mins early though)... I woke her at 7am!

Down for a nap at 1245pm.  Will wake at 235/240pm and keep BT at 730pm.  After shaving only 10 mins off of her nap yesterday, I don't want to cut it too quickly for fear that she needs to go to bed at 7pm!  I would love a wake up around 630am so this should pull her night back to 11hrs for me

[ZacsMumme]

I just want to say a huge Thanks to Claire!

She is a star Helped us through many a routine tweak and regression!

Well we are out of the regression I think BUT Im 99% sure Z needs an A increase before his nap so tomorrow its going to be 1pm. Here is my Q...do I leave BT as is or push it out a touch. Or cap the nap at 1hr45? He will respond to both I think, but I would prefer BT before 7.30 so DH and I have time to collapse on the couch before needing to go to bed

[Mama_Mia]

Mama_C - yay!  Is the later nap helping?  Are you letting him sleep for longer now?

The later nap seems to work as far as him going to sleep easier for his nap. But everyday is different. Today he woke at 6:00 due to being poopy and soaked. I didnt check on him so I didnt know this but ended up getting him up around 6:45 so he got a nap at 12:30 which was 6.5 hours from the time he woke and he was out within 3 minutes. Since he went down for his nap so early I let him sleep until 2:00 to keep BT around a normal time. Did BT at 7:00 but I had to hold him until he was asleep for some odd reason... So today was like this..

WU 6:00
nap 12:30-2:00
BT Sleeping 7:30

I am just going to stick with an A of 6.5 in the AM and try to figure out how much A he needs in order to go to sleep on his own at night and hopefully sttn. Not really sure where to start on the 2nd A though.

[cuckoochick]

Think I'm joining you ladies. We're having bedtime shenanigans with what seems like classic UT behaviour but I'm not sure whether it is regression. So do you mind if I hang out with you for a while?!

[lily528]

Clairebear - yea I didn't get ur post in time. I was shooting for a 12:40 nap...fearful of OT,but she needed to go potty last minute and that brought us to 1ish anyway. She woke a little after 2...sat up looked around whimpered and layed back down and slept til close to 3 so nearly 2 hrs. More than you suggested. DH had her in her crib and asleep by 8:10 last night...she woke at 6:20 again!  Sigh 10 hr night

Quick recap age did an 11hr 20 min night the night before with an EBT of 7. What do I do now?  Keep pushing for 1pm nap and sticking with 8pm BT and just hoping she starts waking later?  I mean even with a 2 hr nap she should be able to pull an 11 hr night no? 

[clairebear79]

I mean even with a 2 hr nap she should be able to pull an 11 hr night no?

We haven't had an 11hr night with a 2hr night since DS was around 18 months old.  We too get 10hr nights.  I am convinced though, that the length of the morning A time has a lot to do with it.  Oliver is now UT at bedtime if he does a 6hr A / 1h 45 nap / 5hr A.  He is going to sleep nearer to 5.5hrs A.   If I increase his A time to BT his day is getting very long and he gets overtired.  So I am trying an even longer morning in the hopes it will mean he is sufficiently tired at bedtime, even if he does have a decent length nap.  Failing that we will be cutting his nap shorter.  It seems at this age there is no other way.  If you have a long nap you have to accept a shorter night.  And if you want a long night then you have to accept they can only have a shorter nap.  Whether they can actually last the day without OT on a shorter nap though, is another matter.  I am not convinced that Oliver can, hence why we are pushing the nap even later first.  There will come a point though when a later nap will backfire b/c they will be UT at bedtime, and then the nap trimming is inevitable.

HTH.x

[lily528]

Hmmmm yea I see what your saying. Well she was asleep around 1:10. Another late start due to potty AGAIN...and this time I started earlier to avoid that ugh. She already did peepee but kept saying she wasn't done. Thought maybe she had to poop but she just sat there a played so I nipped it. We read a story and she carried on for a min or two when i put her down. Prob OT at this point. Hope she sleeps well :/

[Mama_Mia]

Claire.. It's interesting how LO's are so different. My nephew is 3yrs old and he can take a nap from 3-5pm and still go to bed at 8:00. Now M on the other hand wont sleep at night if he naps too long. I think with longer naps you end up running out of time to fit in a long night, iykwim. M has always done 12 hour nights but he has also been on 45min-1 hr naps for a very long time...

That all being said.. I just put him down for his nap at 1:30 and he is talking VERY loudly and acting like it's going to be a no nap day again. I'm going to have to start keeping track, it seems that he is skipping his nap every other day or so. I havent really paid attention.... Reading back it seems he skipped his nap on the 31st then napped for 3 days, skipped again on the 4th then napped the 5th and 6th. So if he sticks to any kind of schedule he is supposed to nap today and skip tomorrow.. LMAO I wish it was that easy. If he plays around until 2:15 we will skip the nap and go for 6-6:30 BT depending on how he is acting.

[lily528]

Mama C what were his WU times on no nap days?  Does he generally wake the same time everyday?  My dd skipped naps mostly on days she woke later than usual. We did EBT those days too. Usually around 7

[lily528]

Ok so here is our day

WU 6:20 (sadly becoming the norm and it stinks :/)
Nap 1:10-2:40 (1.5 hrs after a 10 hr night!  WTH?!)
BT  I dunno I'm guessing the usual 8pm right? Thinking if I do EBT it encourages the 6 something waking? But what if she wakes that early anyway as she has been?! Then we'll have short nights AND short naps! 

Sigh thoughts please?!

[clairebear79]

Hi Melissa.  Funny her day looks pretty similar to Oliver's today, albeit 30mins earlier.  He did this:

Up: 7am
Nap: 1.40-3.15 (I woke him)
Bed: 8.30  (put down at usual 7.45pm.  Chattered for 45 mins! )

I waited til he showed me a tired sign before putting down for his nap today rather than going by the clock. - he rubbed his eye right on the 6.5hr mark.  Anyhow, we put down for bedtime at his usual time 7.45pm, even though this was a shorter A time than usual of 4.5hrs (usually does 5hrs) & he chatted for the longest we've had in AGES.  I thought the longer morning would help but it really didn't.  So my only thought is that he needs no less than 5hrs to bed, but his morning may need extending by 15mins & the nap capping by 15mins & I will have to accept 11hr night/1.5hr nap.  I am debating whether to do this by pushing the nap later or by waking him 15mins earlier.  Won't be tomorrow though, if I wake at 7-7.15am he'll only have had 10.5-75hrs sleep.  Booo!!!!!

So IIWM bearing in mind what happened for us today, I'd maybe try 7.40 pm BT so she's had a 5hr A time to bed???